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Old 09-07-2010, 12:37 PM   #1
jswinden
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eBook pricing still not equal between stores
I keep hearing that eBook pricing is supposed to start being more equal between stores, yet I haven't really noticed that yet. For example a new book by Stephen Hawking was released today (09/07/2010), The Grand Design. Amazon and B&N have the eBook at $13.61 USD. The Sony Store has the eBook at $15.12 USD. Granted all three stores have a list price of $28 USD, but when have we ever bought from these stores and paid the actual (and IMHO bogus) list price. Here are the links to this eBook in the three stores I mentioned:

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/The-Grand-Desi...3876355&sr=1-1

B&N
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The...e+grand+design

Sony
http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/ste...00000000270303
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Old 09-07-2010, 12:45 PM   #2
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As far as I know, on Amazon, you need to look for "This price was set by the publisher" in the description to identify books priced through the agency pricing model.
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Old 09-07-2010, 01:37 PM   #3
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Amazon UK are selling the Kindle edition for £5.98 (about $9.10), but that's including VAT, of course.
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Old 09-07-2010, 03:23 PM   #4
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Can someone please explain the exact reason why I can't buy some ebooks in Europe? It annoys me so incredibly much! I want to buy a product and am not allowed to. This one included. Why?

I have come across it quite a few times already now...
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Old 09-07-2010, 03:28 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by grzzly View Post
Can someone please explain the exact reason why I can't buy some ebooks in Europe? It annoys me so incredibly much! I want to buy a product and am not allowed to. This one included. Why?

I have come across it quite a few times already now...
It's a matter of distribution rights. Publishers often only have the contractual right to sell the eBook in certain specific countries or regions.
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Old 09-07-2010, 03:36 PM   #6
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But how far is Germany behind the rest of the world when it comes to ebook distribution then? Who is distributing the book in Germany if not Amazon? Anyone at all?
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Old 09-07-2010, 04:24 PM   #7
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yeah, that particular book is a bad example since it is not published by one of the 5 agencies that have contracted for Agency Pricing. Amazon and Barnes have both discounted the book to probably below their wholesale price and Sony hasn't done so (yet). Sony might do so in the future, hard to say.

I do agree with what you are saying however because I often find Sony and Kobo/Borders with higher prices than Amazon/Barnes. Mostly because of they're crappy methods of just including a bit extra in their prices to cover Sales Tax ... irregardless of whether or not that particular customer should pay sales tax.
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Old 09-07-2010, 04:27 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by grzzly View Post
But how far is Germany behind the rest of the world when it comes to ebook distribution then? Who is distributing the book in Germany if not Amazon? Anyone at all?
Amazon is usually not the publisher. They don't have rights to most of the books they sell.
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Old 09-07-2010, 04:53 PM   #9
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yeah, that particular book is a bad example since it is not published by one of the 5 agencies that have contracted for Agency Pricing. Amazon and Barnes have both discounted the book to probably below their wholesale price and Sony hasn't done so (yet). Sony might do so in the future, hard to say.

I do agree with what you are saying however because I often find Sony and Kobo/Borders with higher prices than Amazon/Barnes. Mostly because of they're crappy methods of just including a bit extra in their prices to cover Sales Tax ... irregardless of whether or not that particular customer should pay sales tax.
I actually bought it through the Sony Store and it cost me $16.33 with tax. The reason I did so was so I could easily strip the DRM and convert it with modifications to make it read easier (I bolded all the text). I'm already familiar with stripping ADE DRM from ePubs and have the mechanisms in place to do so. It takes me literally less than a minute. I prefer to start with an ePub and convert to MOBI for Kindles rather than the reverse. This way I can easily read it on any of my readers. I need to research stripping DRM from B&N, just haven't done so yet.
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Old 09-07-2010, 05:01 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by grzzly View Post
But how far is Germany behind the rest of the world when it comes to ebook distribution then? Who is distributing the book in Germany if not Amazon? Anyone at all?
From what I've read, and been told, German publishers are resisting ebook publishing and distribution because of piracy fears. I don't know how true that is, or if it actually applies to what you're seeing, but I've heard the same about the rest of continental Europe as well.
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Old 09-07-2010, 06:29 PM   #11
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Is there any other store that could sell them if not Amazon?

@carld
It would fit. Germany does appear to be more frightened of copyright infringement than other countries, especially the US. Lots of youtube pages are locked in Germany as well, for example...

Well, let's hope it improves with time. For now I have enough books on the thing anyway but at some point I will want to read some more recent pieces. It just annoys me so much that I am willing to pay for products and am not able to purchase them. It seems so pointless to me.
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Old 09-07-2010, 10:01 PM   #12
jswinden
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Is there any other store that could sell them if not Amazon?
If you can find it in ePub format (or some other formats) you could strip the DRM and convert it to MOBI. Other stores do have other formats. The Adobe ADE ePub is the easiest for me to get converted. (We can help guide you with the deDRMing if you need help. Converting is easy using calibre.)

I hope you can find this ebook. I've read about 20% of it and it is really good.
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