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How important is the $9.99 price level for Kindle e-books?
June 24, 2008 | 12:36 pm
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By Joe Wikert
I was ready to buy Clayton Christensen‘s latest book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. It looks like a book I’d really enjoy and I’m a big fan of Christensen, particularly his earlier bestseller, The Innovator’s Dilemma. I searched for it on the Kindle book list and sure enough, there it was. But the price is $19.58, not the $9.99 you pay for most Kindle titles. That stopped me in my tracks. Amazon has already trained me that e-books should cost no more than $9.99, so I’m afraid I’m not buying this one—not till the price comes down.
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Comments:
How about $4 for a hardcover book? I ran into one last week I liked — but couldn’t pull the trigger. I held it in my hands and the size and weight of it just killed it for me. “One more thing to move…” was all I could think. It was The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, btw. I’d read it from the NYPL ages ago…
What I look for in the price of books for my Kindle is not necessarily a <= $9.99 price level but a price that represents at least a 40% discount of amazon’s discounted price for the hardcover version.
I have bought a couple of Kindle versions at a price almost the same price as the hardcover but those were rare exceptions.
If the Kindle price does not reflect a significant discount over the print version I’m much more likely to wait for either the Kindle price to drop, the paperback version, a used hardcover/paperback, or just getting it from the library.
I do think though that the $9.99 price is the same sort of prix-fisse thing that helped make iTunes successful and probably does create a consumer expectation.
What I read and enjoy does not necessarily mean spending money. I visit used book stores, I consider the chain “half price books” very expensive. I dropped $400 at a goodwill picking up a science fiction collection that had to be seen to be believed. What I will pay for and not quibble about the price is a decent portable encyclopedia and other such references. I still have a copy of the origional Grolier on cd that was a $5K purchase for my company at the time. The origional rocketbook and their web site was a blessing for my wife because before I bought that she would be getting multiple boxes from UPS from used book stores that I visited. Will I pay for ebooks when the used ebook allows for such a thing? Heck Yes! I will pay for convience. My Palm TX has over a gig of text on it. I have a Nintendo DS and a GBA that can read books as well. Not to mention the RCA B&W and color, Sony reader, etc. I also have most every other ebook reader, and there are converters for most options. Should DRM be a non-existant issue, I would love it. I recently sent a couple of authors checks for my passing their books along that were scanned by someone else passed along to me. In one case the author sent back a letter stating that it was the first “royalty payment” he got in years! There is going to be a shift soon – the day I have a reader that handles standard paper, downloadable newspapers/magazines (Bless you Softbook!). I’m old school – I like reading and the brower is a secondary tool.
So, Joe, when will Wiley e-books cost $9.99 or less everywhere? If a bookperson like you hesitates at $10+, what hope is there for the $10+ ebook?
>>>what hope is there for the $10+ ebook?
There is no hope, period.
Lower prices = more sales = more profit.