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Ebook price competition heats up in the UK, unlike in the US
August 17, 2010 | 9:21 am
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By Paul Biba
Two days ago we reported that W H Smith had cut the price of its top 100 ebooks by 65%. Now they have dropped prices on all their ebooks by 50%. Says The Bookseller: Among the titles highlighted on its homepage are Chelsea footballer Frank Lampard’s memoir, Totally Frank (HarperCollins), on sale at £3.75, Loose Women panellist Carol McGiffin’s memoir Oh Carol (Hodder and Stoughton), at £8.50, and Hugh Ambrose’s The Pacific (Canongate), on sale for £10.
Evidently in response, Amazon UK has dropped the price of Frank Lampard’s memior, Totally Frank, to £3.73 from £4.86, undercutting W H Smith’s price of £3.75.
The same book is carried at the iBookstore at £6.99 and at Waterstones for £6.01.
Of course, given the agency pricing deal here in the US, the US consumer is screwed and can not be given the benefit of competition.
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Comments:
I wonder how many state AGs are taking notes of the UK price war. It might be Exhibit B or C in the trial.
Even if the price war is temporary, like the bestseller price war of last year in the US, this kind of price war actually benefits everybody because in defending their turf from Amazon, the UK retailers are helping ramp up the ebook-reading community. In the end there will be more ebook consumers in both camps and economies of scale might even sustain persistently lower prices. And that could be exhibit D.
You can judge a book by its cover – but don’t judge it by its price. The ‘benefits’ of a price war were set out decades ago by Bertholt Brecht in his ‘Threepenny Novel’, a book which you probably can’t get as an e-book.
None of this is for YOUR benefit.
I dunno if Threepenny Novel is an e-book but you can buy it used-as-new on Amazon for 1p:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Threepenny-Novel-B-Brecht/dp/B0007IYRSG/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
A penny? That beats e-book pricing. (For now.)