eBook prices?

[Deskisamess]

I do have some favorites in hardback, that I keep on shelves in the family room. I need to see books in my home. But little by little many are being given away, especially paperbacks.

[Fbone]

Inferno by Dan Brown was on sale for $2.99 for a year and a half. I believe it even hit $1.99 during a daily deal.

It's all about timing.

[cfrizz]

You don't NEED an ereader, you can read a book on a smart phone, tablet, or pc. You only need to buy an ereader if you insist on reading it in black & white. There are plenty of other options that you have probably already purchased to put an ebook on.

I'm not willing to pay the prices being charged by BPH, self published books have taken their place, and I find plenty of them that make me happy that I did.

Especially now that so many mid-listers are now doing so and releasing their backlists. The rest I get through the library whenever they happen to pop up.

If they don't I don't care, since I'm reading and enjoying some other book.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You have two sides of the equation, one side is the reader, the other side is the writer. Authors have to eat and pay the bills too. If they can't make money at it, they will eventually stop writing.

Yep, but before the Apple/Big Five collusion, Amazon would sell books for less and still pay the same royalty to the authors.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Strange as it might seem, that is not entirely true. Amazon charges the publisher a delivery fee on ebooks, based on the size of the ebook file.

You've got to be kidding. This gets too ridiculous.

[rcentros]

I would buy more eBooks if they were still priced the way they were pre-Apple/Big Five collusion. But now I mostly just borrow them (novels) from the library via Overdrive. I guess the publishers make money either way, but I've got to believe they would make more with more direct sales to customers.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I guess the publishers make money either way, but I've got to believe they would make more with more direct sales to customers.

Possibly. But wouldn't that require the average reader to know/care who publishes the books/authors they like?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Possibly. But wouldn't that require the average reader to know/care who publishes the books/authors they like?

I'm not quite following you here. What difference does it make what the average readers knows or cares about? The question is, where does the publisher make more money, with direct sales to customers or via their borrowing books from the library? If by direct sales (which I suspect) than – in the long term – it might be wiser for publishers to lower the price of their eBooks so fewer customers would borrow from the library and more would buy them directly.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I'm not quite following you here. What difference does it make what the average readers knows or cares about?

I clearly misunderstood. When you said:

Originally Posted by rcentros

I guess the publishers make money either way, but I've got to believe they would make more with more direct sales to customers.

I assumed you literally meant publishers selling ebooks directly to customers. As in: Customer A goes to Publisher X's online store to buy ebooks by Author Y. You know... directly to the customer with no book-seller agency between.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I assumed you literally meant publishers selling ebooks directly to customers. As in: Customer A goes to Publisher X's online store to buy ebooks by Author Y. You know... directly to the customer with no book-seller agency between.

Now I've got it. Sorry.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I clearly misunderstood. When you said:


I assumed you literally meant publishers selling ebooks directly to customers. As in: Customer A goes to Publisher X's online store to buy ebooks by Author Y. You know... directly to the customer with no book-seller agency between.

I had the same misunderstanding.

[haertig]

I read mostly eBooks now. In the past I switched back and forth between primarily reading paper vs. primarily reading eBooks. Right now, it's eBooks. And I rarely buy them. I'm finding that I can get what I need from my libraries via Overdrive. I said "libraries" because I am lucky enough to have multiple ones in my area that let me join. Seven, as a matter of fact. That's a lot more than most people have access too.

Anyway, with that amount of choice, I can easily find something to read via Overdrive. So eBooks have re-introduced me to libraries, which I seldom used in the past due to the "drive over there to borrow, and drive over again to return" hassle. But online access to libraries for eBooks is just so convenient now, I can't ignore them. Might as well get something back for all my taxpayer money that goes to support libraries. Free borrowing is good!

Due to the recent Amazon deal where you can get Kindle Unlimited for 99 cents for 3 months, I'm starting into the Chess Team series by Jeremy Robinson via the KU route. We'll see if I can finish the books in my three month deal. Of course, Amazon leaves out one book of the series from KU, so I went ahead and bought that one so I could read the entire series in order. I guess that's how Amazon hooks you in for purchases ... make most of a series available via KU, but leave a few books out so you have to purchase them instead. I guess that's brilliant marketing from the sellers viewpoint, but it sucks from the consumers standpoint.

[sealbeater]

I'm pretty much down with print books. Only older books or something valuable that I want a hardcopy of.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I would buy more eBooks if they were still priced the way they were pre-Apple/Big Five collusion. But now I mostly just borrow them (novels) from the library via Overdrive. I guess the publishers make money either way, but I've got to believe they would make more with more direct sales to customers.

Amazing how many people still cling to this story line as an excuse. Amazon was selling ebooks at a price point ($10) to get market share. Once the competition was out of the way and they had 80% market share, they stopped caring about that price point. When a new book comes out in hardbook, most of the time, the ebook is priced less than the printed book. For example, a hardcover copy of Monster Humter Memoir: Saints is $19 (list price $24). The kindle version is $9.99.

People pay what they are willing to pay. It's been that way in the book industry for a long, long time. Some people buy hard backs, some people buy paper backs, some people buy used and some people use the library (i.e. free). Ebooks hasn't changed that dynamic, it's just changed the rationalization process.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Amazing how many people still cling to this story line as an excuse. Amazon was selling ebooks at a price point ($10) to get market share. Once the competition was out of the way and they had 80% market share, they stopped caring about that price point. When a new book comes out in hardbook, most of the time, the ebook is priced less than the printed book. For example, a hardcover copy of Monster Humter Memoir: Saints is $19 (list price $24). The kindle version is $9.99.

The Agency Price scheme determines what Amazon HAS to sell these publisher's eBooks for. They can no longer discount them on their own. Amazon already had the lion's share of eBook sales and were STILL selling eBooks for $10 UNTIL Apple and the Big Five, while colluding, talked about how they "abhorred" the Amazon $10 eBook price and how they were going to raise it to $12.99 or $14.99. Jobs announced that he would raise prices eBooks right from the beginning. So, quite bluntly, this is not an "excuse" it's just the facts. You're the one who appears to be engaging in historical "revisionism."

Can't get much clearer than this (from Cote's decision) quoting what Jobs said when introducing the iPad...

When asked by a reporter later that day why people would pay $14.99 in the iBookstore to purchase an e-book that was selling at Amazon for $9.99, Jobs told a reporter, “Well, that won’t be the case.” When the reporter sought to clarify, “You mean you won’t be $14.99 or they won’t be $9.99?” Jobs paused, and with a knowing nod responded, “The price will be the same” and explained that “Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon because they are not happy.”

With that statement, Jobs acknowledged his understanding that the Publisher Defendants would now wrest control of pricing from Amazon and raise e-book prices, and that Apple would not have to face any competition from Amazon on price.

The import of Jobs’s statement was obvious. On January 29, the General Counsel of S&S [Simon & Schuster] wrote to [Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn] Reidy that she “cannot believe that Jobs made the statement” and considered it “[i]ncredibly stupid.”

The end of $10 eBooks, engineered by Apple – not Amazon's decision.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

People pay what they are willing to pay. It's been that way in the book industry for a long, long time. Some people buy hard backs, some people buy paper backs, some people buy used and some people use the library (i.e. free). Ebooks hasn't changed that dynamic, it's just changed the rationalization process.

And that was my point. I was "willing to pay" the $10 (or less, on sale) for eBooks from Amazon (never borrowed eBooks at that point) but not now with the Apple/Big Six Agency collusion pricing scheme. I still contend that the publishers would probably make more money selling eBooks for $10 because many more would buy them instead of borrowing them from the library. They've figured this out in the movie and music industry.