99 Cent eBooks

[tartysuz]

Thanks to kadymae for calling attention to this item:

Crime Writer Makes a Killing With 99 Cent E-Books

As I was discussing with baker_kitty and rpm45, the prospect of very low-priced books really challenges publishers to be clear about what they're selling.

Many readers might think that the majority cost of the book is in the physical aspects, namely the printing, materials and distribution. This leads to the notion that eBooks should be cheaper because they aren't physical. However, this completely overlooks the cost of editorial and copyediting.

Personally, I'm prepared to pay for a well-edited book, but are publishers going to be savvy enough to sell the value of these services?

Aside: The 99-cent price point is brilliant. It's the iconic price of an iTunes song.

Comments

[baker-kitty.livejournal.com]

On the topic of how books get published, and the misconceptions about the real costs, Charlie Stross has a series of blog entries where he details each step of the book publishing process.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/common-misconceptions-about-pu-1.html

[tartysuz.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link!

[librarygorilla.livejournal.com]

"Many readers might think that the majority cost of the book is in the physical aspects, namely the printing, materials and distribution."

And they're wrong. The actual physical cost of printing and shipping a book is really cheap. I always find the whole hardcover - paperback thing interesting, even without ebooks. People think what they're paying for the physical stuff, but what they're really paying for is the privilege of reading it first.

Right now, most of the ebooks on the top 100 for Kindle are a lot more expensive than .99 cents, and all the books that aren't indie books are. The number two ebook, for instance, is 12.99.

I don't think the .99 price for ebooks will stick, in the long term. I'm not even a hundred percent sure that Amazon will continue to allow it - they are trying to gently encourage people to charge between 2.99 and 9.99.

[tartysuz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this fellow has lucked into the 99 cent thing. I haven't read any of his writing, but obviously, it's good enough for people to want to write more than one. And as he says himself, the advice he's getting now is to get an agent to manage rights, permissions, etc.

Novelty is another thing he has going for him. Will the next 99-cent author be as successful? Even if Amazon doesn't impose a minimum, the phenomenon may just play itself out.

[yourlibrarian]

I thought the Guardian article on this was pretty interesting in giving the author's strategy for the decision. I think that there are probably going to be various pricing models in the future, depending on whether one is an indie author, being published by a small press, or by a major commercial firm.

[tartysuz.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to that article! There may be a whole class of writers creating a kind of neo-penny dreadful market. However, I can't imagine that there won't be various levels of prestige publishing, just as there are different cars to suite different budgets, different purposes and different aspirations.

[yourlibrarian]

I like that comparison, to the price and class levels of cars. I think you're right.