Here’s yet another story of a lost sale. These are starting to pile up. Book publishers take note. I heard an interview with Gary Taubes on episode #153 of Skepticality and I was interested in his new book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. I went to see if it was available for the Kindle and what the price was and guess what, it’s yet another one where the Kindle version is priced higher than the paper edition. I know some of my friends say that when that happens, they just buy the paper edition. Not so for me. It makes me angry enough that I buy neither one.
Let me reiterate that Gary Taubes did this podcast interview, I heard it and got interested in his product which is part of why he would spend his time doing the interview. I got all the way to the purchase page and I have a surplus of credit in my Amazon account. The only thing that stood between me and the “Buy it Now” button was Knopf’s pricing policy, and they fucked it up. As always, I’m not jonesing for things to read. I have over 100 unread books on my Kindle. I didn’t buy this book and really, I’ll never miss it. Instead I’ll read something else, and in all likelihood, I will never think about this book again.
Publishers need to understand how tenuous this window is where they have my attention, they have my willingness to buy, they have me where they need me. If you don’t convert at that point, you won’t forever. In some cases, you’ll do worse than not convert – you’ll begin to build up brand contempt. Knopf didn’t just not get my money, they twigged on my radar as a vendor to be avoided. Think of the last few books you read. How many of them could you even name what publisher put it out? The only recognition individual publishers are getting from me lately is as bad actors. That’s not what you want.
Also, to head off the highly predictable asshole comments (like, 100% of the time I’ve made these lost sale posts) this book is not available from anywhere in my county’s library system. People always reply with “just check it out of the library” which I find dickish and aggressive when you don’t have any idea whether a book is actually available for any individual. If you have a well stocked library system with all of these books, good for you. Horry County, South Carolina isn’t as well stocked as you.
hear hear publishers “smarten up”.
I’m sorry the publisher’s are out on their yachts fighting pirates and didn’t receive your message. Please call again.
Aside from the fact that publishing a book is much more than the paper cost, I took a deeper look. Currently the hardback is more expensive at $14.70 using Amazon than getting the book digitally by about two bucks. This sounds reasonable to me. If this is all you are purchasing, you also get to pay for shipping. If you use the cheapest other “bookstore” then you pay $11.99 + $3.99 shipping leaving you with a total of $15.98.
Ok, the hardback is more expensive than the digital copy. What about that paperback there? Just $10.20 except it isn’t available until December. So, currently the digital copy cost less than the book in physical form.
When you looked the other bookstores were selling the hardback book for $8.95. If you add the standard $3.99 for shipping, you end up with $12.94. A 5 cent discount to the digital copy.
Was it worth the rant? Maybe, maybe not. It is true that for the most part, I think digital copies should cost less than the physical copies and that sometimes the publishers think they can take advantage of that “paper cost” to pad profits. On the other hand, there is a fixed cost to publishing a book no matter if it comes out in paper or digital format. Most people in the publishing business work hard and deserve to be paid. $0.99 books won’t do it unless they sell millions of copies.
There are a lot of possible reasons why a publisher could make the choices you’re discussing. Most of them have to do with the same sort of “windowing” that has a hardback priced at almost twice the cost of the paperback.
It is completely possible to make more money from making fewer sales, at a higher price. If that is Knopf’s intention, then they’re perfectly happy to lose your purchase, as long as the demand curve isn’t any worse than they think it is.
Volume isn’t everything, or all printed books would be issued as mass market paperbacks, or at least trade paperback originals.
And Bob W, I’m sure you’re aware that publishers just don’t get rich. They either start that way, or they stay poor. It’s a labor of love, or you leave the business and go work for an investment bank or something.
Perhaps the particular target of Dave’s rant isn’t the best example, but I run into examples all the time of ebooks that cost more than the paper version. Just a couple of days ago, I was reminded of a book I was interested in: Dark Water, by Robert Clark. I looked for it, eager to buy it for my Kindle, but alas, it’s a Random House book. $11.99 as an ebook, while I can get the trade paper for $10.77. The book was originally published in Oct 2008, so there’s no windowing going on, and no protecting of the hardback, since it’s unavailable except through the remainder market (where I can get it for $1 new.)
