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Yep, e-book-shoppers favor bargain-priced books—and new Kindle stats show it
December 5, 2007 | 4:36 am
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By David Rothman
This ought to make the people at MarketIntellNow very happy (disclosure: it’s the outfit with the TeleBlog’s display ad in the upper right).
“Of the first 1,000 best-selling Kindle edition books, more than 97 percent are priced at or below $9.99,” reports Humayun Kabir, the guy behind the informative Kindle News—coincidentally confirming what MarketIntelNow said in a research report.
“I found only 27 books” among the 1,000 that were “priced in the range of $10 to $30,” Humayun says. “The prices of a big number of books are close to $4 to $5. In other words, average selling price of an e-book is in-between $5 and $9. It seems readers are buying ebooks those have lower price. Most of the best selling ebooks are NYTimes best sellers, fictions, romance, ‘how-to’, thrillers, mysteries, fantasies or similar kind of books.”
Complexities to consider
Granted, there are some variables to consider. Among the 90,000+ Kindle titles, just how many high-priced books are out there, and are they on popular subjects? Perhaps buyers of specialized academic and professional books will be less price sensitive (I’d love to see Humayan do further research, building on his valuable work).
Still, in terms of the mainstream e-book market, price is where it’s at. Humayun’s numbers seem to jibe beautifully with the conclusion of MarketIntellNow’s research report, as summed up in our headline Lower e-book prices, not gizmos like the Amazon Kindle, will be the big spur for book sales. Yes, the Kindle’s ease of downloading e-books via wireless will help whet novices’ interest in E. But notice? Price is a major driver. As I see it, and as Humayun apparently does, too, Amazon sellers could charge more if the books weren’t DRMed. Copy protection detracts from the value of books to consumers.
The hardback angle…
Meanwhile I can’t help but notice the vast gap between Kindle prices and those of hardbacks, for which the industry typically demands $20 and up here in the States.
Given Picador UK’s playing down of the hardback format, with other publishers perhaps to follow, could the new slogan of the day be: “Hardback is Dead”—at least for the long term? Or maybe not? It will be fascinating to see whether the Kindle, meant to appeal to book-oriented people beyond the usual e-bookers, will eat into the hardback market.
…and the Kindle-Fictionwise relationship…
“I found around 1,500 kindle editions are under $1 as of December 4, 2007,” Humayun reports. “On the top graph, you can see how they are distributed for a selected range of prices. However, what is notable is that Fictionwise.com, which has its own e-book outlet in a variety of e-book formats, is also selling Kindle editions on the Amazon Web site, and 90% of the 1,500 e-books are solely distributed by Fictionwise.com.”
Meanwhile see some Kindle-related thoughts from FW’s Steve Pendergrast, who, by the way, thinks that many Kindle books could be on specialized topics. I don’t know. Labels such as “sociology” could be applied to many popular-level books. I’ll welcome further thoughts from Steve and others.
…plus geographical issues
I notice that Humayun’s Blogger profile shows he is an accountant in New Zealand. Could this be yet another sign that the Kindle is potentially a huge international phenomenon? And yet right now, Amazon is really pitching it just to U.S. buyers. Territorially related copyright agreements are surely a factor here. How long until publishing adjust to the new realities? As Fritz Foy, a senior VP at Macmillan, has observed, the Kindle is calling new attention to the territoriality issues. Remember, Amazon sends you your machine pre-registered to you.
Coming later today—probably by 2 p.m. Washington time: More Kindle commentary, including some thoughts from Peter Osnos, founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs Books. He started the bookstore-oriented Caravan experiment but is rather gracious in his observations.
Technorati Tags: Kindle,Amazon Kindle,MarketIntellNow.Kindle News. Humayun Kabir
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Comments:
Not just copyright agreements, but mobile carrier agreements as well… for the Kindle to be launched in Europe, Amazon would have to change its wireless access method from EVDO to something that Europe actually has, and also make individual agreements with each nation’s carriers (similar to what has happened with Apple and the iPhone).
Agree that the Kindle would need to be revamped for European cellular standards which, I had guessed, would be the major technical problem (problems with varying electrical standards have certainly been dealt with enough that they shouldn’t be a surprise). It’s interesting to note that the eBookWise is also not available in Europe. I’m not sure if Sony has released there. Considering the value of the Euro, and that Europeans are more mass-transit friendly than Americans, I think this may be a problem.
One other issue–not copyright exactly but perhaps what you had in mind–publishers purchase limited rights. Many publishers purchase North American rights. So there’d need to be some mechanism to differentiate a British Kindle from a US Kindle from a German Kindle. Again not impossible, but a hassle. From the start, I’ve purchased worldwide rights (could be a problem when the Mars colony opens) because it’s extremely difficult to limit eBooks geographically.
Comes down to using old rules for new technology.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
I visited the ebooks.com site pursuant to an earlier mention in the blog yesterday. Here’s why ebooks will never take off:
Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms
By: Ribeiro, B. (ed.); Albrecht, R.F. (ed.); Dobnikar, A. (ed.); Pearson, D.W. (ed.)
Published by: Springer
Price: $149.00
That much and the privilege of DRM? You’ve got to be kidding! I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think ebooks are far cheaper for a publisher so why not pass that on to consumers? Knee-jerk reaction … greed. Fine. I’ll find a scanned copy for my ebook collection.
Hey, Mike, it would be interesting to see what the bottom lines are for the publisher and writer are in the case of the $149 book. eBooks.com isn’t the outfit responsible for the high prices. Meanwhile, like you, I’m cheering for reasonably priced books that don’t gouge consumers but at the same time can keep good publishers and writers sustainable. See my just-made post, E-book prices: Real life vs. publishers’ wishes. As the Amazon pricing patterns show, people aren’t exactly eating up $149 Kindle e-books (they presumably don’t even exist), but, yes, maybe e-books will take off with the $5-$10 titles they are choosing. Meanwhile eBooks.com, having chosen not to compete on price in many and perhaps most cases, is at least competing in service and shopping experience via the capabilities of eb20 and so on. Happy holidays! – David
P.S. Surprise of surprise, I couldn’t find the algorithm book in the Kindle store.
Part of my indignation is that my PhD supervisor just wrote a book. He received a lump sum advance. He adhered to a template and produced a “print ready” document including all the figures. The latter was forwarded to the publisher who reviewed and commented. He corrected and returned the document. All done electronically. Literally within about two months the book was in print. I saw the final draft and the book and I didn’t see a difference. So what was the publisher’s cost aside from the advance and the cost of a few days editor’s time? Once there was type-setting and figure production not to mention distribution. What the heck does it cost to pump out an e-book? And frankly what if say Matlab paid to have their logo inserted in the margin of every other page? The revenue on that would probably have the publisher in the black before the book even sold a single copy. And that’s all I have to say about that
Why is Mike B surprised by that price? I’ve been screaming for weeks about sham prices on the Kindle store. Just go there and sort Price: High to Low.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?rs=154606011&page=1&rh=n%3A154606011&sort=-price