4 ms·

Amazon’s E-Book Pricing A Constant Thorn For Publishers

23 points by iProject 15y ago

kemayo 15y ago
"The publishers wanted to stop Amazon from using what one of them called “the wretched $9.99 price point,” according to court papers." I can't say that I care about the specific price point... but when I see an ebook costing more than a physical copy which has to be printed and shipped to me, I feel a certain amount of annoyance knowing that it's the publishers who're causing that. Even costing the same is pushing it. Am I being reasonable in holding this position? Maybe not, economically. But I doubt it's an uncommon one.
- thwarted 15y ago
  Printed, stored, and shipped to you. While I'm not sure exactly what shipping costs across the industry (not just Amazon sales, where you can see exactly what you'll pay for shipping) for getting physical books into people's hands, shipping is only getting cheaper for e-books (some more recent Kindles don't support 3G whispernet, so there's an infrastructure middleman cut out, and the cost for shipping approaches zero as the cost for bandwidth approaches zero), there by widening the gap between physical and e-books.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Yeah, this is why I'm siding with Amazon for now. Publishers need to be hurt first, and then we see what we can do about Amazon's monopoly. At least right now I think Amazon is the lesser evil. The publishers may be more than one, but they are acting like a monopoly anyway (or oligopoly if you will) by trying to price ebooks a lot higher than they should cost. I don't care if they do it through the agency model, the wholesale model or the whatever model. The point is they are doing it, and at least Amazon was trying to bring the price down with the $9.99 price tag, and with the $1-$3 Singles, even if that's forcing the publishers' hand. For anyone out there still thinking the publishers weren't colluding - just think of it this way - no big publisher would've tried to price the ebooks $15 if the others didn't agree to do it as well. Also Apple wouldn't have agreed to have $15 prices for its books, unless the publishers forced Amazon to have the same prices, too. If the publishers are so worried about Amazon, maybe they should stop giving them so much power themselves as a gatekeeper by asking them to use DRM. Amazon has a huge lock-in because of that, and it's only getting stronger. If they know what's good for themselves, they will make e-books DRM-free yesterday (and obviously that doesn't mean giving Apple a pass on DRM either).
  - Lewisham 15y ago
    What's totally bizarre about the publishers pricing is that other goods that have gone digital have benefitted by lower prices, or at least, temporary price drops. My knowledge is particularly in video games, but those Steam sales that keep popping up are not through the goodness of Valve's hearts. Publishers are doing gangbusters on those sales, and consumers are buying far more games than they'll ever play. They screwed up. The agency model wasn't necessarily bad, it's that they used it to screw the consumer to pay higher prices. Had they used it to lower prices, they wouldn't have this problem now, where they forced themselves into wholesale and let Amazon marginalize them further.
    - jorgem 15y ago
      Oh, I don't know. I remember CD's being more expensive than records. And DVD's were more expensive than VHS tapes.
      - joverholt 15y ago
        Those all involved physical supply and distribution chains, each with their own added costs. They also represented an advancement in technology. Yes, there are costs with digital distribution, but I find it hard to believe they are greater than distributing a physical product. My dad gave me a Kindle he got for free. I have a hard time paying $10 or $15 to buy a book I don't really own, among other reasons.
- WalterBright 15y ago
  If ebooks were priced at $.99 rather than $9.99, I'd be likely buy more than 10x as many books. They become a complete impulse buy, even if I just have a mild curiosity about the contents. Heck, the local thrift shop sells paperbacks for $.99, and I buy piles of them (and don't feel guilty if I never get around to reading them!). I wouldn't have bought any at $9.99.
  - SlipperySlope 15y ago
    Right! I bought a number of ebooks from Amazon that were priced at $2.99 because, on impulse, I wanted to explore new authors in my favorite genre.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
junto 15y ago
Authors, musicians and film makers need to realise that they no longer need a middle man. Remind me again how much of that $9.99 the authors were actually getting? The old world media is slowly dying. It needs some euthanasia to speed up the process. They need to stop telling us what, how and when we can and can't consume. They need to learn that lesson and fast because Generation Y is almost lost to them.
modfodder 15y ago
Amazon is no different than Wal-Mart. Growing up in a small town, I remember Wal-Mart coming in and decimating numerous small businesses in it's wake. But of course we shopped there, the prices were cheaper, even if it did close our neighbors business. It wasn't until years later when my uncle's business landed the desirable Wal-Mart account that I understood how they were doing it. It was his best day and worst day of his life (in hindsight), as Wal-Mart nearly shut down his business with it's demands (and once a business lands WM as a customer, they become the dominant customer by their design), so once you as a business owner realize what you've allowed them to do to your business, it's too late. And so many people I know despise Wal-Mart and it's practices, but worship at the altar of Bezos because it's "online".
- Lewisham 15y ago
  You're discounting the big difference here: online makes moving fast easy. Big box stores win because they are unassailable, Amazon surely is not. If enough authors don't like Amazon's policies, BAM, up pops a new site as a collective of authors selling their e-books direct to the consumer and not through Amazon. Amazon loses. If Amazon starts being a terrible company to its customers, BAM, up pops a new site which is nice to them. Amazon loses. Amazon is not winning because it's buying out the pot, it's winning because it's providing a better service. Publishers lose out because they're the middle-men. They know this. They're too cowardly to directly deal with the customer. If they wanted to, they could have bought out Barnes & Noble and really slugged it out with Amazon, but they won't. They'll let B&N fight the battle for them, and if B&N go bankrupt, well, that's B&N's problem. It's just plain wrong to equate online with offline. Online is a far more competitive and risky market to be in.
  - brisance 15y ago
    I respectfully disagree. There is also lock-in from Amazon because most people will have no clue how to remove the DRM on the Kindle titles and move them to another e-reader should they decide to do so. So the parent comment is valid.
    - 15y ago
dlgeek 15y ago
“Amazon wants the price of books to be very, very low — lower than the publishing community can support,” said Curt Matthews, IPG’s chief executive. “Making a book is still a craft industry. Books need to be edited, to be publicized. Someone needs to say this is good and this is not.” Publishing industry: You should pay us 80% of a book's price to decide what's good. Amazon: We'll let the customer do that and give the extra money to the author, thanks.
- dublinben 15y ago
  There are plenty of freelance editors and typesetters who will fix a book for a fraction of the 70% royalty Amazon gives authors. No matter their popularity, it can only be good for an author to move to self-publishing now.
kondro 15y ago
I think what publishers miss is that people (if they are anything like me) are buying and reading more books because e-readers are much more convenient. So, whilst Amazon may be pushing down the mean price of books (books that have no production cost or risk of returns/unsold quantities), I think people are buying/reading more.
- dwc 15y ago
  I've always been a reader. Since I (finally) got a Kindle for xmas I've ordered more books and spent more money than normal. Not so much because it's a new toy (that wore off fast enough), but because it really is convenient.
docgnome 15y ago
I see the argument that $9.99 is a bad price point for publishers but is there any real evidence that this price is too low to sustain profits for a publisher? I mean... 10 bucks doesn't seem very low to me. It seems... reasonable for a book. Especially given that there is no cost for storage or printing of ebooks.
iRobot 15y ago
Ouch.. Throw enough shit and some of it may stick.. Someone's really got it in for Amazon, this is the third post in two days.
artsrc 15y ago
If the 7,000 people do valuable marketing, then pay them for it directly. Why all this big fuss about "Cutting Off Amazon"?

