Of course, it isn’t really lending if more than one person has a copy, right?

Maybe if the extra pricing were better marketed as ‘instant delivery’ advantage that would help. However, right now it feels like price gouging, and I could see book piracy taking off if the pricing structure doesn’t change.

When my husband had it happen to him, they stole $2k out of his checking and it took a couple days to fix. That’s a couple days of no money. The hassle of closing accounts and re-establishing direct deposits/automatic deductions was another PITA.

Honestly, if I can’t use a credit card, I walk. One quick call to a credit card company, and unauthorized charges go *poof*. Try that with Paypal.

It is an industry that is sorely lacking customer service, isn't it?

I think that’s because publishers don’t see readers as their customers. The publishers’ customers are stores — Amazon, B&N, Borders, Walmart, et al. As long as retailers are happy, the publishers are satisfied.

In general, I know – and have been told repeatedly by Amazon – that the ebook prices are set by the publishers. However, there NEEDS TO BE a feedback mechanism for these publishers to hear that they are NOT pricing their ebooks correctly. I remember last weeks post about typos and errors in books – I will tell you, even though the publishers insist that the ebooks are proofread and set, and therefore is why they cost as much as a paperback book, they flatly do not do this.

Earlier in the year, Penguin books had a HUGE issue with their book conversions to Kindle edition. They sold these hugely poorly typeset books to Amazon WITHOUT REVIEWING THE KINDLE EDITION. If you are trying to justify why you’re trying to make me as an ebook consumer pay more for a book, at least PRETEND to do what you say you’re doing. It took more than 7 months and multiple emails to a special “ebooks” Publisher at Penguin AND “Executive Customer Relations” at Amazon to get my issue resolved. SEVEN MONTHS!!!!

I just don’t get it. Ugh. UUUUUGH.

Even $9.99 is a ludicrously high price for an electronic novel IMO. I won’t pay it, and it angers me when a publisher thinks I’m that stupid. (Or even moreso, in the case of publishers like St. Martin’s which charge more.) Amazon breaks its corporate arm patting itself on the back over its $9.99 pricing for e-books. If it’s lower than what the publishers are charging, then they get a brownie point for that. It’s still ridiculously high, though, and I deduct a whole handful of brownie points for that. Then I go buy my e-books elsewhere. Or in cases where the electronic format of a given book is always too high no matter where you shop, I buy the (cheaper) paperback version, or just do without. There are already more interesting books out there than I’ll ever have time to read in my lifetime; it’s not like I’m begging for reading material.

Angie

It was very frustrating to me, and I was NOT happy about the whole pricing/format fiasco I had to wade through, especially because I ended up reading it at the bookstore instead of buying my own copy.

On another note, EC is shooting themselves in the foot over this one: how pissed will all the people the purchased the ebook at the other vendors be when they see that it’s priced so much lower at the EC website?? Or are they betting that those people will blame the distributors instead of EC?

As for where the “blame” goes–I go for the retailers, first, because they do ask for discounts that I’m just not sure are justified. Brick and mortar distributors/retailers have to warehouse and ship stock that takes up physical space. I’ll give them the need for a discount to run their business, but honestly, 50-60% isn’t that discount.

If it’s a traditional press releasing a digital edition, then I’m more likely to set a little more blame on the publisher. The commenter upthread, @Emily Ryan-Davis, brought up a very interesting point about ebooks versus digital editions. I’m more likely to blame a publisher of a digital edition for inflated pricing if only because of the shenanigans the NY publishers have been engaged in surrounding e-rights, e-pricing, and their lack of demonstrative understanding of digital commerce overall.

Small and digital-only presses don’t have the kind of pull that a large conglomerate with huge names does on a retailer, and big houses don’t seem as motivated to provide digital editions to customers as smaller presses, so I’m put in the position of assuming the pricing is either passive-aggressive foot-dragging, or a sincere and complete ignorance about the way the digital distribution of reading content works at present.

There is also a problem for merchants with chargebacks from Paypal accounts. Chargebacks made to credit cards used to fund paypal purchases (and I wouldn’t advise anyone to used a bank direct debit card or current paypal account to pay for intangible items–or tangible for that matter– bought with Paypal) are not vigorously defended by Paypal. It’s wickedly easy to claim a chargeback on a internet purchase, especially when there is no evidence of physical delivery and the merchant ends up losing the money.

I’ve had a Paypal account since 2000 but only use it for eBay. I also used to sell on eBay and can say that I never had a problem with Paypal as either a buyer or a seller but a lot people have if the people at http://www.paypalsucks.com can be believed.

