Amazon's $9.99 eBook Price Model is No More
Two more major publishers have dropped Amazon's suggested $9.99 ebook price, opting instead to price titles at up to $14.99.
There was major drama in the ebook world recently when, over the course of a single weekend, an entire war played out: Amazon didn't want to let publisher Macmillan charge $14.99 for ebook versions of hard copy books but Macmillan said it was non-negotiable, take it or leave it, offer. Amazon eventually relented, conceding that obviously Macmillan had a monopoly when it came to its only titles. The etailer resigned itself to the fact that, if it wanted to sell Macmillan books at all, it would have to be on the publishers terms.
Then, on Tuesday, it emerged that Harper Collins (owned by News Corp.) was discussing new prices with Amazon. MediaMemo cites News Corp. CEO Ruport Murdoch as saying:
"We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99. They don’t pay us that. They pay us the full wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge. We think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books. We are not against [inaudible] books. On the contrary we like them very much indeed. It is low cost to us and so on. But we want some room to maneuver in it. Amazon, sorry Apple in its agreement with us which has not been disclosed in detail does allow for a variety of slightly higher prices.
There will be prices very much less than the printed copies of books but still will not be fixed in a way that Amazon has been doing it. It appears that Amazon is now ready to sit down with us again and renegotiate pricing."
Now it looks as though Hatchette has caught on to fact that you don't need to accept Amazon's $9.99 price, no questions asked. MediaBistro reports that the publisher is considering moving to an agency price model for ebooks and sent out a memo agents last night discussing the advantages of having their own price model.
"There are many advantages to the agency model, for our authors, retailers, consumers, and publishers. It allows Hachette to make pricing decisions that are rational and reflect the value of our authors' works. In the long run this will enable Hachette to continue to invest in and nurture authors' careers--from major blockbusters to new voices. Without this investment in our authors, the diversity of books available to consumers will contract, as will the diversity of retailers, and our literary culture will suffer."
As more and more publishers start thinking they'd rather be choosing their own price for ebooks, speculation is mounting that it has something to do with the pricing these publishing houses will offer for books on Apple's recently launched iPad.
- Building Google's Nexus One, from Start to Finish
- Dept of Justice Rejects Revised Google Book Deal
- Brothers in Arms 2 Heading to iPhone
- NASA and GM Introduce a New Space Robot
- 2 Firefox Add-Ons Contain Trojans
- GameStop, Staples Share Credit Card Numbers
- Hello Kitty Chainsaw is a Serial Killer's Dream
- Top 5 Best Selling Games of 2009
- Fallout: New Vegas Out This Fall
- Microsoft Ending Support for Original Xbox Live
- Google Adds World War II Images to Google Earth
- Man in Vegetative State Uses MRI to Communicate
- FBI Wants ISPs to Keep Record of Sites You Visit
- VIDEO: Duke Nukem 3D Meets Wiimote, N900
- Roving Beer Keg Bot Serves Your Party Guests
- ROTT PC Game Ported to iPhone, Unreal Maybe
- Are Modern Shooters Too Much for Older Gamers?
- $230 Gyro Mouse Looks Like a Disco Ball
- Bungie Sad Over Original XBL Closure
I am appalled. And I thought the RIAA were the only greedy ones. Thanks for setting up the ebook playing field for the iTampon.
riiight...it has nothing at all to do with the fact that you just want more money.
Customer pays $15 for a book.
Publisher gets $13. Amazon gets $1. Writer/author gets $1.
Fair.
Welcome to the world.
I think it's absolutely ridiculous the price of some of these books these days. I've read more pages standing in the isle of a book store then I have at my home simply for the fact that the material in question was not worth the cost to bring it home.
Ya know, public libraries are are a vaiable alternative.
I think most people are missing a key part of this article. Amazon has been buying the books and selling them at a loss. They've been doing this to prop up the Kindle as a successful product. You can't find sales for Amazon's ebook division broken down by Kindle sales and seperate ebook sales. Ever wonder why? A hardcover book wholesale when new is usually around $20.00. Retail is generally much higher. 15.99 for an ebook released for purchase the same day against a $30.00 hardcover doesn't seem that bad. Hell a new paperback costs around $10.00USD. Macmillan has stated that the price of the ebook would be dynamic over time to match the sales when a book goes paperback. Right now the ebooks don't change price as a book moves to obscurity. I know,I know publisher's are evil, Amazon is just a victim here. Wait here's a thought, if the Kindle was 'the' kick ass killer app for books maybe Amazon would have some leverage, but apparently the marketshare isn't big enough for these publishers to worry about missing out on what they must deem too small to matter.
$14.99... And how much the author gets?
How so? Public libraries won't start lending e-books anytime soon. Could you imagine the uproar the publishers would make over that? If you mean they have paper books, then that's like saying scrubbing your closes with with sand and water beside a creek is a viable alternative to a washing machine.
well the author could quite easily skip out publisher now adays and do it directly with amazon?
epecially well know authors
I think Amazon should have some kind of electronics book store similar to Apple store where authors can publish their own books. Amazon gets a commision. This way middle-men are cut off, making books cheaper.