23 points by iProject 15y ago

"The publishers wanted to stop Amazon from using what one of them called “the wretched $9.99 price point,” according to court papers." I can't say that I care about the specific price point... but when I see an ebook costing more than a physical copy which has to be printed and shipped to me, I feel a certain amount of annoyance knowing that it's the publishers who're causing that. Even costing the same is pushing it. Am I being reasonable in holding this position? Maybe not, economically. But I doubt it's an uncommon one.

thwarted 15y ago
Printed, stored, and shipped to you. While I'm not sure exactly what shipping costs across the industry (not just Amazon sales, where you can see exactly what you'll pay for shipping) for getting physical books into people's hands, shipping is only getting cheaper for e-books (some more recent Kindles don't support 3G whispernet, so there's an infrastructure middleman cut out, and the cost for shipping approaches zero as the cost for bandwidth approaches zero), there by widening the gap between physical and e-books.
nextparadigms 15y ago
Yeah, this is why I'm siding with Amazon for now. Publishers need to be hurt first, and then we see what we can do about Amazon's monopoly. At least right now I think Amazon is the lesser evil. The publishers may be more than one, but they are acting like a monopoly anyway (or oligopoly if you will) by trying to price ebooks a lot higher than they should cost. I don't care if they do it through the agency model, the wholesale model or the whatever model. The point is they are doing it, and at least Amazon was trying to bring the price down with the $9.99 price tag, and with the $1-$3 Singles, even if that's forcing the publishers' hand. For anyone out there still thinking the publishers weren't colluding - just think of it this way - no big publisher would've tried to price the ebooks $15 if the others didn't agree to do it as well. Also Apple wouldn't have agreed to have $15 prices for its books, unless the publishers forced Amazon to have the same prices, too. If the publishers are so worried about Amazon, maybe they should stop giving them so much power themselves as a gatekeeper by asking them to use DRM. Amazon has a huge lock-in because of that, and it's only getting stronger. If they know what's good for themselves, they will make e-books DRM-free yesterday (and obviously that doesn't mean giving Apple a pass on DRM either).
- Lewisham 15y ago
  What's totally bizarre about the publishers pricing is that other goods that have gone digital have benefitted by lower prices, or at least, temporary price drops. My knowledge is particularly in video games, but those Steam sales that keep popping up are not through the goodness of Valve's hearts. Publishers are doing gangbusters on those sales, and consumers are buying far more games than they'll ever play. They screwed up. The agency model wasn't necessarily bad, it's that they used it to screw the consumer to pay higher prices. Had they used it to lower prices, they wouldn't have this problem now, where they forced themselves into wholesale and let Amazon marginalize them further.
  - jorgem 15y ago
    Oh, I don't know. I remember CD's being more expensive than records. And DVD's were more expensive than VHS tapes.
    - joverholt 15y ago
      Those all involved physical supply and distribution chains, each with their own added costs. They also represented an advancement in technology. Yes, there are costs with digital distribution, but I find it hard to believe they are greater than distributing a physical product. My dad gave me a Kindle he got for free. I have a hard time paying $10 or $15 to buy a book I don't really own, among other reasons.
WalterBright 15y ago
If ebooks were priced at $.99 rather than $9.99, I'd be likely buy more than 10x as many books. They become a complete impulse buy, even if I just have a mild curiosity about the contents. Heck, the local thrift shop sells paperbacks for $.99, and I buy piles of them (and don't feel guilty if I never get around to reading them!). I wouldn't have bought any at $9.99.
- SlipperySlope 15y ago
  Right! I bought a number of ebooks from Amazon that were priced at $2.99 because, on impulse, I wanted to explore new authors in my favorite genre.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

