3 ms·
I don't think Amazon's 30% is hostile to higher priced books directly. A book that costs 20% as much, but sells five times as many, ends up paying the same fee
by xenophanes 16y ago
I don't think Amazon's 30% is hostile to higher priced books directly. A book that costs 20% as much, but sells five times as many, ends up paying the same fee to Amazon.
I think the difference is that higher volume, mass market books benefit more from being on Amazon. While a specialized and pricey book won't sell to random people browsing Amazon. So Amazon is offering less value for the same price.
I think it'd be hard for Amazon to change the rules. What are they doing to do? Lower the commission on the first 500 copies you sell? That would hurt them with the people selling unpopular books who would sell nothing at all without Amazon's help. And it would annoy popular authors who are like, "Why should my rate go up the better I do?"
Lower the commission on books over a certain price? That will cause price distortion (books near the price will increase their price), and it's in opposition to Amazon's general approach to things (sell high volume cheaply). If you change the commission gradually over a range of prices, that has the downside of making the rules more complicated which most customers don't like.
- runevault 16y agoExcept they already create artificial prices due to difference in % by price. 2.99 to 9.99 is 70%, everything else is I believe 35%. This makes a MASSIVE difference in the high cost books (stuff like the marketing book point that started me down the train of thought). I understand why Amazon did it with their desire to keep people selling fiction at 9.99 and under for impulse purchases, but that model doesn't make sense for other forms of writing.
- xenophanes 16y agoOh I didn't know they halved your royalty above 10 bucks. You're completely right, that's really hostile to higher priced books.
- runevault 16y agoI'm beginning to wonder if it'd make sense to reset to 70% for say anything from 49.99 and up. Fiction books aren't likely to go after that price range, but educational/informative books can be reasonably priced there, working mostly like things do now while still letting amazon try to keep fiction priced at impulse purchase prices.
- ssp 16y agoIt's potentially dangerous for Amazon to do this. They are essentially squeezing their suppliers in the same way Walmart does, which could potentially make room for a competitor to target the higher price-points. The more Amazon squeezes, the more high-quality authors such a competitor could get exclusive deals with. Once that happens, Amazon has lost something really important: the fact that you never have to go elsewhere.
- runevault 16y agoPotentially true but at least B&N has fallen in line with their PubIt! platform for indie authors on the Nook. Exact same pricing structure to revenue sharing %s. And last I knew B&N is the only thing even CLOSE to competition for the Kindle store right now, and even it is way behind.
- xenophanes 16y agoWhat about iBooks?
- runevault 16y agoiBooks isn't even a blip last I heard. After all you can just read kindle and nook books on your iPad. Selection is crap too so most people I've ever asked don't even look these days it seems like.