This is not unusual; this is just the normal course of business for the big publishers under the Agency model. Do an experiment if you don’t believe me. Look at the “Best Books of 2009” on Amazon. You’ll find ebooks priced at $11.99 or higher, while the trade papers are available for under $11. The publishers simply don’t want to price an ebook less than $11.99 unless they’ve also produced a mass market paperback, and they don’t want to produce a mass market paperback.
And then they complain that nobody reads anymore.
When I checked Amazon, the MSRP is $15.00, so by the publishers accounting, the ebook does cost less. Only problem: Amazon discounts the paperback 32% which brings down the actual out of pocket costs. You’d save if you bought at a Borders store. Is it reasonable for a publisher to set an agency price below what the lowest retailer is willing to sell the paperback? Somewhere down the road, if publishers want to remain consistent, they should either drop agency pricing for ebooks, or add fixed pricing to all kinds of books.
Also, the paperback will not be published December 27, 2011. The current MSRP for the hardcover is $24.95 with a discounted price of $14.70. The whole point of the papeback being cheaper than the ebook is moot. At least for now.
All I read was #troll #iwantbooksforcheap. Seriously Teleread can we get some strong analysis on e-book pricing that doesn’t try to support your view that e-books should be as cheap as possible? And please stop using self-published authors as an example.
Nathan Bransford asked what an ebook should cost if the hardback is $25. In Feb 2010 the poll result was 49% for $10-$15, this month it is 51% for $5-$10. This was not a scientific poll, but I do think the Agency publishers are loosing more sales than they know by pricing at $12.99 or $14.99. If they standardized on $11.99 they might have a chance of overcoming the $9.99 or less preference.
I keep seeing comments about e-books being priced at more than p-books, followed by how this can be caused by a form windowing–the publisher will lower the e-book price after a while, probably when the paperback edition comes out. WRONG!
This version of “windowing” where publishers promised that e-book prices would eventually go down as titles aged is a myth, plain and simple. How else can you explain that books published two, three, five, eight years ago by, for example, Random House, suddenly saw the e-book editions go UP in price when RH joined the Agency Model? I had quite a few RH books on my Wish List that were priced at 9.99 and 7.99 that are now priced at 11.99, 12.99 and 14.99. These are OLDER books, where the paperback is has been available for some time.
I also had quite a few Penquin titles on my Wish LIst when the Agency Model came into existence. After seeing the paperback editions come out, I continued to wait for the e-book price to be adjusted. In all but one case, there was no price change, even months after the paperback was available. In the one case where the price was changed, the e-book price actually went UP a dollar. All those titles have been removed from my Wish LIst.
The OP is correct about publisher awareness taking hold, at least in my experience. I never really noticed publishers until RH refused to join the A5 last year. Then I became very aware of RH books and was more inclined to purchase a book published by RH over an A5 book. Now that RH has turned the A5 into the A6, I watch ALL publishers.
Pre-Agency, i bought what I liked. If and e-book or two was priced over $10, that was okay because I saved enough on 9.99 bestsellers and 5.99 older books to make those few more expensive books seem okay.
Post-Agency, I am VERY price conscious and VERY publisher conscious. Any e-book published by the A6 and priced higher than a p-edition–hardcover or paperback–goes immediately to my “check at the library” list. Not available at the library? I’m no longer interested and the title disappears into my personal “forgotten zone”.
I have purchased more non-A6 e-books in the past few month than any A6 e-books. Do I still enjoy books published by the A6? Absolutely.
In the past two months, I have borrowed nine A6 audio books from my library and enjoyed them immensely. A more reasonable e-book price would have seen me purchase them for my Kindle instead. Less money going from me to the A6 means more money going from me to non-A6 publishers and authors. I don’t expect the A6 to care or to notice, but it sure makes me feel better.
“Most people in the publishing business work hard and deserve to be paid. $0.99 books won’t do it unless they sell millions of copies.”
When oh when will we stop hearing this banal and meaningless response to complaints that publishers are profiteering on high prices eBooks ?
Sherri I agree with you completely – this is not the best example of the problem. But every couple of days I, like you, am faced with this ridiculous profiteering pricing policy by publishers and I have forgone many purchases as a result. They are making huge margins on the eBooks in comparison with the pBooks and transparently so.
I hope the writer is aware that the pricing policy his publisher is enacting is an incredibly stupid one. Not only is he likely to be losing earning, but also losing readers.
