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Amazon Reluctantly Agrees to Higher eBook Pricing

9.99 was losing money

It's been said that amazon loses money on each 9.99 book. If that's true then they must really like being forced to now make a profit.

I can see where amazon would naturally want to spin this as a reluctant seller of books, instead of the massively powerful book seller that they are.

There has to be more profit from ebooks, you don't have to print, ship, store them and that's gotta add some bucks.

Note that I'm a happy kindle (DX) owner and have purchased many 9.99 books but very few over that. (from Amazon).

I have paid more for ebooks from Manning and read them on the kindle but it's not a very fun experience. Even the DX doesn't do pdf rendering very well (at least from a technical book perspective).
 
blindzero said:
I buy quite a few books (admittedly mostly used/second hand) but most sellers discount new books 20-40%. While it may say $27 on the cover, people are not accustomed to paying that because of the deep discounts at BN/Walmart/Borders/Costco/Amazon etc.
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And that quest for lower and lower pricing has pushed a lot of the large scale printing out to China and Mexico. It is also pushing the production to India. Why should you care when you get a good deal? Because it is putting people out of work in this country and putting a downward price pressure on the wages for the jobs that do remain. This lowers the number of jobs here, which means that those that do have jobs will eventually have to pay higher taxes and results in less expendable money in our economy for consumer spending which is the driving force behind our economy today. It also decreases our wealth as a country as more and more of our money goes overseas to pay for the work.

Personally I don't mind paying $10-15 for a book if it will keep jobs here in the US. Having been a designer in Educational Publishing I know what goes into producing a book, they don't write themselves and you don't just drop a text file into a program and have a book ready to print complete with pictures and illustrations in 5 minutes. Of course there is no guarantee that even with a higher price the that this will create or save jobs in the US and that the desire for profit and low price will continue to push the jobs overseas.

On a side note, it amazes me that people in the US just accept that they will be charged twice what the rest of the world pays for drugs but can be so up in arms about not getting the deal they expect on e-books. If you were half as outraged about being overcharged for drugs as you are about this then maybe the politicians would do something about it, and that would be a good first step in bringing down the cost of health insurance in this country without a single new government program.
 
I don't see why so many agree with this increase. It isn't like the cost to create and distribute e-books has increased, this is just straight profit gain.
 
Peace said:
All books Apple sells will be/are in the ePub format. The same as Amazons.

It's a standard.

Something other companies don't like. Standards.
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Amazon doesn't sell ePub. It's one of the reasons I refuse to buy a Kindle.
 
bassism said:
As a side note, has the entire world forgotten that up until a few short years ago Apple sold a personal computer called the ibook? I can't be the only one who thinks of a shiny white room filled with shiny white computers when I say that word....
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There's nothing new called "iBook". There is only the iBookstore.
 
I love this

Suddenly everyone has an opinion about an interaction between two corporations. Oh, ebooks are too much. Or they are too cheap. Or the authors deserve more money.

One nice thing about the free market is that I don't have to care or have some half-baked opinion about these things. I am pretty sure the only opinion I need to form, is whether or not I want to pay the price for some book. I find it so interesting that so many people who have no idea about any of this (certainly me the least of all) feel strongly that Amazon or Apple or MacMillin is right or wrong because ebooks cost nothing to make, or apparently near nothing, or that they are greedy corporations and just trying to screw us. And no offense to the few here who are in this market and actually have informed opinions - by all means I am curious how these things work.

I can understand if you buy alot of books being disappointed by price increases. Heck, I am ticked every time my taxes go up, the price of bananas rise, or I need to go the mechanic. But that does not give me any insight into the price structure or what it should be.

