Has anybody else noticed that the price of a Kindle book has shot into the stratosphere of late? In many cases these e-books are nearly as expensive as the printed versions—which have also risen a lot? I can understand the cost of a print book rising, due to the international economic difficulties caused mainly by Covid. But why are the Kindle prices also badly affected? This seems to be the case, even if the books aren't recently published. I mean ...I'm happy to pay as much as £4-£5 pounds for a good Kindle edition of a novel I've not read yet (and may or may not be worth buying) but when the Kindle price shoots up to around £10-£15, I will just not buy it. What am I missing?
Well, like they say, you charge as much as the market will bear. So if people are willing to pay that much....
I thought it was because they were pushing the audiobook with it as a 'package'. If that's what is happening, no thank you. I'll just pay 5.99 for the paperback instead of an extra $9 for an audiobook I may never listen to. Part of their logic may be that consumers are more willing to pay higher prices for ebooks because there is no shipping cost. But that's like charging people for every email because it's still cheaper than the latest postage rates. Obviously there is some cost of infrastructure, etc., but the ebook prices I'm seeing seem too high relative to print prices to explain that.
I haven't noticed but I lately only read self published books through KU. Their buy prices are usually around 3.99-4.99. Is the price increase a trade pub thing?
the full answer is complex and will take a lot of clicking and research, but if you want to know the answer, start your clicking journey right here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/27/amazon-hachette-ebooks-profits-jk-rowling-james-patterson ebooks used to be cheaper. and publishers made decent money on them. and the royalty share for authors on ebooks was great. and then, Amazon decided they didn't like that arrangement.
That's not what I wanted to hear ...grrr ...but thanks. Damn. It's an old article, though. (6 years old.) And the prices have shot up on ordinary Kindle books ...NOT those from best selling authors ...fairly recently. I think there must be something else going on as well. But this article probably points in the right direction.
the roots are *deep.* and honestly it goes deeper even than that. but the more recent rise in ebook price is probably symptomatic of the massive effects of COVID-19 on all book publishers but especially north american book publishers. brace yourselves, because the price of paper books is going UP. I'm surprised they haven't already.
tbh i'm not seeing much change in kindle price in the indie/self pub sphere... it seems fairly static at £3.99 to £4.99 for a novel and 99p to £1.99 for a novella... there has been a move away from free and 99p loss leads as they just fill your list with leeches Trad pub have never understood the ebook market and spend acres of time denigrating it and pretending it is collapsing when it isnt.... in a lot of cases they price the ebok the same as the paperback knowing this will drive people to buy the paperback where they royalty gouge authors and perpetuate the false narrative that ebook i market share is falling