Wow. eBook readers finally start to take a hold and book publishers go 100% moronic. Expect this to hurt the overall sales of eReaders. The $9.99 price point was one of my reasons to justify a reader. Cost Recuperation on the reader itself. Well guess what? If it cost me the same as a virtual book as a hard back, I lose out! Real books can be taking to the used bookshop for credit. Virtual books at the same price? Wasted.
Hey! A publishing house charges consumers more money for a lest costly and somewhat watered-down version of a product! It's almost like deja vu! Now where have I heard this recently?
Publishers are deathly afraid of piracy, so they jack up their prices to encourage piracy. Who is running these companies??
Rupert Murdoch is that same j@ck@$$ that is pushing for consumers to pay to read online newspapers.
It looks like the publishers are trying to maintain a stranglehold on an outdated way of doing business. I believe that if they push it too far the authors will wise-up and sell directly to consumers.
$9.99 to $14.99... 50% markup! He calls that allowing for "slightly higher prices"???
$9.99 was already too high for an e-book, especially one laden with DRM which means you don't actually own it. Publishers clearly don't want e-books to succeed just yet.
Ya know, public libraries are are a vaiable alternative.
Agreed, however there are some good books that are just worth it to have a hard copy of for personal use for example, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed or 1984 or The Art of War(A REALLY old and good book imo,it can be applied to virtually everything if you can understand what Sun Tzu is telling).
welcome to the world of music, ebooks...
see if you'll make more money or not when you piss off potential customers by raising price when readers only get computer file instead of a product...
I would pirate the hell out of those books and read classic free domain books instead if I had an ereader myself....
The answer is simple: Boycott. 15 bucks for a digital book is Robbery with a capital R (not "theft", saying "we're charging 15 bucks no matter what you think or want" is plain intimidation). Return to small bookshops, look for used editions. Old-fashion way. They think they own the ebook world but they're soooo wrong about that. Stop buying and let them bleed and beg.
It's abundently clear that most companies simply DO NOT understand the digital distribution method. Somehow they feel that the product is the product is the product, regardless of packaging, logistical distribution costs (or lack thereof, in this case), physical medium, etc. Seeing as selling an ebook is a nigh completely automated process; requiring negligible HDD space, negligible bandwidth, and almost no human interaction (labor) after it is uploaded, each book sold is nearly 100% profit... yet they still want to charge the same price as a shipped, tagged, stocked, retail hardcopy... and expect everyone to be OK with that. Astounding.
I am appalled. And I thought the RIAA were the only greedy ones. Thanks for setting up the ebook playing field for the iTampon.
This is exactly what I think too. I think Apple told publishers they wouldn't work with them unless they required Amazon to jack their prices up. Anything else makes no sense. Why would a publisher be upset at a retailer taking losses to move more product? A product that has very little overhead on top of that(no printing/shipping costs). Apple bends consumers over... shocker.
If they put school text books up there at $14.99, that'll be a steal =)
Here's one to hoping though...
well the author could quite easily skip out publisher now adays and do it directly with amazon?epecially well know authors
They do actually, it's kind of silly because for popular books you have to wait in "e-line" but other than that most books are available for download no problem. I use the Los Angeles Public Library.
So e-books are more expensive than most of the paperback books I buy now? They range between 7.99 and 14.99 for a hard copy usually.
Rofl real book cost usually 15$ at least here and they maybe make 5$ on it, opposite on ebook they make 15$ on with ZERO investment.
So unless you sell them for like 5$ they should cost, no thanks I will keep paper version.
Oh, I am definitely continuing to purchase hard and paper back books until whomever is running these e-book mess gets their act together...which will probably be never.
well the author could quite easily skip out publisher now adays and do it directly with amazon?epecially well know authors
Then who EDITS the books? There's a lot more to publishers than "hurrr ctrl+p print"
TOM forgot to mention that when Amazon first said 'no' they took ALL McMillan books off of sale. After agreeing Amazon still wont let you buy McMillan books.
So who's being the jerkwad here, it certainly not the writers Amazon is screwing.
Hell let them charge $20. See who wants to stick with them.
Check out Baen Publishers. They publish Science Fiction and Fantasy. They have a novel approach that has worked for them for more than 10 years.
I think a couple of things need to be mentioned here. First of all, Amazon is not the world of ebooks. They are just one distributor of about 400K of them. Sites like Barnes and Noble sell over a million ebooks for their nook, and because they own the rights to the ebooks, they can sell them for what they want, and therefore are not subject to these price hikes. Further, once you donwload an ebook from B&N, you own it, period.
In all seriousness, I prefer an actual, oh I don't know, book. Alot of the time, I buy used on ebay, half.com and amazon. Even when it isn't used amazon ends up having good prices on the real thing. Then they come in with e-versions that are in many cases more expensive? No surprise that I don't buy them. Even if they're the same price, I'd go for the real copy, that they had to pay for. It has to be cheaper than that to make it even slightly appealing.