[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

I was looking at some books on Amazon today. I found one, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory for 12.99. I bought it in December 2008 for 3.79. Glad I had the foresight to purchase then. It's tripled in price a little over two years.
deb

That movie was pretty good, I should look for the book.

 

[MichelleR]

Thanks, I'll look into those. I think I have Land of Ash, hard copy.

What is lending in Kindle-speak?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200549320

 

[Xopher]

Part of what we see is based on different models. For the major publishers, they sell DTBs wholesale, and Amazon discounts the retail price.

When Amazon was purchasing ebooks wholesale from publishers, they did the same thing. There were a lot of ebooks $9.99 and less.

With the Agency model, the publishers consider themselves the seller - just using Amazon as the portal. Since the publisher is the actual seller, they set the price and Amazon can't discount it. So, when you compare the discounted DTB sold by Amazon to the ebook sold by the publisher, that is where the difference lies.

 

[QuantumIguana]

What is not so understandable is why so many people think that cost savings will automatically get passed along to consumers.

That's what industry keeps saying, that cost savings will be passed on to consumers. But businesses tend to only reduce costs when forced to do so by competition, otherwise they will just keep the money that was saved. If people say no to highly priced e-books, and instead buy indie books, that will bring real pressure to bring down prices. If people just say "I don't like the high prices, but I will still pay it!", the publishing companies have little incentive to bring down prices.

 

[mooshie78]

So that is why so many people buy the Indie books. In many cases the Indie books are just as good or maybe even better and at a considerable savings.

So why are publisher books so expensive? It is a simple matter of greed.

I'd argue it's also simple supply and demand.

Publishers are selling books from established authors that have a big market. Thus prices can be higher than for some indie author no one's ever heard of.

That's just the way the market works. Stuff in high demand can be priced higher as more people are willing to pay those prices. I don't consider it greed. Any time I'm selling something I try to sell it for the highest price I possibly can. So I can't begrudge authors and publishers for doing the same. Maximize profit, minimize pain is the rule to live by if you want to be as successful as possible.

 

[hamerfan]

--women in the (US) West

Not indie, but a great book in this genre is Telegraph Days, by Larry McMurtry:

http://www.amazon.com/Telegraph-Days-ebook/dp/B003NE6HCU/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1309355235&sr=8-1

 

[gatehouseauthor]

As a reader, I don't mind paying 7.99, 8.99, 9.99 for an ebook by an author I enjoy following or a series I've been reading.  But the 9.99 price point or higher is unlikely to get me to try an author I've never read before, at least for an ebook, and many major publishers are realizing that.  Hence the number of 5.99 to 7.99 Kindle books available from major publishers and big name authors.

Then again... all this wrangling about price made me think about something the other day, as I went to my local comic book shop.  Yes, I'm a comic book fan.    Anyway, I went in to pick up about a month's worth of comics that the owner had been setting aside for me.  (Yes, I'm THAT MUCH of a comic book fan!)  They ranged from $2.99 to $4.99 each.  I spent about sixty dollars for a month's worth of comics.  I went home and I read them... it gave me about two and a half hours of enjoyment.

The last indie book I read on my Kindle was The Hawk and His Boy.  I paid 2.99 for it, the low end of what I would pay for a single issue of a comic book.  It was a good book... not the best I've read, but a solid 3.5-4 stars, or thereabout.  And while I'm a fast reader, especially on Kindle, it gave me around... four hours of enjoyment spread over two days of reading as I had the time.

While I love my comics, and my print books, and my big name authors... which of these things seems like it was a better deal in the long run?

 

[LauraB]

The ebook costing more than paper book isn't new. I've had ereaders since the Rocketbook. Also I had the early Sony. The ebooks always costed more, sometimes up to $5 more, than the paper. It wasn't until Amazons $9.99 that they were cheaper. But because the new ebook reader customer base grew so much with kindle, and so the $9.99 was their first exposure, the idea ebooks cost the same as paper seems new. It isn't new to the industry, or early adopters of ereading regardless of device.

 

[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

Not indie, but a great book in this genre is Telegraph Days, by Larry McMurtry:

http://www.amazon.com/Telegraph-Days-ebook/dp/B003NE6HCU/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1309355235&sr=8-1

Thanks! Added to my Wish List.

