From today’s issue of Shelf Awareness:
In a front-page article called “E-Book Readers Face Sticker Shock,” the Wall Street Journal noted that the many people receiving e-readers as gifts at the end of the year will find that “the price gap between the print and e-versions of some top sellers has now narrowed to within a few dollars–and in some cases, e-books are more expensive than their printed equivalents.” This may hurt sales of e-books and promote the sales of lower-priced e-titles, particularly self-published e-books, and printed books. As one consumer said, “It’s hard to justify the purchase of e-books that are priced at $10 to $15 when you can buy the real book on Amazon used for $2 or $3.”
Of course, the agency plan has protected pricing on many e-books. Still, Hachette said that “83% of its digital titles are priced at $9.99 or below,” the Journal wrote. And the Yankee Group has found that “the average price of a consumer digital book has fallen to $8.19 this year from $9.23 in 2009.”
And that includes ebooks that are going for the 7.99 paperback price. I guess you save on shipping and possibly sales tax, but this does deflate the elation one originally felt at the possibilities of ereading.
I use my Kindle for an occassional book from the library; I no longer buy any ebooks from Amazon at these crazy prices.
I still purchase ebooks from the big stores, but they have to be cheaper than getting a used version. Lately, I make most of my purchases at Kobo because they still have coupons good for %30-%40 off, which usually makes them the cheapest. Occasionally I will want a new book right away, so I will pay full price. I did that for the last book in Jeff Sommers’ Avery Cates series. Full price was 7.99, same as the paperback.
Personally, I don’t think it is a wise investment if you are purchasing an e-book reader solely for cheaper book prices – unless you plan to read a lot of classics/public domain fiction or self-published titles. You can save money, but probably not if you are going to stick with big publishers and the hot titles.
While I think there is something wrong with the system when e-books are more than paper versions (aside from the budget books at clearance prices), I am not going to buy a paper version if there is an e-version available. If the e-version is too overpriced to make it not worth the price, I won’t buy the book at all. If I really want to read the book, I will pay the same or in some cases, more, than a paper book for the advantages of instant delivery, the ability to increase the type size so that I can read a bit during migraine attacks, the convenience of the online dictionary, and the light weight of the device and the ease of holding compared to a book. One thing I’ve learned to love is reading in the bathtub in a splashproof jacket – and I can’t do that with a paper book without inadvertantly getting the pages wet.
The pricing issue is not going to shift my purchases to a paper format, but just discourage me from impulse buying. I have bought far fewer books since Agency pricing, but I have not switched back to paper. I have gone back to my roots and have been returning to the classics, saving my money for those few books that I absolutely have to read.
I still feel a bit insecure about the longevity of my ebooks and miss the ability to lend the books out (Amazon and BN’s attempts to mimic this, notwithstanding), so the price has to be lower to compensate for these misgivings. Barring a fire or some other calamity, I can be confident that my books will be usable by my children and perhaps their grand children long after I have died. I cannot have this same confidence for my ebooks due to DRM, longevity issues with electronic storage, and the obsolescence of ebook file formats.
Luqman. I have that confidence because I remove DRM from any and every eBook I buy that has it, before I do anything else with it. I then back it up and side load it to whatever device I use it for. I do accept that most ordinary users cannot do this. But the more people that do, the more ord people will demand an end to this lock-in.
As far as paper books goes, I have lost more paper books throughout my life due to spouse/gf tidying and clearing out as well as moving apartment or house. Paper is no guarantee of anything.
I have to believe that the average price of an e-book has dropped only because there are so many indie books available in the .99 – 2.99 price range. It will take more investigation and a LOT more proof to convince me that e-books from the major publishers have decreased in
price.
I am seeing a lot of older books, books that have languished on my Wish LIst since 2007 that have INCREASED. I’m talking about older e-books, once available on Amazon for 7.99, now priced at 12.99. I’ve started winnowing these older, overpriced books down by borrowing the audio edition from my library. I just won’t pay 12.99 for a 3 year old title.
I really think that the A6 “price fixing” scheme is just another example of price gouging. It would be interesting to see an in depth net profit comparison of paper books against net profit of e-books, same title against same title. I doubt the A6 would want consumers to see the result. They would be hard pressed to explain why a backlist e-book for which there are no distribution costs, warehouse costs, remainder costs, cover design and art costs and for which any upfront payment to the author was already tallied against the production costs of the original paper book needs to be priced at the level they currently are. Yes, it costs to have the text converted, but that is a ONE TIME cost and cannot possibly come close to all the money that goes into the release of a paper book.
The A6 are refusing to acknowledge that their business model is bloated and out of date; and, instead of embracing what is obviously the way forward, insist that “the way forward” pay for their head-in-the-sand-protect-what-we-already-have mindset.
In the end, they may be using the reduced costs of e-book production to bankroll their print business. They are able to cry “poor” while pocketing their exploding e-book profits and can continue to operate in their comfort zone without having to really face their own blindness.
If I’m totally wrong, (been there!), then show me a net profit, (or, at least a cost/unit) comparison…title against title, p-book against e-book.
Honestly, the smaller price difference doesn’t bother me. If an eBook is lower in price, you save over time if you read a lot and like to buy your books. Otherwise, you can get the eBook from the library, or wait until the price goes down (which eventually happens to the more popular books). How is that different from waiting for a hard cover to go to paperback? The convenience is worth it. I also believe that the market for eBooks will stay as it has become embedded now due to the popularity of less expensive eReaders, which will probably continue to go down over time. This is really not a huge issue of you are a book lover and just want to read.
However, the Ereaders need to be less expensive over time if they expect more people to buy them and be willing to buy eBooks regularly as well, or to replace the devices over time. Having tried the NOOK Touch (and returned it), I think that and similar devices are worth about $39-$59 based on the build and limited functionality. It could even be free as part of a “book club” that requires a book a month to be bought over a year. Just saying…
January – I agree with you completely.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is the outdated mindset shared by Publishers and many authors that the ‘value’ of a book is reflected by the price. They are obsessed with the individual price of each book or eBook and what it says about how we value ‘writing’ and how they as individual are valued in society. I often read authors obsessing on the web about the importance of the price of their title staying high as a reflection of ‘respect’ for their writing. It is quite …sad really. If my writing were being published and sold, I would be far happier and feel far more valued if the gross earnings from my writing was higher, irrespective of the price of the title.
I am also personally wholly certain that this price/value obsession is benefiting absolutely no one. I am convinced, as are many others, that authors would be earning higher total royalties if the prices were lowered and more ‘copies’ sold.
These high prices are deterring readers from buying and pushing them away ! down the list to buy from indies and elsewhere. Thus discovering the quality outside the A6 titles. They have succeeded in pushing their readers toward their competitors and toward a discovery that most would never have made had they not been forced to do so by the ridiculous high prices.
Yet despite the clear obviousness of this situation, authors are not rebelling. Their hubris is so caught up with high prices.
I agree with Vonda and Howard. Agency 6 greed has pushed keen readers into looking for other sources (library, classics, indies), and I seriously doubt if it is representing authors’ interests. Geolims are also inconsistent, disrupting series reading and following the same author.
JK Konrath is an excellent example of how NOT using DRM and geolims, and NOT gouging customers for price, results in a much higher income and more repeat purchasers.