“Publishers are beginning to do more aggressive e-book price testing,” according to a brief news item that appeared on the Publishers Weekly website yesterday. “Both Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Storey Publishing have recently announced monthly pricing promotions that set prices for a selection of titles at no higher than $2.99.”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt‘s promotion, which the company is referring to as Take 5, will be getting underway sometime next month. Five thematically similar titles will be grouped together as part of the promo, and those e-books will be offered for $2.99 or less. From the PW piece:
According to director of marketing Carla Gray, HMH has promotions lined up through August and will likely extend the offer to include select cookbooks and young adult tiles this fall. E-tailers and consumers can sign up with HMH to receive a newsletter that will announce the titles available for discount each month.
Storey‘s promotion, meanwhile, is already underway. It’s called Storey’s Fresh Picks, and it works almost exactly the same way as HMH’s offering, but with one major difference: Storey seems to be discounting a ton of its books; certainly more than five. Each month the publisher chooses some sort of theme (April’s theme is Gardening; March’s theme was Crafts), and then of course e-books fitting that theme are offered for $2.99 or less.
Storey also has a cool giveaway contest in the works right now, which should be of interest to any of you green thumb types: They’re offering a “half-bushel of gardening gear worth $375,” including “[print] books, tools, seeds, apps, e-books and garden gear.”
No purchase is necessary to enter the contest (you do have to give up your email address), and just by entering you’ll be gifted with a free copy of Nancy Bubel’s Grow Super Salad Greens in your choice of EPUB, Mobi or PDF.
Aggresive publisher to set the lower price could be benefit for consumer.
But to think about, that how the author (writer) could still earn enough money to live their live and can create better product.
The balance of aggresive price vs good earning is also important.
The promotions only go for a month. An author could make a nice bundle on profits from impulse buys for a book priced at $2.99.