eBook Prices - Is it just me…

[Parmandur]

Kinda guessing here (I'm not in the industry), but I think one of the other factors in the OP's complaint is competition. We're used to older books having lower pricing than new books, partially because physical retailers know that used books are an alternative option.

But I think some digital publishers have essentially decided/speculated that their key market for people who buy digital books won't consider used books as an equivalent option. Their key demographic wants that old book in digital form, and will pay new book prices for it if required.

There is also no warehousing that needs to be cleared for digital products.

And if you raise the price, you can juice sales by introducing deals once and a while...

 

[Hex08]

You’re not paying for the paper you’re paying for the content.

I agree in part. We may also be paying for the lack of real competition in the eReader/eBook marketplace. There are the Nook and Kobo but their market share is tiny compared to the Kindle. We can't say for sure what would happen in this market if there were real competition but my understanding of economics and capitalism (which may be limited) is that competition should drive prices down and the lack of competition does the opposite.


Edited - @Deset Gled beat me to the punch

 

[Deset Gled]

And if you raise the price, you can juice sales by introducing deals once and a while...

The "sales price" game is an interesting one. I think over time it will be interesting to see what publishers takes the Steam Sale model and who takes the Nintendo model.

And, to immediately clarify, there are two alternative concepts that we have seen played out with digital sales in video games. One camp likes to use sales prices to incentivize customers. But the highly public nature of pricing means that everyone knows what the lowest price of a game has been. Which results in a lot of people refusing to buy a game at full price and waiting for it to go on sale. This is why Steam's highly public sales turn into big events; people may hold off on waiting for an entire year to buy a game at what they perceive as the "best" price. Of course this has other issues and factors, like FOMO, companies dealing with lump sum income instead of gradual, etc.

The other side of this coin is publishers like Nintendo who opt to never put their top sellers on sale. I don't have perfect history, but I think Mario Kart 8 stayed at its full $60 price tag for almost a decade. Obviously, there are some people who refuse to buy it at full price because they don't think an old game should be expensive. And Nintendo probably loses money on expansion content. But, OTOH, how many people do you know with a Switch that don't own Mario Kart?

TL;DR, I wonder if we'll see a world soon where no one ever pays full price for a digital Brian Sanderson book, and no one ever pays less than list when/if GRRM ever gets to the end of his series.

 

[Belen]

Amazon has been systematically making kindle worse to lock people into their device and prevent people from archiving their purchases.

They are trying to eliminate competition and then they will control pricing.

I refuse to buy from them since they eliminated download and transfer.

 

[Morrus]

There is also no warehousing that needs to be cleared for digital products.

You pay for that as part of your shipping costs. It’s on top of the product cost. You don’t pay it for a digital book.

 

[Wolfram stout]

Or do they seem to be getting ridiculous?

I primarily read on a Kindle. I had some serious bouts of retinopathy in both eyes over the years so it’s generally easier to read white text on a black background. Plus, these old eyes appreciate being able to adjust font size.

I noticed this when I was trying to backfill the Discworld series. The books jumped from roughly $8 to &15 each. What can possibly justify this jump aside from “that they can”. The series has been out for years and the paperbacks go for about $7. Eventually, I was able to pick them up for cheap thanks to a Humble Bundle.

I don’t mind paying if the book is a new release or still only available in print as a hardcover. I just find it ridiculous for the ebook to be more than a non-discounted paperback. Especially, since you don’t technically own the ebook, but rather have a perpetual license to it (and we know they can take it away anytime). It also seems like ebooks don’t go one sales that often anymore.

Unfortunately, while I have the Libby app, they rarely have the books I want to read.

What are your thoughts? Do you use an eReader and if so, how do you get your books.

I could have a lot of this myself. Then the wife and I went to B&N to browse a few weeks ago. The paperbacks I was use to were $9.99 and I could tell trying to read the print would be torture. But most of the books vin the shelves were trade paperback style and they were between $14.99 and 24.99. Hardbacks went up from there. So, ebooks are overpriced but still better than the physical books I can comfortably read.

And I love Libby library books but man I wish they had more consistent selection.

 

[Belen]

You pay for that as part of your shipping costs. It’s on top of the product cost. You don’t pay it for a digital book.

The problem is that the perceived value of the digital item is not the same as physical. Publishers have created this problem by making digital products licensed rather than owned.

It is a jerk move to force the idea that people own nothing and should be happy about it.

Amazon is now leading that charge.

As a medical publisher, I have been fighting this fight for over two decades. For instance, when journal article PDFs were $30/paper, I reduced my prices to $5 and made 10 times the money. Of course, they went commerical and raised them after I left. These prices were the primary cry to make science Open Access. OA has been awful by leading to a rise in fake, predatory journals, and a reduction in quality peer review standards in an effort to make more money by publishing more content. The greed of corporate publishers led to a massive shift in business models.

The same will happen to video games and ebooks. The "licensed" model will lead to bad things. It has already taught people that digital works hold no value.

 

[Belen]

I could have a lot of this myself. Then the wife and I went to B&N to browse a few weeks ago. The paperbacks I was use to were $9.99 and I could tell trying to read the print would be torture. But most of the books vin the shelves were trade paperback style and they were between $14.99 and 24.99. Hardbacks went up from there. So, ebooks are overpriced but still better than the physical books I can comfortably read.

And I love Libby library books but man I wish they had more consistent selection.

The average cost of a paperback has risen to 13.99 with HC between 30 and 40.

 

[Morrus]

The problem is that the perceived value of the digital item is not the same as physical.

This is a problem, yes. And it needs to be fixed—“perceived value” is just nonsense leading the business and why creators’ work is so undervalued in this industry. Fortunately it is getting better, PDF prices are going up, and creator pay is gradually increasing in its interminably slow goal of a living wage. The content is the valuable thing, not the cheap-ass paper.

Publishers have created this problem by making digital products licensed rather than owned.

I don’t know what that means.

Plus “publishers” isn’t a monoculture any more than “customers” is. I’ve never licensed my books to my customers.

It is a jerk move to force the idea that people own nothing and should be happy about it.

That’s an entirely different topic.

 

[Belen]

This is a problem, yes. And it needs to be fixed—“perceived value” is just nonsense leading the business and why creators’ work is so undervalued in this industry. Fortunately it is getting better, PDF prices are going up, and creator pay is gradually increasing in its interminably slow goal of a living wage. The content is the valuable thing, not the cheap-ass paper.


I don’t know what that means.

Plus “publishers” isn’t a monoculture any more than “customers” is. I’ve never licensed my books to my customers.

That’s an entirely different topic.

No. EN Publishing, as far as I have seen, does not state that you are buying a license to use the PDF.

For eBooks, Amazon clearly states that you are only buying a license to read the book. They can update or remove the book at any time. You used to be able to download an archived version of the book to manually add to your kindle in offline mode. They took that option away and have made further moves to restrict reading the licensed copy only on their kindle.

Many publishers and platforms have moved to this model of selling a revocable license to the content. In this manner, the buyer does not own the purchase and it can be removed or modified at any time.

This lessens the perceived value of a digital item. If someone does not own a copy, then they value it less.

Heck, it is illegal to pass my Steam, D&D Beyond, Fandango/Vudu, or Drivethrurpg accounts on the my kids when I die. It makes it so that none of that content is a transferable asset so property to lost value. It makes it difficult to see digital assets as equally valuable to physical ones.