Let the market work. If the books are too expensive, they will get cheaper or not sold. Maybe they will sell so awesome that prices will rise? We shall see.
 
jerome65 said:
Personally I don't mind paying $10-15 for a book if it will keep jobs here in the US. Having been a designer in Educational Publishing I know what goes into producing a book, they don't write themselves and you don't just drop a text file into a program and have a book ready to print complete with pictures and illustrations in 5 minutes. Of course there is no guarantee that even with a higher price the that this will create or save jobs in the US and that the desire for profit and low price will continue to push the jobs overseas.
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While I of course understand the need to keep jobs in US, charging $15 vs $10 for a digital copy is not going to save jobs anywhere (except it may slow the move to digital). Distributing a digital copy has relatively no cost compared to the production/distribution of a book and the move to digital affects jobs negatively in a larger way. While profits will be up at publishers (and will hopefully get to their workers and authors) I imagine many more jobs will be affected at book distributor, shipping and especially retail level (which is hurt the most by the deep discount fight). Ultimately it's going to move to a majority of digital but how fast is the big question. I don't think $15 will catch on.

But Educational Books will be amazing in Digital Form if there can be annotations/highlighting etc. Students the world over would snap that up and I would easily pay hardcover prices for them.

Bestsellers though? 95% of them are slapped together with a generic typeface, flimsy cloth etc. $30 bucks in the store for those is insane especially if they are outsourcing printing as well (I did not realize this).
 
Book Pricing etc

Here is the problem - not EVERY book costs the same in print - and this is reflected at physical bookstores. To put a $9.99 cap on every book is decent for the consumers but terrible for the publishers. It's not quite like music where usually albums have the same content, length etc. A 600 page book really is different than a 150 page book. You can get classic books at some place like barnes and noble for 6 bucks (I bought Walden) but a new hardcover (bill simmons book of basketball- 700 something pages) cost me 35. I was fine with that and would pay 14.99 for it e format. They still are and have to put them out in print form too. Some people like only the physical part of a book. Libraries are physically awesome.

I guess I'm saying the price range for amazon e-books 4.99-9.99 does not reflect the spread for books in the physical. And publishers will and should be able to set their prices within reason.

Also, the people who ACTUALLY still read books are probably not the ones who are going to be downloading them illegally.
 
nick9191 said:
It's in colour, can play videos within the book, and you can read it in the dark.

Looks like a better reading experience to me.
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If you are reading paperback novels, couldn't care less about video in a book, and can operate a light switch, none of those things are of any benefit.
 
jimbobb24 said:
...And no offense to the few here who are in this market and actually have informed opinions - by all means I am curious how these things work....
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An automotive text book I worked on in 1998-1999, two volume with workbooks, transparencies, and teachers materials our internal staff was:

4 editors full time
1 designer full time
4 production artist full time
3 art researchers full time
2 proof readers full time
1 copy editor full time

support staff

Outsourced cleaning up, coloring, and creation of over 1500 illustrations
Purchase of rights to, or hiring a photographer for over 1000 photographs

Staffed by the publisher:
3 editors full time
about 12 writers (I forget the exact number)
about 16 technical reviewers

In 2005 the books was revised and our staff for that was:
1 editor full time
1 art researcher full time
4 designers full time (we did production in the design department)

I believe that the revision took about 4-5 months as I recall. The publisher had 2 editors on staff full time, not sure how many writers for the new material.
 
disconsolator said:
Here is the problem - not EVERY book costs the same in print - and this is reflected at physical bookstores. To put a $9.99 cap on every book is decent for the consumers but terrible for the publishers. It's not quite like music where usually albums have the same content, length etc. A 600 page book really is different than a 150 page book.
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That's a good point. Publishers really shouldn't have to do 9.99 maximum. I assumed Publishers could go higher. They should be able to charge what they want to charge and make it more of a market. I just don't want to see Apple forcing publishers into charging MORE than they want for digital books.

I was under the impression Apple was getting people to move all of the prices up to help offset the "apple tax" of 30%.
 
Another example from one I did for a division of National Geographic:

1 editor
1 proof reader
1 designer
1 illustrator
2 production artists
1 art researcher
1 project manager

project time approximately 6 months from design concept to deliver of electronic files.