 

[QuantumIguana]

I used to buy comics, but the price got out of hand. So I stopped buying. If enough people stopped buying, then they will be forced to change pricing. I'm not that interested in the seller's perspective, that's their problem, I'm on the opposite side of the counter, I'm interested in my perspective as a buyer. It doesn't matter a bit to the seller whether you agree with the pricing or not, if you choose to buy, you've agreed to the price.

So if you don't like the pricing, withhold your money, it's really the only language that business understands. Plenty of other good authors out there.

 

[ennis333]

Can anybody offer me any insight on one aspect about the cost of ebooks vs the cost of traditional books?  In particular, there are many times when I've noticed that the price of an ebook is actually higher than the cost of the paperback version (and I'm not talking about a used book price), and sometimes it's higher by several dollars.  I'm just not inclined to pay, say, $ 13 for an ebook when I can get the actual book for $10 or less.  This simply makes no sense to me. 

 

[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

You can check out this thread for more info.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,73128.0.html

 

[Erica Sloane]

Good luck trying to figure out how traditional publishers are pricing their books.

 

[Tara Maya]

Good luck trying to figure out how traditional publishers are pricing their books.

LOL. Indeed.

 

[Jan Strnad]

Basically, the big publishers are either clueless about ebooks and how they fit into their overall marketing plan, or they are consciously trying to drive people to small and independent publishers, or they are prescient in realizing that ebook buyers will actually pay more for ebooks because they're handier than paper books.

 

[mooshie78]

It makes no sense to me when the e-book costs more either.  I'm perfectly fine paying the same price for the e-books as the cheapest print version on Amazon, but that's my upper limit.

In terms of how much a print book costs, I've never seen any firm data on that, just estimates.  I've seen a few different articles showing it was $1 or so per copy in printing and shipping etc. costs for a hardcover best seller.  Less popular releases that get much smaller printings would cost more per copy.  So it's not a huge expense for major releases, but still enough that there's no way an e-book should ever cost more than the print version.

I don't have a problem paying the same since the printing costs aren't all that high, and the author did just as much work writing it regardless of the format I choose to buy it in.  But I'll never pay more than the print version.

 

[kchughez]

Hi,
I just read an article about the big 6 and their greed. But consumers have been taking action by rating the books with 1 star on amazon. I have joined in protest of ebooks that cost more than the hardcovers.

Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/technology/11reader.html

~KC

--- edited... no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar forum. please read our Forum Decorum thread.

 

[ennis333]

Thanks for the comments......and while it will never make sense to me that an e-book should ever cost more than any new print version, at least I can still make my own decision whether I buy or not!!!!

 

[Linjeakel]

Hi,
I just read an article about the big 6 and their greed. But consumers have been taking action by rating the books with 1 star on amazon. I have joined in protest of ebooks that cost more than the hardcovers.

Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/technology/11reader.html

I don't think it's fair to penalise authors by giving them 1 star reviews because you disagree with the price set by the publishers. Reviews and the ratings should be based purely on what you think about the content of the book after you've read it.

 

[MichelleR]

I would never mark a book down because of price. People can see the price and make their own decisions. And, few people who do mark the books down return the amend the ratings later on.

For your reading enjoyment, the first 10 books I bought for Kindle and what the prices were then and now:

2/13/09 Ur/Stephen King/2.99/3.19
2/13/09 On Writing/Stephen King/7.99/12.99
2/13/09 Dark Passions: Hot Blood XIII/horror anthology/9.99/9.99
2/13/09 Dead Sea/Brian Keene/6.39/7.95
2/13/09 Revolutionary Road/Richard Yates/7.99/7.99
2/13/09 Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don't/Richard Losier/9.99/9.99
2/13/09 Lamb/Christopher Moore/8.76/10.99
2/13/09 Power of Intention/Wayne Dyer/8.14/9.66
2/13/09 Your Scandalous Ways/Loretta Chase/5.59/6.99
2/13/09 North of Beautiful/Justina Chen Headley/9.99/7.99
2/13/09 Nick and Norah's Infinite Play List/Rachel Cohn and David Levithan/6.39/7.99