Say Goodbye to the $9.99 Kindle Book---thanks, Apple!

[alexjlopez]

Well, it never occured to me, but here it is: until the iPad was announced, Kindle had been forcing publishers to abide by it's $9.99 for a hardcover book standard. Enter Apple's evil empire: Apple will allow publishers to set their own prices, lifting the floodgates on publishers pricing their books on iTunes anywhere from $12.99 to $14.99 at their own discretion. After all, more money for the publisher means more money for Apple.

So to avoid losing big publisher Macmillan to an exclusive deal with Apple, Amazon will cave and allow Macmillan to set their own price, thereby screwing Kindle owners.

More information here.

[Chris]

Stupid Apple. Stupid stupid stupid!!!

[AdamJury]

As a publisher, the power that Amazon currently wields and may wield in the future is actually rather scary. As a consumer I'm unhappy to see higher ebook prices, but Amazon being so dominant in the book and ebook market may well cause more damage to the publishing industry: as Amazon drives book prices to the point where readers begin to think that printed books "should" be priced at only 60-70% of cover price, eventually other retailers will have to follow, which will create a situation where retailers and distributors pay publishers even less per title (and right now, it's typically less than 40% of cover price). As publisher's profits per-title shrink, so does their ability to market new authors, perform quality control, etc.

Publishing is both thrilling and terrifying right now.

[javierdlopez]

As a publisher, the power that Amazon currently wields and may wield in the future is actually rather scary. As a consumer I'm unhappy to see higher ebook prices, but Amazon being so dominant in the book and ebook market may well cause more damage to the publishing industry: as Amazon drives book prices to the point where readers begin to think that printed books "should" be priced at only 60-70% of cover price, eventually other retailers will have to follow, which will create a situation where retailers and distributors pay publishers even less per title (and right now, it's typically less than 40% of cover price). As publisher's profits per-title shrink, so does their ability to market new authors, perform quality control, etc.

Publishing is both thrilling and terrifying right now.

Yeah, but the process of manufacturing a book costs the publisher a hell of a lot more money than the royalties they pay their authors. If you're buying a digital copy, you shouldn't have to pay the same as the guy who requires a book. That's why when the same book is released in paperback a year later it doesn't cost you $20. It costs you $5, which is 75% off the price of the hardback. If publishers weren't making money selling e-books at 60-70% off the cover price, they wouldn't offer it to Amazon.

[AdamJury]

Yeah, but the process of manufacturing a book costs the publisher a hell of a lot more money than the royalties they pay their authors.

I think this is too variable to generalize with; the costs of producing the content of a book (writing, editing, artwork, technical illustrations, graphic design and production) are often more than the printing and shipping costs. When I said "market new authors" I did mean strictly that -- companies taking the chance and actually throwing money and time behind new authors, as opposed to just relying on previous solid-sellers to sell that author's next title.

Paying authors and other contributors more is an entirely different kettle of fish.

If you're buying a digital copy, you shouldn't have to pay the same as the guy who requires a book. That's why when the same book is released in paperback a year later it doesn't cost you $20. It costs you $5, which is 75% off the price of the hardback. If publishers weren't making money selling e-books at 60-70% off the cover price, they wouldn't offer it to Amazon.

When a softcover or ebook is released at a lower price then the hardcover, that's because the hardcover has already amortized a large portion -- if not all -- of the initial expenses. It's rare for anyone but the actual author to get royalties, and authors don't even get royalties in all forms of publishing ... so reprinting in paperback generally incurs fewer although not zero expenses for content (re)production.

It's the same deal as Greatest Hit-style games: the company can now sell them at $20 because they've already sold a million+ copies at $50. If the ability for publishers to make profit on new titles is reduced, their ability to keep prices of paperbacks and ebooks lower is also reduced because those two formats will have to bear more burden with regards to paying for content production.

[NE146]

People on this forum buy books for their Kindle? Whoda thunk it!

[Womp]

Books have been way overpriced for years and quite frankly the entire book selling system is so archaic these days and is stuck in the dark ages. $30 for a hardback down to $7 or 8 for a paperback? Seriously, it is a crazy ass system.

It just goes to show you how hypocritical Jobs is. He was hardcore at demanding and fought with the music industry to charge .99 cents per song and $9.99 per album and yet now with the book industry he's doing the complete and total opposite.

Hell, I think $9.99 for a eBook is still too expensive. For starters as a Kindle book format you are pretty much screwed with the fact that not only do you not even OWN the book, you also can only view it on a Kindle to begin with. The only good thing Apple did (At the very least) was use the ePub format which is widely accepted in the industry and very compatible overall on many devices and PC's. At least you have options.

Frankly? I'll stick to downloading my eBooks off of the same places I do all my other 'shady' leeching from and read them on my Droid. No worries, I own 90% of them already as actual books anyway. heh.

[siliconcowboy]

eBooks are too expensive that's for damn sure. (Although I will add the caveat that I don't think 9.99 for a new release is a pretty good deal. Once it hits paper back though that price needs to fall to lower than the price of a paperback book.)

Shouldn't you be blaming the content industry not Apple though? Sure Apple gave them the means to negotiate with Amazon. Ironic really, Amazon gave the music industry the leverage to negotiate with Apple on tiered pricing on music

Isn't competition supposed to lower prices. Oh that's right Copyright law (patent law in particular) has been twisted so long in this country that it actually does the exact opposite of what it was intended to do.

[alexjlopez]

Well, I'm not going to find some of the business books I read among the dragonlance and star trek novels the geeks online stockpile hehehe.

Paying $10 for a new release instead of $25 or $30 is a good deal--now Apple is pushing for that price to go up by as much as 50%. And who says you can only read your Kindle books on Kindle? There is a Kindle reader for PC's and even iPhones where you can access your books.

[WorknMan]

Hell, I think $9.99 for a eBook is still too expensive. For starters as a Kindle book format you are pretty much screwed with the fact that not only do you not even OWN the book, you also can only view it on a Kindle to begin with. The only good thing Apple did (At the very least) was use the ePub format which is widely accepted in the industry and very compatible overall on many devices and PC's. At least you have options.

Dude, check out the Kindle cracking thread on this forum. With that knowledge plus the Calibre app, you definitely own the book and you can load it on whatever the hell you want. Personally, I don't have issues with DRM as long as I can crack it, and I don't have to jump through a lot of hoops to do so. And I can say that Kindle ebook cracking is fairly trivial Anyway, nobody knows yet if Apple will add DRM on top of their epub books (just as they did with Fairplay DRM over AAC audio files). I find it hard to believe that publishers will let Apple sell books without DRM. Though I think if they do add DRM, it won't be long before somebody cracks that too.

Honestly, I don't mind paying the same or more for ebooks than regular books, as I can do a lot more with them. I can enlarge font sizes, copy/paste (once cracked), convert them to audiobooks, or whatever else. Even though prices may be going up because of Apple, I hope that a lot more publishers will get on board because of it.

Do you hear what I'm saying? I never want to own another physical book for the rest of my life. But then again, I'm half-blind, so I'm biased lol