junto 15y ago

Authors, musicians and film makers need to realise that they no longer need a middle man. Remind me again how much of that $9.99 the authors were actually getting? The old world media is slowly dying. It needs some euthanasia to speed up the process. They need to stop telling us what, how and when we can and can't consume. They need to learn that lesson and fast because Generation Y is almost lost to them.

modfodder 15y ago

Amazon is no different than Wal-Mart. Growing up in a small town, I remember Wal-Mart coming in and decimating numerous small businesses in it's wake. But of course we shopped there, the prices were cheaper, even if it did close our neighbors business. It wasn't until years later when my uncle's business landed the desirable Wal-Mart account that I understood how they were doing it. It was his best day and worst day of his life (in hindsight), as Wal-Mart nearly shut down his business with it's demands (and once a business lands WM as a customer, they become the dominant customer by their design), so once you as a business owner realize what you've allowed them to do to your business, it's too late. And so many people I know despise Wal-Mart and it's practices, but worship at the altar of Bezos because it's "online".

Lewisham 15y ago
You're discounting the big difference here: online makes moving fast easy. Big box stores win because they are unassailable, Amazon surely is not. If enough authors don't like Amazon's policies, BAM, up pops a new site as a collective of authors selling their e-books direct to the consumer and not through Amazon. Amazon loses. If Amazon starts being a terrible company to its customers, BAM, up pops a new site which is nice to them. Amazon loses. Amazon is not winning because it's buying out the pot, it's winning because it's providing a better service. Publishers lose out because they're the middle-men. They know this. They're too cowardly to directly deal with the customer. If they wanted to, they could have bought out Barnes & Noble and really slugged it out with Amazon, but they won't. They'll let B&N fight the battle for them, and if B&N go bankrupt, well, that's B&N's problem. It's just plain wrong to equate online with offline. Online is a far more competitive and risky market to be in.
- brisance 15y ago
  I respectfully disagree. There is also lock-in from Amazon because most people will have no clue how to remove the DRM on the Kindle titles and move them to another e-reader should they decide to do so. So the parent comment is valid.
  - 15y ago

dlgeek 15y ago

“Amazon wants the price of books to be very, very low — lower than the publishing community can support,” said Curt Matthews, IPG’s chief executive. “Making a book is still a craft industry. Books need to be edited, to be publicized. Someone needs to say this is good and this is not.” Publishing industry: You should pay us 80% of a book's price to decide what's good. Amazon: We'll let the customer do that and give the extra money to the author, thanks.

dublinben 15y ago
There are plenty of freelance editors and typesetters who will fix a book for a fraction of the 70% royalty Amazon gives authors. No matter their popularity, it can only be good for an author to move to self-publishing now.

kondro 15y ago

I think what publishers miss is that people (if they are anything like me) are buying and reading more books because e-readers are much more convenient. So, whilst Amazon may be pushing down the mean price of books (books that have no production cost or risk of returns/unsold quantities), I think people are buying/reading more.

dwc 15y ago
I've always been a reader. Since I (finally) got a Kindle for xmas I've ordered more books and spent more money than normal. Not so much because it's a new toy (that wore off fast enough), but because it really is convenient.

docgnome 15y ago

I see the argument that $9.99 is a bad price point for publishers but is there any real evidence that this price is too low to sustain profits for a publisher? I mean... 10 bucks doesn't seem very low to me. It seems... reasonable for a book. Especially given that there is no cost for storage or printing of ebooks.

iRobot 15y ago

Ouch.. Throw enough shit and some of it may stick.. Someone's really got it in for Amazon, this is the third post in two days.

artsrc 15y ago

If the 7,000 people do valuable marketing, then pay them for it directly. Why all this big fuss about "Cutting Off Amazon"?