How I Evaluate ebook Prices

[Jack Tingle]

OK, I'm sure everyone is eager for another 'fair price' thread.

I recently had to get rid of a large number of paper books. (7 boxes--spring cleaning; a roughly equal number to go) I took them down to a local used book store that has a close affiliation with a local charity to get a tax deduction and up my real-world karma. I surveyed the shelves in the store and found they sold most paperbacks for $1.50 and most hardbacks for $2.50. I evaluated my books at $2 per book, since I had a mix, and filled in the donation tax form.

On later reflection, I realized that was about how I assigned residual value to ebooks. If you think about it, the cost of production of a book isn't the right measure of the price difference between e and p. The real value difference is the ebook's lack of residual value, due to the licensing restrictions. It works for a lot of things, used cars, for an example.

Sure enough, I seldom buy an ebook until the price for a new ebook is a dollar or two below the price of the paper version. Dismal science works, bitches!

My suspicion is still that Jeff Bezos[1] was trying to set a long term _floor_ for ebook prices with his famous $9.99, not a ceiling. The publishers may someday wish they'd listened.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[1] Bezos personally, and Amazon institutionally, understands perfectly the issues with ebook values and prices. He laid them out clearly when the first Kindle was introduced in a 2007 Newsweek interview. It's still worth a read.

http://www.newsweek.com/2007/11/17/t...f-reading.html

"...; the $9.99 charge for new releases and best sellers is Amazon's answer. ... Bezos explains that it's only fair to charge less for e-books because you can't give them as gifts, and due to restrictive antipiracy software, you can't lend them out or resell them."

[crossi]

An interesting article. Thanks.

[OtterBooks]

I evaluate the price of something by how happy it would make me compared to the level of happiness achieved by spending that money on something else.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

My suspicion is still that Jeff Bezos[1] was trying to set a long term _floor_ for ebook prices with his famous $9.99, not a ceiling. The publishers may someday wish they'd listened.

I think you are quite possibly right, Jack. If the publishers had gone along with and issued new books in hardcover and ebook simultaneously with the ebook being at $9.99, it might have been successful.

But instead, the publishers created a backlash by trying to charge full price or even a higher price for an ebook when we can't resell it or even donate it like we can print books.

So more of us are moving towards indie books and authors who "get" ebook pricing.

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I evaluate the price of something by how happy it would make me compared to the level of happiness achieved by spending that money on something else.

Yes, but...

If something is wildly overpriced, even though I covet it, it ticks me off enough to spoil my enjoyment and I look for an alternative product.

In the ebook world (and in the pbook world, to be fair), there are massive supplies of alternative products. I've got a long-term list on Amazon's wish lists, a similar list on EReaderIQ, and a mental reckoning of books I may want to read when the price comes down. As the price drops into reasonable territory, I'll buy them.

Periodically, things fall off those lists[2]. If the publishers had been a little less greedy, and offered them at a reasonable price when I noticed them, they'd make a sale. If it falls off the list, they lose a sale, possibly for ever.

Regards,
Jack Tingle
[2] For a variety of reasons. If the local public library gets a copy, for example. Since my 'local' public library (NOBLEnet) covers half of Essex County, MA, a lot of books come through.

[RainingLemur]

Nice article. Good read!

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

If something is wildly overpriced, even though I covet it, it ticks me off enough to spoil my enjoyment and I look for an alternative product.

This. Or you end up renting it from the library instead.

I agree with you that Bezos was going for a floor -- I thought so at the time and I still think so now. It didn't take a genius to see that once self-publishing was a possibility, the floodgates would open and suddenly we'd be awash in every indie author who'd thought about self-publishing but was turned off by the printing costs.

AND, of course, the authors who'd gotten their publishing rights back from the first go-round. AND the PD stuff. AND...