Digital Book World has been compiling weekly e-book bestseller lists for some time, and in the latest analysis they've made on them, Jeremy Greenfield alleges to have found an e-book pricing "sweet spot." What he means by this is that in looking at data over the last four months, very few books have made the best-seller chart whose price exceeded $8."The literal translation of this observation is that readers aren’t buying many books at that price point. It could suggest that there are few popular titles being priced in that range," Greenfield concludes But is this a fair conclusion? My experience has been...

When I read the DBW article yesterday entitled "7 Must-Consider Strategies for Ebook Pricing," I ended up scratching my head. What happened to "listen to the consumer and what they consistently tell you they want?" That sounds like a good idea when considering pricing e-books. Apparently not. It started with strategy #1. "Charge extra for convenience." Here's the quote: Though ebooks cost less to print, ship, and stock than paper books, they’re much more convenient for readers. So why not charge extra for that convenience? With this strategy, the price of an ebook would be higher than its equivalent in paper—isn’t immediate...

Last year was a positive one for U.S. trade publishers, according to the Association of American Publishers' newest “StatShot” monthly report for December 2012. Digital Book World has an extensive breakdown of the statistics from the report. Most notably, e-books accounted for 23 percent of net revenues for 2012, which is up from 17 percent in 2011 and just one percent in 2010. U.S. publishers saw a net revenue gain of 6.2 percent ($7.1 billion) compared to 2011. The top categories were Adult Fiction/Non-Fiction and Children’s/Young Adults. Between those two categories and religious e-books, publishers gained a 41 percent increase in net revenue,...

E-books seem to be costing consumers less money. Digital Book World tracks the prices of e-books on the best-sellers lists every week. Last week, the news site found e-books on the lists averaged more than $8 a book. After a week where a new publisher (Macmillan) allowed discounted prices, the average price of e-books on the best-sellers list dropped to $7.21, a record low, according to DBW. One of the more interesting notes from DBW’s research is that $9.99 doesn’t seem to be a popular price anymore. This price point has been reserved for newer popular books and those that retailers can definitely...

We've finally tipped the balance, according to a recent Bowkers study. In the U.S., through November, in 2012, almost 44 percent of books were sold online, versus almost 32 percent sold in large retail chains, independent bookstores, other mass merchandisers and supermarkets. No, they weren't all e-books, but a goodly percentage of them were. Twenty-eight percent of all book purchases in the U.S. were e-books. According to the study, supermarkets, mass merchandisers and indie bookstores held their market share while big-chain bookstores lost share. DBW speculates the demise of Borders might be a significant part of that, and it sounds reasonable to...

It's interesting to me how often people misunderstand the appeal of Amazon and its products. Over at Digital Book World today, Beth Bacon asked, "When will Kindle's become free?" While it's not a bad question—and I do think the day of the free Kindle (or another brand of e-reader) is coming—I think she missed an important point. Consumers who think about their hardware purchases this way (do I want an e-reader, a tablet, or both?) are probably more likely to spring for a tablet with an Android, MacOS, or Windows OS if they can possibly afford it. Those who are looking for...

Many publishing insiders and authors have been discussing Random House over the past week. The company might wish it had stayed out of the news as criticisms came down over its digital imprints, especially Hydra, which handles science fiction. In case you missed the news, here’s the basic version: Contract specifications for Hydra were made public, and many realized the terms were not ideal for authors. The digital imprints offered a publishing package with no advance, and with net proceeds that would be split 50/50. In addition, the author would have to pay a one-time fee for set-up costs such as...

  I've been seeing lots of articles about social reading and how it's the wave of the future for e-book discovery. CBC News had a lengthy article on the topic, and Digital Book World weighed in on it yesterday. (Incidentally, enough with the Fifty Shades references, OK guys?) While social discovery makes for fascinating news articles, and sites like Goodreads are certainly in that space, I decided to go to the source—readers—and ask them for their opinion. You know what will make self-described introverts put down their books and speak up? Asking them for their opinions on social reading! Here were a selection...

The Digital Book World website has been down since at least 9:00 am EST this morning, for reasons unknown even to its editorial staff, from what we understand. But DBW's IT team has been hard at work on the problem—whatever it was—for the majority of the day, and the site now seems to be back up and working fine. Nice to have you back, DBW....

There was an interesting article in yesterday's Morning Links about the 'gamification' of books. I had first heard this term in response to the Reading Life feature on the Kobo platform, which awards you 'badges' for such activities as reading at a certain time in the day, reading a certain number of books, using a dictionary or bookmark feature, and so on. But this article was coming at it from a different aspect: using the 'concept of game mechanics' to 'pull the reader through a book.' Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World, the article's author, suggests applying these strategies to children's...

Bookish has launched with much fanfare. Some good. Some bad. Nate over at The Digital Reader had an amusing look at their terms of service. DBW has three reasons they will succeed and three reasons they will fail. Hedging their bets much? So I decided to try using the site and assess it from a usability perspective. The first thing I tried didn't work out so well. There's a big box in the middle of the page that says "Enter a Book." I assumed I would enter a book title and get some recommendations based on that title. Failing that, I thought at...

Well here's a terrible idea. DBW just posted a press release about Edition Guard, which brings Adobe DRM to indie authors and small presses who want to sell books direct from their website. Have we learned nothing in recent years? DRM doesn't stop piracy. It's ridiculously easy to crack. All DRM does is punish non-tech savvy readers who don't know how to seek out the tools to get rid of it. Even if DRM worked, Adobe DRM is a terrible platform. It only allows activation on six devices. So what happens when you purchase your seventh device? You have to contact Adobe...