The publisher had 3 people on the project full time, not sure how many writers since they supplied the manuscript.

And something to remember, but the time the project came to me there was usually 2-3 months of work already completed and as much as 2 years planning done on the project. There is also marketing research done at the publishers, which includes at least one round of focus testing, but for a major text book you are likely to see at least 2 focus test held.

Another figure that to throw out there, the figure that I have heard for printing and delivery makes up approximately 30% of the cost of the book.
 
While it may be possible to compose a song in a sitting, drafting a book usually takes months or years.
 
blindzero said:
That's a good point. Publishers really shouldn't have to do 9.99 maximum. I assumed Publishers could go higher. They should be able to charge what they want to charge and make it more of a market. I just don't want to see Apple forcing publishers into charging MORE than they want for digital books.

I was under the impression Apple was getting people to move all of the prices up to help offset the "apple tax" of 30%.
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The impression that I got was just that Apple is letting publishers sell at whatever price they feel is fair rather than telling them they need to hit 9.99. And the "Apple Tax" at 30% certainly sounds nicer than the "Adobe Tax" at 65%.
 
Apple screws us over once again

very simple..
since apple became main stream they are trying to bring the business model to every aspect of our life, the model ?
we will give you a nice easy to use product but we will make you pay through the nose..
when i buy any thing i usually download a pirate version or trial depending on the item, if i see that the item is delivering at a reasonable price i buy it

its hard to believe that some people in here (connected to publishing industry) want us to believe that a digital copy cost as much as a printed one, this mentality of NOT passing the saving to us is the real reason i would never BUY an E-book, why should i ? i buy a paper book ,once i am done ill sell it or trade it, or even buy a used version and then even re-sell that lol, it is even better when its a text book because they are easy to move , actually this over pricing of text books generated an underground trades in and around campuses, selling photocopied books...piracy only thrives when consumers feel that they are not getting a value,

honestly i never buy anything except apps from them, the only reason i reversed the jail break on my iphone was that i have a 3G phone which is still slow for jail break, but trust me i will be freeing my self from them once i have my 4G
 
jerome65 said:
And that quest for lower and lower pricing has pushed a lot of the large scale printing out to China and Mexico. It is also pushing the production to India. Why should you care when you get a good deal? Because it is putting people out of work in this country and putting a downward price pressure on the wages for the jobs that do remain. This lowers the number of jobs here, which means that those that do have jobs will eventually have to pay higher taxes and results in less expendable money in our economy for consumer spending which is the driving force behind our economy today. It also decreases our wealth as a country as more and more of our money goes overseas to pay for the work.

Personally I don't mind paying $10-15 for a book if it will keep jobs here in the US. Having been a designer in Educational Publishing I know what goes into producing a book, they don't write themselves and you don't just drop a text file into a program and have a book ready to print complete with pictures and illustrations in 5 minutes. Of course there is no guarantee that even with a higher price the that this will create or save jobs in the US and that the desire for profit and low price will continue to push the jobs overseas.

On a side note, it amazes me that people in the US just accept that they will be charged twice what the rest of the world pays for drugs but can be so up in arms about not getting the deal they expect on e-books. If you were half as outraged about being overcharged for drugs as you are about this then maybe the politicians would do something about it, and that would be a good first step in bringing down the cost of health insurance in this country without a single new government program.
Click to expand...

listen if the money they save will be actually passed as more jobs or better quality of production , then hey i am up for that
but dont tell me that selling ebooks at a higher cost is actually good for the economy !! the money they save in ebook were actually saved from not having people in printing and distribution, which mean that it augmented the profit margin for the company not for the employees or the consumer
the opposite is true , moving to digital and encouraging it, helps the local economy, since most printing is done in china and mexico it is them who looses when ebooks are the norm, also means that books produced in the USA will only profit people in the USA since no portions will be outsourced

another good point, ebook is the solution for small publishers , or even better you can publish your own book and sell it in an APP store style, may be this fear that actually pushed them to higher the price , aiming to restrain the popularity of ebooks ,,who knows !! when you hear any thing in the news ask your self about the profit angle ??
 
