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Here's a good article from a few months ago about the economics of ebook pricing. It supports your comments about the publishers having too much control over t

by bhousel 16y ago

Here's a good article from a few months ago about the economics of ebook pricing. It supports your comments about the publishers having too much control over the pricing. http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2011/01/16/why-do-ebooks-cost-so-much/ http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2011/01/16/why-do-ebooks-cos...

tptacek 16y ago
For the publisher to have any effective control over the price of a book, they have to control the distribution channel for books. But they manifestly do not. If you want to sell a book for $0.99, you can do so today. Three of the elephants in the room are: * That the $9.99 price point comes in a package deal that includes promotional advantages authors want * That the $9.99 price point is calculated by publishers to maximize return on the ebook product offering, not to maximize the number of people who buy the ebook (but this is obviously how market pricing is supposed to work) * That the $9.99 price point comes with access to the publisher's brick and mortar distribution system, which is much more powerful than the indie distribution system (but is also dying).
- KentBeck 16y ago
  We are in the very early days for finding the profit-maximizing prices for ebooks. If publishers stand in the way of experimentation, someone else will find the sweet spots (I don't expect there to be just one). I read of a mystery author recently whose sales went up 20x by dropping the price from $3 to $1. The additional profits of finding the optimal price could be enough to offset the publisher's advantages. It's an interesting dog fight, if you don't have a dog in it. As an author, though, it looks mighty risky.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    This is the great thing about readership moving from paper books to ebooks: the only thing close to a controlled distribution channel we have is Amazon, and it's in Amazon's best interests to let indies expiriment with the channel.

by bhousel 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago

For the publisher to have any effective control over the price of a book, they have to control the distribution channel for books. But they manifestly do not. If you want to sell a book for $0.99, you can do so today. Three of the elephants in the room are: * That the $9.99 price point comes in a package deal that includes promotional advantages authors want * That the $9.99 price point is calculated by publishers to maximize return on the ebook product offering, not to maximize the number of people who buy the ebook (but this is obviously how market pricing is supposed to work) * That the $9.99 price point comes with access to the publisher's brick and mortar distribution system, which is much more powerful than the indie distribution system (but is also dying).

KentBeck 16y ago
We are in the very early days for finding the profit-maximizing prices for ebooks. If publishers stand in the way of experimentation, someone else will find the sweet spots (I don't expect there to be just one). I read of a mystery author recently whose sales went up 20x by dropping the price from $3 to $1. The additional profits of finding the optimal price could be enough to offset the publisher's advantages. It's an interesting dog fight, if you don't have a dog in it. As an author, though, it looks mighty risky.
- tptacek 16y ago
  This is the great thing about readership moving from paper books to ebooks: the only thing close to a controlled distribution channel we have is Amazon, and it's in Amazon's best interests to let indies expiriment with the channel.