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Are you seriously paying more than $10 for an e-book?

Gotcha. Like I said, I wasn't sure if I was misunderstanding you or not. I work late, and sometimes don't get to read over here until quite late.

Sometimes, TOO late at night, perhaps. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to clarify. =)
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Gotcha. Like I said, I wasn't sure if I was misunderstanding you or not. I work late, and sometimes don't get to read over here until quite late.

Sometimes, TOO late at night, perhaps. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to clarify. =)

Happens to me all the time, particularly if it is too early. I was posting in a pre-caffeinated state, so my post may have been a little rough. Sorry. Late, I'm good with. Early is another matter entirely.
 

boboratory

Minstrel
Lemme circle back around on this a little, I wasn't necessarily looking to open a discussion on rights and piracy (which is a cool discussion to have, don't get me wrong), but more or less what readers feel an appropriate price for an e-book is? Pricing appears to be all over the map, with many self-published authors and small presses using price to try and drive interest in their work.

Is a $14.99 e-book a comfortable price to pay for any author?

If you are self publishing electronically, how do you set your price?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Is a $14.99 e-book a comfortable price to pay for any author?

If you are self publishing electronically, how do you set your price?

The way I see it, I'm paying for the story, especially if it's a flimsy cheap paperback which I consider to be just packaging, like the plastic when you buy a bottle of soap. If I care about the actual physical book for my bookshelf, I'll buy a nicer copy such as a hardcover.

If an ebook is priced the same as the flimsy cheap paperback, I'd consider them on par with one another in that the only thing there worth paying for is the contents. In that case, truth be told, the ebook is genuinely more valuable to me.
 
As a reader, I start to chafe at books over $10. My favorite authors, I'll go over that for (e.g. if A Dance with Dragons had been $15 ebook, I would have gladly paid it). Lesser-known things, I'm less inclined to shell out for; if I haven't been anticipating it, then it makes no difference to me whether I ever read it or not, and so if it's more than around $6-8 (depending on my mood and how fat my bank account is at the moment) it may be a no-go.
 
For my self published works I set the price for most of my books at $4.95 - being just under $5 I wanted to offer a "deal" from most of the books sold through the major pressess who at the time seemed to be useing $6.99 - $9.99.

The big-six publisher I'm with has set the price at $9.99 but considering they have 2 books per each volume the ebook price is essentially the same.

When I'm interested in something and it is $10 or less I buy it. Books that are $0.99 or $2.99 worry me from a potential quality perspective so I do a lot of research (look at reviews and # of reviews etc). Books at $12.99 and $14.99 I'll be more selective on.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I guess I'm of the type who chafes at paying the same for an ebook as a physical book. I love my Kindle, but for the same price I'd rather just have the physical book on the shelf (though shelf space is at a premium at my house). I don't think I've paid more than $5 for an ebook ever.
 

Shadoe

Sage
I'll pay the same for a Kindle book that I would pay for a print book. Which is to say, I would normally wait for the paperback to come out. I buy a few authors the moment they hit the shelves - another advantage of ebooks. Most of them, though, I'll wait for the paperback price to come out. I'll probably never buy another print book again. I've got about 3000 books at home, which I have not seen for two years. But I can fit my whole library on my computer, and keep most of the books on the Kindle and take it with me wherever I go. No more buying a new copy of each book for every city! I'm quite pleased to say I've only bought one book in Wisconsin, and only that because there wasn't a Kindle version. And I think, for the first time, I'll be able to fit everything in the Caddie for the trip home. That alone is worth the price of the pixels to me.
 
While I don't plan on moving anytime soon - ebooks are definitely going to make my next move easier. The number of boxes to move my library in the past has been more than back-breaking and I find myself "pruning" with each impeding move.
 

Shadoe

Sage
While I don't plan on moving anytime soon - ebooks are definitely going to make my next move easier. The number of boxes to move my library in the past has been more than back-breaking and I find myself "pruning" with each impeding move.
The last time I had relatives help me move, they told me not to call them again. My last moving company wouldn't even give me their card. :) And my mother-in-law called me a few weeks ago to tell me she'd emptied my storage room, given away my furniture, and was going to sell my books. I think having the kindle actually saved me from a heart attack.
 

Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
When self-publishing an ebook the breakdown is

Books priced $2.99 - $9.99
  • 30% of LIST to distributor (Amazon, B&N, ibookstore)
  • 70% to author
Books priced more than $9.99 and less than $0.99
  • 65% of LIST to distributor (Amazon, B&N, ibookstore)
  • 35% to author
Which is one of the reasons that many authors that were traditionally published are switching to self-publishing.
Michael,

I was just looking at the "70% royalty option" yesterday (for Kindle Singles). Is this a true 70%, or is it 70% minus "distribution cost" based on file size?

(I'm still assuming the 70% royalty is the better deal... I was just confused by the details, which I saw for the first time last night and won't be able to look into today due to a late mandatory meeting.)



PS- "Bob the Pirate" can borrow books from "Larry the Librarian." Stealing digital content is something that we, as creators of digital content, should not take lightly.
 
If you have an e-book reader, one of the great promises of the e-book revolution was that it would reduce costs associated with printing physical books, and those costs would be passed on to the reader.

As I look at new releases in the Kindle lists, they are creeping towards $15 each. How is that passing the savings on to the consumer, to you, the reader? With the list price on paperbacks ranging between $9-$30- are you paying for an antiquated book industry infrastructure?

Surely the larger publishers haven't changed how they pay their writers (which perhaps if any of you have experience in that matter you can add your voice).

As a small, unknown publisher, the most I would expect to charge for a title at this time would be $4. Granted, author "Brand" value plays a huge part in pricing, but apparently people are willing to pay $15 for an e-book version that they could get in hard cover for $18.

Thoughts?

I agree with Ebooks and Digital Downloads of games, music and movies you should not have to pay the same or more for the item if you purchased the physical item. However by the same token you shouldn't rip off the producer of these works. IMHO you should pay around 25% - 40% less for digital products.
 
Michael,

I was just looking at the "70% royalty option" yesterday (for Kindle Singles). Is this a true 70%, or is it 70% minus "distribution cost" based on file size?

(I'm still assuming the 70% royalty is the better deal... I was just confused by the details, which I saw for the first time last night and won't be able to look into today due to a late mandatory meeting.)

Yes, it's 70% minus distribution costs. About 15 cents per megabyte, or roughly ten cents for most books.
 
I think eBook prices will only drop more and more as the market becomes saturated.

Doubtful. Remember, major publishers still need to sell books, too. I suspect that we WILL begin seeing tiers or levels of selling, though - novice self publishers in the 99 cent range, trying to break in, up through $8.99-9.99 major repeat bestsellers, whose name alone will sell several million books. Most writers will fall somewhere in the middle.
 
I think how much people are willing to pay for an ebook (or any unnecessary thing) is going to be heavily dependent on their financial situation. I understand where Bob the Pirate is coming from, because we're pretty broke too. I don't do it myself, but I understand. If I had more money, I would gladly pay more for ebooks. For me it's all about cost relative to income. $15 is much too high for me to pay compared to what we earn, but someday I hope to be in a position where it's not. Then I might spend $10 or $15 for an author I like.
 
Yeah there is a "little" distribution component but to be honest it is so small I never even think about it. My files are always very small - some use "short cut" methods to create them and they can be quite large - I suggest not to convert from Word directly but rather format with .html codes while editing in notepad.
 
Yeah there is a "little" distribution component but to be honest it is so small I never even think about it. My files are always very small - some use "short cut" methods to create them and they can be quite large - I suggest not to convert from Word directly but rather format with .html codes while editing in notepad.

I have a vim script that I use to reformat OpenOffice's HTML (which has loads of superfluous HTML attributes, though not nearly as bad as Word does it). It gets things pretty small, and doesn't require me to manually write any HTML. (Not that I can't, I've been doing that for 18 years.)
 
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