With the price of Michael Connelly's new book-Kindle version. On Amazon there are more than 100 reviews objecting to the price. It seems like this was engineered because the book just came out last week. What is a fair price for a e-book? This one is charging $12.99. Apparently these people feel $9.99 is their limit.
What's a fair price to you?
17 comments:
Seems like $5/"unit" on a surefire bestseller is reasonable. After all, the real net on the hardcover versions was a lot lower than they're gathering thus. (Consider how little WalMart and libraries pay for their copies, for example.)
If an e-book is more than say, five bucks, I'd rather own the actual book. Personally, I find that 2.99 price point pretty appealing.
Having said that, if a book is only available on Kindle or what-not, and I really want to read it, I'll shell out ten bucks if I have to... but not happily.
Patti - Oh, that's an interesting question!! I can see paying $5 or $7 for an E-book. A lot more than that and I would balk. As Heath says, in that case, you might as well get the paperback...
Good question. I don't really know, tough I'd say it's south of $10.
What I do know is that there should be a clear line of demarcation between the cost of a physical book in any format and an electronic version. Publishers can't whine about the costs of shipping books and having also to pay for their return if unsold, then claim there's no reason to discount electronic versions.
That said, there's an aspect of "what will the market bear?" Someone like Connelly will always be--and should be--at the top of whatever scale is established. This opens up a whole 'nother kettle of worms, such as why all movies cost the same, when it might be better for all to let some small, indie, artsy flick be seen for $5, but charge $10 (or more) for the big blockbuster.
Dana--you seem to assume that Connelly will be seeing the larger chunk of that money. I'd countersuggest that everyone would make a Whole Lot More if they priced the e-text for impulse purchase.
Michael Connnoly is the type of writer that has such a big print run that you can buy this hardback for less than a buck next year.
The price eventually has to compete with used books (where the author makes absolutely no money) as well as trade paperbacks.
I personally think that publishers should price ebooks so that they make they same profit as they would from a printed book. This would cause ebooks to be quite a bit cheaper than printed copies, because the cost for each ebook after the first one is zero.
Instead it seems like publishers are trying to prevent paper sales from being cannibalized by ebooks. As if a dollar earned on paper books is better than that same dollar earned on ebooks.
And this doesn't begin to calculate the difference in royalties to authors. I am not sure what percentage they get.
That definitely seems high to me. Although I certainly don't see the $2.99 price for new major press releases being a suitable price. Somewhere in the 5 to 6 dollar range makes sense to me.
Publishers are going to be under a lot of pressure in the next year or so as e-reader owners settle on $2.99 as the accepted price. And savvy Kindle/Nook owners are going to be saturating their e-readers with a lot of free book as desperate publishers try promoting at $0 for limited times.
Although realistically, can anyone make a living charging those prices? Writers certainly won't with the declining reading population.
Forty percent of college graduates never read another book.
At my local Borders today, all books are $2.00. Some were released within the last month. Do publishers and writers deserve to make such piddling amounts no matter how the book is served up.
A big issue publishers are going to be facing (and facing now) is piracy. These aren't napster like sites where they're making books free trying to make some point, but big business that is making a lot of money pirating these books and selling advertising and services, etc. If you look at these sites it's clear that a lot of money is being invested into them, and it's like a never ending network of websites. When one of my books is pirated, like Caretaker, it shows up on dozens of these sites (I'm guessing they're all run by the same people), and I think we're already reaching a point where readers who might pay between $0.99 - $2.99 for an ebook, will otherwise grab them for free. I don't know why the government or internet providers are cracking down on these sites, but it seems as if nobody (other than authors and publishers) really care.
The technology is running away from us. If there's any thief worse than a book thief, I don't know what.
Any book is worth what people will pay for it. Cost should not set price. Demand sets price and price sets cost.
I have seen e-books (and bargain print books) for a five dollars I thought were over priced.
For me to spend more than ten bucks, it must be from one of my favorite authors. But I have no problem with the higher prices. If it is too high, I wait for the price to drop. Just like I waited for mass market paperbacks of overpriced hardcovers.
Exactly.
I'd pay $5. Even $7. For example, one of the hardbacks I have that I am about to read (Ian Frazier's Travels in Siberia, for those who care) is big and heavy. As I'm about to do a little traveling, I thought if the eBook was priced adequately I'd buy it on my Nook for the travel, then I'd have both. The price was over $10, so I passed; I'll just carry the doorstop version. I can't imagine I'm not the only one who would probably buy both if the price was right.
My husband had that book in his hand yesterday at our closing Borders.
It really is a problem when you're traveling and not just the weight but for me, I often don't like the books I've brought. Fickle reader. So I go out and buy more.
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