The New York Times had an article today about ebooks that are priced HIGHER than traditional paper books! Ken Follet's "Fall of Giants" was $19.99 for the ebook, compared to $19.39 for the hardcover... James Patterson's new book "Don't Blink" was $14.99 for the ebook, and Amazon priced the hardcover at $14. What's going on here???
" “What we are seeing is a sorting-out period as a new, very vibrant market for book content begins to develop with multiple platforms, multiple formats and multiple retailers,” said David Steinberger, the chief executive of the Perseus Books Group. “Ultimately as the competitive market develops and e-books go mainstream, pricing norms will develop. But that really hasn’t happened yet.” "
Apparently publishers negotiated a deal with Amazon earlier this year. This deal lets publishers set their own prices on ebooks, but Amazon continues to discount hardcovers from the list price. Amazon's trying to redirect customer anger and outrage at the publishers. However, this can't be good publicity for the Kindle. I know I would just go out and buy the hardcover instead of spending the same amount of money on the ebook. What about the rest of you?
I just read a link that might explain this, but this is awful short-run strategy for publishers. This post (via @peytonwilliams) notes a recent poll showing that purchasers of e-book products are "67 percent were likely to purchase six or more books in a year, compared to only 38 percent of non-users". This tells me early adopters of readers like the Kindle as a segment are less price sensitive than average book buyers, and publishers have recognized this and built into their pricing strategy. However, as e-readers increase in popularity, this pricing strategy is not sustainable.
ReplyDeleteThis also reminds me of early music piracy and (original) napster. Those downloading (or stealing) gigabytes of music were also much more likely to purchase music in digital or analog form than less passionate music fans. When Apple stepped in with the $0.99 price point, that enabled the masses to enter the market, and provided good will to the 'hardcore' users that would pay (and steal) more than average.
For the same price, I would probably go with an ebook, actually. But that is a personal preference to not collect physical stuff unless necessary. It's a pain to move all those books I have bought over the years. I bet there are others like me, who prefer digital formats of many things because it reduces clutter.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they are trying to combat the idea that digital content should be cheaper, and promote that they are pretty equivalent regardless of form.
Good points made by all.
ReplyDeleteFor me, for about the same price, I would probably still go for the hard cover. Although less clutter is better all around, I prefer having a real book in front of me rather than looking at a screen. That might be because I am doing that all the time for school work and prefer to give my eyes a break.
I also like sharing books that I have read. That being said, having a physical book will allow me to do so, as it would be unlikely that I would loan out an e-book reader for any period of time.
I agree with Kim. For roughly the same price, I would also go with the hardcover. In general, I prefer not to read on a screen, especially after staring at one all day doing work. I also prefer the feel of paper and to be able to highlight and mark it anyway I want. The pricing strategy mentioned in the article might be an experiment to test people’s preferences and price sensitivity. Or maybe the company is trying to steer readers away from e-books, betting that people will prefer hard copies for the same price. I think people realize that producing digital books is a lot cheaper than printing them, and I think that the market will demand that those saving be reflected in the price.
ReplyDeleteKim - I think you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to lending.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that you wouldn't loan out an eBook, I think that's also part of the genius of this model. What you can do to share a book you've enjoyed is easily send your friend a link where he/she would then have to buy it.
Say books took on a model like iTunes, where a purchaser gets 5 licenses to share the file they've bought. Then the online retailer gets that information about who you shared it with anyway.
Personally, I also would go for the hard cover. Call me old fashioned but I like holding the book in my hand and, unfortunately for people who live with me, I love accumulating stuff and having a shelf full of books that I can stare at and feel smart!
I agree with Kim too. For the same price I prefer paper to digital. It baffles me as to why they would be priced the same as digital copies allow publishers to forgo printing and distribution costs.
ReplyDeleteThat said as e-books develop and gain additional functionality I would expect the price to go up.
Regarding sharing a book, the nook allows you to share between nooks. For two weeks your copy is disabled and your friend can read a copy on their nook. At the end of the period you get your access back and the digital lend is deleted off your friend's nook.
Kevin, I guess it is a lot about acceptability. If we are seeing a convergence of prices of 'real books':-) and e-books, its because increasingly people are getting used to the reality of paying for consumption of information goods. (ironically, a hard copy book is also an 'information good' in some sense!). For those like me who grew in the dark ages (think 1980s and 1990s in eastmancolor!), we still find it inconceivable to pay as much for something unreal as we would for a tangible good. But Im convinced that a kindle savy teenager would perhaps have a higher 'willingness to pay' for an ebook than a hardbound edition. With regards to the price, I would just repeat what I once heard long back that 'Price has nothing to do with Cost!'.
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