The first 2 years I had my Kindle before agency pricing, I spent a significant amount of money on ebooks. The year Agency pricing went into effect, I spent 30% less. This year I’ve spent $70–no where near what I spent the first three years I had my Kindle.
I am following 35 books on the Kindle Price Drop Site. Five have come down to the price I thought I would buy, but now I’m not interested. Then there are all the books I’ve downloaded from the library either as audible books or as ebooks that I would have purchased if the price had been lower.
Though ebooks are my preferred format, I’m unwilling to pay more for an ebook than for a print book. In my mind, the ebook format is superior to the print book–so why aren’t I willing to pay the same or more for an ebook?
I have purchased 473 Kindle books. But they’re not really mine. If they were really mine, I could read them on my Sony reader, or my Nook Color, or any new reader I might choose to buy in the future. I could lend, sell, or give them away. I have less rights so I’m willing to pay less.
How many times can the readers of this site have the same conversation without any learning going on? It’s almost like they don’t care about reality and are just whining because they are not smart enough to figure it out.
‘Profiteering publishers!??!?!’ Give me a break!
Minus the profanity, I pretty much agree with the OP. I bought a Kindle a couple months ago and eBook prices have been a rude shock, forcing me to rethink the whole eBook thing. I’m in the software business and you are just not going to convince me that a download of a file should cost more than delivery of a printed book under any circumstances. At these prices I’ll be buying, at a guess, 1/3 the number of books I’d buy if the prices were cut in half. Publishers should be figuring that out by now.
Thankfully sites like this are getting the message out to people all across the web who are new to eBooks and they are learning what to avoid and what to buy, especially to avoid the A5 screwing machine. It’s not even as if they have the best books.
Diane, I do the same thing. When the agency model went into affect, I quite buying those publisher’s books. Same with Random House when they implemented it last March. All of those books are on my price drop list, where they will remain forever most likely. At least 30% of my list went up in price when Random House implemented the agency model.
Instead, I have hundreds of indie and free books that I enjoy very much. Now I’m too the point that I have more ebooks than I can read in a lifetime so even $3.99 seems like a high price to me. I still purchase ebooks, but I’m much more discriminating since I don’t lack for something to read. There have been a number of new books that have come out that in the past I would have purchased the first day, in hardback. Now, I’ll either wait for the paperback or lose interest in the meantime.
I also agree with you that since I don’t own the ebook outright so that I can sell it or donate it, I shouldn’t pay anywhere near when the traditional publishers are charging.
I have solved the Agency pricing issue but not buying expensive ebooks. Instead I pay attention to who the publishers are of the authors that I like, especially the smaller independent ones, and actively seek them out.
I think that people continue to rant (I know I do!) because there are ebooks out there that we would like to buy, but do not simply because they are priced much higher.
I have been wanting to buy Anne McCaffrey’s ebook Catalyst, however the pricing has stopped me, when it first came out it was full hardcover price. Even before my ebook reader I did not pay that! Though now its out in paperback and they did reduce the price… to $9.99 of course you can get the paperback for $5. I would like to get it, but frankly my to be read list is big enough that I can’t justify spending the $9.99 on the book. I probably could order it through my library… but for some reason while I used the library a ton when I read paperbacks, now I hardly use it for ebooks.
So I continue to purchase cheaper indie published ebooks, or reasonably priced ebooks from the bigger publishers.
The alternative to not buying, also becoming popular in situations and locales where no legal ebook edition is available at any price, is to buy the print version and simply chuck it away unread after downloading a pirate e-copy of the book from the interwebs. The publisher and author get paid and the reader gets the book in the format they want and at a price they’re willing to pay.
Tough on the environment unfortunately, but as long as publishers refuse to see the opportunities for increased sales and lower costs that are staring back at them from their computer screens…
I don’t think publishers are profiteering. I think they’re faced with an incredibly disruptive change to their industry, and they don’t know how to cope with it. They are in a situation where they are going to have to make ‘bet the company’ kind of changes, and while many of us from a tech background are used to that kind of environment and that pace of change, I doubt that the publishing industry is.