If Competitor A states they will do price X and then Competitor B puts prices up to X too does this (if any communication is shown) count as price fixing?

So much for competition being better for the end user!
 
macsimcon said:
There's a case on point: Timothy S. Vernor v. Autodesk Inc., in which a reseller was sued for reselling software. The judge ruled against Autodesk. We are allowed under copyright law to resell digital assets.
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Ah thanks for that, I'd skimmed the Wiki article and obviously not paid enough attention. Apologies for misinformation.

As it goes, it looks like it's an area of confusion that really needs a good solid yes or no written into law. It's fortunate that courts are siding with the consumer in most of these cases, but it looks like it gets a bit more complicated when people - subject to court interpretation - click their rights away when a EULA is displayed (and who actually reads those?)

Currently it's a non-issue anyway since there's no real market or system for trading second-hand tracks off iTunes or eventually eBooks (that I've ever seen) but with digital content becoming this expensive I think it'll soon need looking at.

bassism said:
Ultimately, in my opinion an ebook is a different sort of product than a physical book. It comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. I think that if you're buying an ebook, you're buying it because you want an ebook. It doesn't necessarily need to be considered a 'lesser form of book lacking in tangibility.'
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I see what you're saying here, with them being different products with their own value. This makes logical sense when considering the basic capitalism principle of prices being set by the maximum that the most optimum number people are willing to pay (i.e. profit maximisation).

Still I think it comes across as irritating to consumers since, as has been mentioned, they're not passing on the savings they're making by selling digitally. As you allude to, there are of course bandwidth costs, and off the top of my head things like SSL certificate fees - so eBooks certainly do have a cost associated with production and distribution. But I should think this is a lot less than printing a paper book and keeping it on a shelf in a heated and staffed store)

Generally it's all down to the consumer's interpretation, and I guess if people are willing to pay that much then publishers are certainly not going to drop prices just to be 'nice' :) Not unless the 'optimum number of people willing to pay that much' shifts to a lower price point, which can only really be done by voting (either way) with our wallets.


And yes, I'd completely forgotten that the Macbook used to be called the iBook, funnily enough :)
 
theshirko said:
listen if the money they save will be actually passed as more jobs or better quality of production , then hey i am up for that
but dont tell me that selling ebooks at a higher cost is actually good for the economy !! the money they save in ebook were actually saved from not having people in printing and distribution, which mean that it augmented the profit margin for the company not for the employees or the consumer
the opposite is true , moving to digital and encouraging it, helps the local economy, since most printing is done in china and mexico it is them who looses when ebooks are the norm, also means that books produced in the USA will only profit people in the USA since no portions will be outsourced

another good point, ebook is the solution for small publishers , or even better you can publish your own book and sell it in an APP store style, may be this fear that actually pushed them to higher the price , aiming to restrain the popularity of ebooks ,,who knows !! when you hear any thing in the news ask your self about the profit angle ??
Click to expand...
A lot of the digital production, ie laying out the pages, has been moving to India over the past 10 years due to price pressures from the publishers. Per page price during that time that the venders get from the publishers is about 1/3rd what it was about 10 years ago, at least for textbook publishing. What we need is a way to bring those jobs back to our shores. A higher profit margin for the publishers is not going to do that by itself, but it does make it more possible especially if it is coupled with a bit of consumer outrage over outsourcing the work to another country.

I guess my main point is that the constant downward price pressure on products that we make here has hurt our economy. It has pushed jobs overseas to be able to meet the demands of retailers like Wallmart and Amazon. In a lot of cases those jobs have not been replaced, just look at the unemployment numbers and the trade deficit and you should be able to realize that it has affected our economy, and is likely to slow the recovery since as the economy picks up there will be fewer jobs created here to meet the demand and more overseas.
 
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