vote.jpgThe following is excerpted from the full article by Rich Adin on the results of his first poll. He also has a second poll that you should take which poses the following question: If an ebook were released today that you had been eagerly waiting for, and was released with all of the following “obstacles” to your purchasing it, but the publisher agreed to make 1 change of your choice if you agreed to buy the ebook. The excerpt begins:

This past week readers of An American Editor were polled on obstacles to buying an ebook. Readers were asked which of the listed items was the single biggest obstacle to their buying ebooks.

I was surprised by the results. The two DRM questions gathered the most votes (together 57% of all votes). Interestingly, 30% responded “DRM of any type regardless of whether it affects device portability” and 27% chose “DRM that is not cross-device (lack of device portability),” indicating a near equal split among ebookers over DRM. Approximately half of DRM choosers are willing to accept some form of DRM as long as it is device portable and half say they won’t accept DRM under any circumstance.

The third most popular response was pricing higher than $9.99 (26%). At least 26% of responders are willing to accept DRM of any flavor if price does not exceed that magical $9.99 threshold. (As we know, this threshold was set by Amazon. It isn’t clear to me on what basis $9.99 was chosen as opposed to, say, $7.99. It also isn’t clear whether $9.99 is really that magical threshold or just a threshold currently popularized by Amazon.)

Other responses were as follows:

* Price greater than $4.99 = 8% of responders
* Poor formatting = 5%
* Poor editing = 3%
* Book is self-published = 2%

Clearly, ebookers are more willing to put up with poor formatting and editing than with a high price and DRM. Does this mean that as long as a book is sold for $9.99 or less formatting and editing do not matter to ebookers? We can’t draw that conclusion — or really any conclusion — from last week’s poll, but it does raise the issue of what compromises ebookers are willing to accept.

But what is interesting is the disparity in price levels. I would have thought that for ebookers to whom price was the biggest obstacle, $4.99 would have been the magic threshold. Apparently, ebookers are willing to pay more albeit not above $9.99.

2 COMMENTS

  1. This is never mentioned regarding the $9.99 magic threshold:
    $9.99 is the “magic threshold” (due to popularity or actual “magic”) for NEW books.

    I think few people would require a publisher to reduce their margins further for a new publication. Personally, $9.99 is the magic number for me to purchase a brand-new, no-paperback-available e-book. If it’s more than $9.99, no matter my level of anticipation, I will wait and read something else.

    If a book is not one I’m extremely interested in, I will hold off until it’s between $3-7. I think the people who choose the $5 option are those who don’t care that it’s a new release and will wait 10 years before reading it if they need to.

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