E-Book Pricing Put Into Turmoil

[The Griot]

So it begins...

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home...t-into-turmoil

[erazmus]

And in the short run, Amazon will lose. They can't sell e-books cheaper than the publisher wants if the publishers wont let them, they don't publish e-books, they just sell them.

My sympathy is entirely with the publishers. Why should they let one part of their product compete with another? Book releases are designed to synergize. Hard cover release predates paperback and the readers who can't wait buy hard cover. Or go to the library, which buys hard cover. E-books don't naturally come available with hardbacks. The publishers have to find the release time and price point that maximizes the exploitation of the property. Its their product.

Amazon is trying to establish dominance of their reader--kindle, at the expense of the publishers best interest. The publishers gain no benefit if Kindle becomes and remains the dominate e-reader on the planet, quite the contrary--it would limit their ability to exploit their potential markets. Having one reader you must be out in to earn any electronic sales, and one company you must appease to be released in that format, is not in the interest of the publishers, or the writers. Better, easier and much safer to have several accepted formats and readers, and several companies to deal with.

Mike

[PaulMc]

I find it ironic that Amazon doesn't want to charge more than $9.99. I think $9.99 is too much, anyway.

I mean, it's fine to maybe charge $10-$15 for an e-book that is currently going for $30 hardcover.

But, I'm not about to replace my paperback library with e-book versions of older books when I can find the used paperbacks for $5 or less.

Case in point, I briefly considered replacing my Ian Fleming James Bond series (which is a mish-mash of different paperback editions) until I saw they are going for $9.99 per e-book for the Kindle. That would be over $100 for a set of books I probably acquired for under $50 originally.

[erazmus]

the publishers don't object to 9.99 per se, they object to 9.99 during a books initial hardback release.

Mike

[The Griot]

Better, easier and much safer to have several accepted formats and readers, and several companies to deal with.

Mike

I agree. I definitely don't want to see a e-reader verision of the ipod situation. I'm a hardback/paper back guy. I won't go to e-readers unless I absolutely have no choice. I'm also glad to see publishers stepping up to protect their bottom line. Non of these companies should suffer at the e-reader producer expense. On the other hand, I could imagine Amazon forming their own publishing company to provide exclusive material for Kindle. They might be willing to offer well known writers better advances to win them over. This could get really interesting.

[crystalwizard]

>They can't sell e-books cheaper than the publisher wants if the publishers wont let them, they don't publish e-books, they just sell them.

Sure they can. They're a store. They can sell stuff for as cheap as they want.

however

IF they do, they're stupid because they still have to pay the publisher the same amount that they would if they didn't sell them for less

They're no different than a grocery store. On any given day you can go into a grocery store and find stuff that the store has marked down below what the vendor of those items want to sell it for. Those things lose the store money, which is why they're called loss leaders (store takes a loss to lead you into it's doors and hopes you'll buy other stuff too).

When a publisher puts an e-book out on the market, the retail price is set. But that isn't what the retailers pay the publisher. They pay the publisher a pitance of that.

Amazon TAKES 65% of the profit of any Kindle sales, for example.
Ebooks that aren't Kindle, Amazon only gets 40% of unless the publisher has some other arrangement with them.

as long as Amazon doesn't mind not getting a full chunk of that 65% or 40% they can drop the price as far as they want.

They STILL have to pay the publisher what the publisher's owed, regardless of how much money they make on the thing themselves.

[Tomolan]

I wonder when they will start to act like a publisher and less like a store.