The combination of two things I’ve seen this morning involving the pricing of ebooks have triggered me.
First, this excellent post by author Peter Grant. Peter discusses a number of things related to a pricing experiment he did recently with his latest trilogy. The whole post is well worth a read, especially for anyone who is pursuing an indie writing career or plans to. The portions of the post relevant to this rant dealt with downward pressure on ebook prices. These are prices on books from indie authors. Allow me to quote Peter:
While on the subject of selling price, I note that Amazon’s price recommendations for authors, when publishing a book via KDP Select, are trending significantly downwards. They used to be in the $3.99 to $6.99 range for my books. Those same books are now uniformly recommended to be priced at $2.99 (as the article linked above also found). Is this because of market demand, or because Amazon is trying to condition authors to expect a lower return on sales price, one more in line with what they can earn through a KU “borrow”? Your guess is as good as mine… but I know what mine is.
I find that bothersome and disturbing. The $3.99 to $6.99 sounds like a good range to me, especially if we’re talking a full length novel comparable to what you find on bookstore shelves. For novellas, $2.99 seems right to me. There’s more at the OP about this, and you should check it out.
A little later I saw that an anthology of space opera I’d heard about hit bookstore shelves a few days ago. Since it can’t hit my shelves because they are beyond full and new books are mostly hitting the stacks on the floor, I looked it up on Amazon to see what it cost in electronic format. As most of you probably know, Amazon will show the prices of all available editions. The print price was $17.99. The ebook was $14.99.
14.99? For an ebook? Are you nuckin’ futz?
That’s not the only case I’ve seen recently of a trad-pubbed ebook being priced way too high, as in well over $10. Yes, I know all the arguments the big publishers give about their costs. I also don’t care. What I care about is my cash flow and my costs. It may be a random fluctuation, but it seems that trad pub is raising the price of their ebooks. You would think they were doubling down on their pricing or something.
I am not paying more than $10 for an ebook. In fact I won’t even pay that, although my maximum varies a bit depending on several factors, such as author, length, etc. If it’s a choice buying at those prices or not buying, I’ll go with not buying. I’ve got plenty of things to read. The publishers need me more than I need them.
I’m not sure what’s going through the heads of some of these publishing executives. How gullible do they think the public is? I’m guessing some of this is an attempt to raise enough revenue to keep their corporate overlords happy. That may work short term, but I don’t think it’s a successful long term strategy.
There’s a balance somewhere there, between rock bottom and over the moon in terms of pricing. I don’t think either extreme is a healthy thing for the market. What do ya’ll think?
I certainly agree that far too many trad-pubbed e-books are priced way too high. I find that particularly annoying with books I’m buying for research purposes. The used hardback + shipping may set me back only $7, but then I have to manually type all the notes from that book if I want them handy on my computer. The $14.99 Kindle version is painful to purchase… but then I can simply highlight my notes on Kindle and transfer them to a Word document.
If only there were some way to tell in advance which books are going to provide copious material for the next novel.
Hi, Margaret.
Thanks for bringing up nonfiction. You make an important point. I was primarily thinking about fiction when I wrote the post, but I was also in a hurry and had class coming up when I wrote it. I can see now I wasn’t clear on that.
I’m a little more flexible on price when it comes to nonfiction because the formatting for figures and tables (not to mention equations) can be more complicated than simple text in fiction. Personally, I think I would rather print for research because I tend to flip back and forth and compare bits of information. I find that easier to do with print.
As for knowing which books will be more productive for research, have you tried using a time machine to get in touch with your future self? 🙂
Yes, I prefer print where figures and tables and equations are concerned. Mathematics and poetry are two subjects where Kindle formatting fails all too often. But a lot of my research is actually rather light reading – travel books, biographies, memoirs – books that don’t require much flipping back and forth. I just read through the hardcopy leaving a trail of Post-it notes, or go through the Kindle version highlighting useful passages.
If I want an ebook more than a physical book (and I do, if I’m looking to buy an ebook), why wouldn’t a buy willing to pay $3 less for the ebook than the physical book? Because I will be able to sell the physical book later for a $1?
That depends to some degree on what the physical book costs. I hardly ever buy hardcovers anymore unless they are on sale, are from a small press, or by a select few authors, so $3 under the price of a hardcover is out of the question. If we’re talking a mass market paperback, then $3 less for the ebook is a price I’m willing to pay. And since any book can be published as an mmpb if the publisher chooses, that’s pretty much my standard. I’m getting pretty selective about what books I buy in trade paper format. I realize the major publishers are bringing out fewer and fewer mmpb’s. That’s their choice. I’m choosing not to buy more and more of them. I can find books just as good or better that are indie published.
I’ve done a lot of price testing myself and yet I still find the old adage to be true, value is in the eye of the beholder. It often does not matter where I price my books as long as I’m not pricing them exceedingly high. They will sell, regardless. I do often find “giveaways” to be a slap in the face; a way for the market to devalue my work though it has shown its ability to garner more sales for a book series rather than a standalone novel. I think the marriage between technology and the written word will be continually frustrating as technology is meant to bring ease and low cost to the consumer where our world is meant to provide escapism and meaning, which in the end, is much more valuable.
You hit on something I’ve been thinking about lately, David. There is quite a bit of pressure for prices to go lower, driven in part by Aamzon but not exclusively. That is a two-edged sword. As a reader, I like lower prices. As a writer, I would like to maximize my income. I do agree that escapism and meaning are quite valuable.