Future Ebook Price Point

[Rob Lister]

How long before ebooks hit the $1 price point that music has? Will it ever?

With new ebooks hitting the internet torrents as fast as they're published, how long can the majors get away with charging full pulp price for an ebook?

Surely they've done their math and think the current prices yield the best return but they must know that it can't last. As more and more folks switch to e-readers (1 in 6 now?), and demand for ebooks increases, so too will the availability of the torrents.

Will it be a gradual decline or a sudden dump to a buck?

Or are avid readers just so morally superior to teenagers and their ipods that pirating will never be a real concern for ebooks.

[Jack Tingle]

I'd guess never. A $0.99 downloaded song entertains, enlightens or amuses you for a few dozen hours spread over months. A long-form ebook (that being the lowest cost form of any given sized book) entertains, enlightens, informs or amuses you over several days in a fairly short period of time, repeated a few times in subsequent years (at best). That's probably (IMO) worth several times the $1 price of a single song. Think of an album rather than a song.

The $0.99 (or in some cases $1.99) price point for articles, short stories or novellas is here now, and is an excellent idea in a world where fiction magazines (and other kinds of magazines) are dying off. Sam Harris had a blog about this last week.
<http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-future-of-the-book/>

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[HomeInMyShoes]

Doubtful. I'd say that prices for e-books will continue to increase and I'd say that we'll see a $15 range for new large publisher releases within the next five years.

Not sure about the music analogy. They are just different things. I have albums I've had for twenty years and they are still getting played and enjoyed.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Doubtful. I'd say that prices for e-books will continue to increase and I'd say that we'll see a $15 range for new large publisher releases within the next five years.

Not sure about the music analogy. They are just different things. I have albums I've had for twenty years and they are still getting played and enjoyed.

The analogy applies to the availability of the products. The real issue here is the price point for individual morality, or the perception thereof.

How much am I [and all others] willing to pay to keep my virtue and NOT download a torrent of some ebook? Call it John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. I can get it legit from B&N $12.99 or I can get it free from a dozen torrents. Same book, minor typos notwithstanding.

At one end of the bell curve, that price point is a million bucks; some would never stoop that low. At the other end, it's 'not one red cent'; some never pay for anything.

The most money is made at the peak of the curve. For music, it's a buck.

[OtterBooks]

I don't mind paying $1 for a song off an album. I'd rather not pay $1 per chapter for a book.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

How long before ebooks hit the $1 price point that music has? Will it ever?

It already has. Read several interesting books from new or first time authors that self-published for $1. If you're referring to books from big publishers then probably never. But then again, I don't think big publishers will survive for more than 10 years. 15 tops. The ones that do survive are the ones that prove flexible to new types, and forms, of commerce.

It's just a matter of time until books stop costing at all, like most other forms of content. A la carte subscriptions is the future, whether or not we like them.

[NickyWithNook]

I can't imagine anyone would make a profit off a $1 book, even if it's an ebook and there aren't the printing/shipping/etc. costs. I like the idea of books being generally $8. Two I want right now are $12.99. I'd get them for $8. For $12.99, I have them on reserve at the library.

[Andrew H.]

1. A book is more like an album than a song, and albums are still at about the $10 mark.

2. Music is still widely pirated; it's not like the 99 cent song stopped piracy. ITunes really just made it easier to get what you wanted.

3. 99c e-books are not sustainable.

[taustin]

There are cultural differences between readers and most markets. There are still books stores around here that will take personal checks without checking ID, because they don't get bad checks. When I set up my merchant account for a web set, I was told that, because I was mostly selling books, I was in the lowest risk category they had.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

1. A book is more like an album than a song, and albums are still at about the $10 mark.

2. Music is still widely pirated; it's not like the 99 cent song stopped piracy. ITunes really just made it easier to get what you wanted.

3. 99c e-books are not sustainable.

the price point is what it is so, sustainable or not, any other price is less sustainable, [almost] by definition. So, even if I agreed that a book is more like an album than a song (I don't), it is beside the point.

No, the 99c (or whatever it is) song didn't stop piracy, but ease of piracy greatly helped set that price point.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by taustin

There are cultural differences between readers and most markets. There are still books stores around here that will take personal checks without checking ID, because they don't get bad checks. When I set up my merchant account for a web set, I was told that, because I was mostly selling books, I was in the lowest risk category they had.

So your take is that the last possibility I mentioned in the OP was the most likely: that avid readers are above piracy. I'll put a tally in my register beside that choice. It will be a serious tally, even though my original suggestion of it was more sarcasm than anything else.

[Laura81]

I wish they'd hit that point, but I don't think they ever will, except for some independents and self published authors as someone already pointed out. I'd be happy if they hit around the $5 mark. But I don't see that happening either. As for readers being above piracy. Maybe some would be, but not all. Just like with music, etc. I do think of the piracy categories ebooks are probably the lowest on the scale, but they are there.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

I can't imagine anyone would make a profit off a $1 book.

Here is where the desire to turn something one may love into a viable occupation runs head on into the bullet train of human behavior. Not all fiction is written by people desiring to make a career of writing. Not even all good fiction.

For a time the wall of production and distribution costs served to protect professional writers and their publishers from being swamped by a sea of talented amatures, most of whom write one or two books and then go persue something else. It doesn't deter them if they don't make money - they are not in it for that.

The wall is gone.

There are sites dedicated to helping people like me find books that are well written and appeal to us among all this new material. Even if the publishing houses could get the copyright of their catalogs extended to eternity, it would avail them nought against the tide of writers who just want to be heard, and who will price their stories accordingly.

Professional writers who turn out well researched nonfiction are in a much better position.

[bgalbrecht]

I don't think $1 will be the primary price point. I expect that new fiction ebooks which are not self-published will continue to be sold at a $10-15 price range, and they will drop to $7-10 after a year or so. What I hope, but don't see any signs of happening so far, is that backlist books will have another price point around $3-5 after a couple years to compete with used paper books. I also haven't seen many signs that the publishers are dropping the prices of non-fiction ebooks after release, either.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

the price point is what it is so, sustainable or not, any other price is less sustainable, [almost] by definition. So, even if I agreed that a book is more like an album than a song (I don't), it is beside the point.

I don't understand this sentence.

No, the 99c (or whatever it is) song didn't stop piracy, but ease of piracy greatly helped set that price point.[/QUOTE]

I doubt this - but it's not really the kind of thing that can be proven one way or the other.