However, I think their attempts to slow down the pace of change in their industry are short-sighted and ultimately doomed. The book I mentioned, Dark Water, is a perfect example. The hardcover edition is not making any money any more, and the trade paper edition is probably not making very much at this point, either. It’s not on the shelf at my local Borders, nor is it on the shelf at Powell’s, the massive bookstore in Portland (though it is in their warehouse.) It is on the shelf at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, probably because the author is local. Its sales rank at Amazon is #264,753.
The publisher could be taking advantage of the fact that ebooks are always in stock, always on the shelf, and pricing the book so that it might actually still sell after the hardback and trade paper editions have ceased to produce much revenue. Instead, in an apparent attempt to force customers into believing that the correct price for an ebook is $11.99, the publisher is giving up revenue.
What happens instead is that customer turns elsewhere, since more books are published than anyone has time to read, and the author loses another royalty payment. Publisher costs simply do not change that equation.
+1 what Dwayne Watson said – buy the paperback, throw it out and get a pirate eBook. In fact, why even buy the paperback? We should just send $5 to the author via PayPal. I’m serious.
Yes, I know the publisher might have put money into the book, for advances, editing, and promotion – although all 3 might be in question. You can’t convince me that the sum of the publisher’s contributions to the book amounts to double what the author contributed.
@Lenne – my experience has been so very similar to yours. I still enjoy occasional A6 books, but I will only get them from the library or used. And when I do, I send an email to the publisher letting them know that they lost a sale, and why. Big surprise (not!), none of them have responded.
“I don’t expect the A6 to care or to notice, but it sure makes me feel better.” That’s it, exactly. When the anniversary of agency pricing for ebooks came and went with not only no sign of the A5 stopping but RH joining in, I was a little sad. I had hoped to be able to go back to getting all my books in digital format for a reasonable price. But I have accepted that enough people are willing to pay the prices asked to keep the agency model afloat. I will just never be one of them, and luckily A6 books are so popular that I have no trouble finding a copy (in paper, but still) that I can obtain without giving any of my money to those publishers. So I suppose I should thank the people who are willing to pay agency prices – they help keep the books coming that I buy used or get from the library, and I feel great knowing I don’t give a dime to the publishers. I do feel bad that I am not paying the authors, but they picked A6 publishers so having a few non-paying readers is a cost of doing business with them.
What frustrates me about big publisher pricing is that they seem to be too eager to sacrifice the impulse buy for the “must-have” buy. Perhaps they want to think that all of their books are must-haves. But in my experience, must-haves are very hard to come by.
I admit that I get frustrated with agency pricing and I hate the idea of paying more for an e-book without getting the same rights that I get with a paper book. However, if I am lucky enough to find a book that I really want to read, I am not going to pass on it over a few dollars. If the book is appealing enough, it is worth those extra dollars. And I want to read it on my device and not in paper. And I want my own copy (even if it is just a license) acquired through legitimate means.
Publishers are counting on this and in some cases are getting it, as high-priced e-books continue to sell. I have no qualms with publishers charging a premium for new releases/best sellers. Those who must have these books right away will pay the premium and the publishers should be able to capitalize on this if they can.
Unfortunately, publishers seem to want to price too many of their e-books, even backlists and books going to paperback, like a must-have, and these books no longer are. If they were, we would have bought them already. These books are prime candidates for impulse buys as many have paid for themselves already and they can trigger new interest in these authors. But if these books are discounted, they are usually not discounted enough to trigger the impulse-buy reaction. Instead of buying these older releases on impulse (and possibly finding new authors that will fill future “must-have” lists), readers are finding books by independents or small publishers and are filling up their to-be-read piles with these books.
Some publishers have put some of these books on sale, but because of the agency model, these sales are not promoted effectively. When the retailers can set the prices and institute their own sales, they can also promote them well and reach the target audience effectively, as Amazon did with its Sunshine Deals. Publishers do not have this relationship with the readers at this time and thus their sales can go unnoticed unless you happen to browse their books or you stay in tune with price drop notifications from independent websites.
Publishers may not care about impulse buys the way they care about “must-have” sales, but they should. Impulse buys far outnumber must-have buys for me. My to-be-read pile grows faster than I can shrink it. I may not ever be able to read them all, but I read many of them. Many are not that great, but if I find a gem, I just may add a new author to my “must-haves.” If my impulse buys come from independents and small publishers, then tomorrow’s “must-haves” will also more and more come from these sources.