The Question of eBook Pricing

Are the major publishers pricing ebooks too high? Are self publishing authors pricing their ebooks to high? Check out this example: $7.99 for a mass market paperback and $6.99 for the ebook editions of Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Blue Mars': a whole dollar discount.

Now the costs for conversion to digital format are a one time cost, there are no inventory, warehousing, transportation, return or remainder costs on ebooks, so why the high prices?

Go back to the example: I remember when mass market paperback books were $1.25. My mother has some mass market paperbacks that sold for .35 cents way back when. The concept of mass market was about cheap, disposable books at prices that the masses could afford. The paperback book used cheap materials and less of them to achive this economy over hard cover books. Well prices have risen over the years and now new paperbacks run $8 or more. Mass market paperbacks are no longer the inexpensive form of book that will let readers explore books by new authors at budget prices. And costs are only going to go up for print books.

It would seem that ebooks might catch on, if they were priced to really sell. Frankly, people might be more willing to try new authors if they are only risking, say $2.50 as opposed to a full freight price of $6.

I guess my conclusion is that if you are an upcoming author and the ebook edition is not selling at a higher price, try lowering the price and see if that stirs sales. That might be the thing standing in the way.

One thing to keep in mind is I am talking about fiction books here, non-fiction ebooks can and do command higher prices because of their technical knowledge.

Seth's Blog: Five years from now...

Seth's Blog: Five years from now...: "Everyone carries a device that is sort of like a laptop, but cheap and tiny"

Read Seth's entire list. Now think about this in like a member of the younger generation. Can you see growth for ebooks if this proves true?

Source via Puzzlepieces

What ePublishing Blog is About

I am far from an expert on ebooks, epublishing or self-publishing, having never published anything more than a few pamphlets. But I have an interest in this because I believe the conventional publishing industry has become concentraited into the hands of just a few huge media holding companies and that means too few new authors are getting published. All to often print publishers stick with safe, well known authors rather than expend the effort to promote a new author who might write just as well.

Also, there is the cost of conventional print books as a factor. Prices, even for mass market books have gotten high. So I would like to explore how ebooks can keep costs down.

And a third factor I would like to explore is epublishing being used to keep backlists in-print. I can see how this can be both a good and bad thing for an author depending on how this is done.

So this blog is my exploration, in near realtime, of epublishing and self publishing both by the big commercial publishers, small press and individual authors self publishing. I want to explore ideas, find what works and find resources for normal people to publish their own ebooks and POD books.