It's usually really tiny epubs that don't use it. I'm just not that trusting to give away all my info to a bunch of tiny epubs. So that is a deterrent for me to buy an author's books.

Agreed. I tried to buy two books from one epub (I can’t remember their name… it has ‘amber’) and the only payment options were Visa, Amex and Mastercard. They has an explanation in their FAQ that they don’t use Paypal because it has the power to freeze and clean out customers’ Paypal accounts, which I thought was peculiar because I used Paypal for well over a decade and never had this problem.

Still, said epub wouldn’t offer other payment methods so I didn’t bother because like you, there’s no way I’d offer the cc details to online retailers I don’t know well nor use frequently.

@Anne Douglas

So while I totally understand your frustration with no PayPal (I use it online all the time & get frustrated when people refuse to), it's not the fault of the ePublisher, they are only obeying PayPal's rules.

It is true that it’s not their fault, but surely they could find another way? Until then, they lose.

I've always assumed it was the vendor jacking up the price.

The vendor doesn’t have to jack up the price–in fact, they often undersell publishers. Most other forms of retail has a mark-up of 100%, give or take, over wholesale. That mark-up covers things like shipping, storage, clearance discounts for overstock, customer sevice personel, etc. Those costs are a lot less (or nonexistent) for ebooks, yet the mark-up is often more like 200%–they get that $5.95 list price book for $2.08. If they’re really greedy, they’ll have it in their contract that the publisher can’t offer the same book for less than the retailer does. And even if the retailer doesn’t sell the book for less than list price, they can use that almost 200% mark-up and their low overhead to offer all kinds of rewards programs that draw business from publisher sites to their own sites.

My own books are almost always available for less at etailer sites than Samhain’s site. I make 30% instead of 40 per copy sold on, say, Amazon, and my publisher gets a paltry 5% of list price for each sale. Yes, the publisher that put in all the hours and dollars for editing, marketing, cover art, ISBN numbers, etc–the publisher that invested the time and money to produce the book–makes 1/6th what I do on every book sold through Amazon. They earn 1/12th selling through Amazon compared to what they would earn on the same title sold through their own store.

HOW IS THAT RIGHT??!!

My only consolation is that people who want DRM-free books will go to the publishers. I thought it was insane that LSI puts DRM on epublishers’ titles for sale through etailers, but now I’m realizing it’s probably the only thing keeping epublishers afloat. Sad.

I blame the publisher for book pricing.

It IS short-sighted but EC isn’t exactly known for their business acumen.

Was there not an ePublisher that had it all go to hell in a handbasket with paypal over that?

Well, the thing is, most of the big epubs and many smaller ones do have paypal. They carry the same kind of erotic content as some that don’t. So I don’t get it many times.

Did all of them have to fight with paypal to deal with them? I’m not asking in a facetious way, just curious.

It’s usually really tiny epubs that don’t use it. I’m just not that trusting to give away all my info to a bunch of tiny epubs. So that is a deterrent for me to buy an author’s books.

Even more frustrating then the price of e-books is the number of books coming out in either hardcover or trade paperback and then, eventually coming out in regular paperback. (I’ve also seen a few come out in Hardcover than trade then MMP – what’s with that – ripping off the public????) I’m getting more books at the library now which means the author is losing out on royalties. I’m ranting here I know but with the economy the way it is publishers should sit back and take another look at the pricing formats.

Hard cover and trade size books take up more room – I have a limited amount of space for my “keepers” so prefer MMP’s and to a limited degree, e-books.

I had a horrible time with their new website when it first went online, buggy shopping cart, incredibly slow load times, and wasn’t fond of the new graphics. I stopped shopping there for a while, but I went back and I still prefer the old graphics, but the website has been working quickly and flawlessly for me. But the front page is way too overcrowded, IMO.

I don’t really have an opinion on EC’s Kindle prices, since I don’t shop at the Kindle store. I can kinda see EC’s reasoning, but I can also see how it might piss off Kindle readers. I can only find 11 books from EC on Amazon right now, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out as they release more books.

I seem to be in the minority, but I actually prefer shopping at publisher websites for ebooks, because I find them to be much easier to browse. Vendors like Amazon, Fictionwise, and BoB can be useful if you have a specific book in mind, but if I just want to browse, I end up having to click through hundreds of pages. I wish they had better categorization. I usually only use third party vendors for ebook versions of paper books.

And I won't buy from a epub that doesn't use Paypal.

There is a reason for this and it stems back to good old pornography and adult content…and that PayPal refuses to service either of those.

Was there not an ePublisher that had it all go to hell in a handbasket with paypal over that?

***

Decided to go look it up, to check it was still prohibited. As per my payapl Acceptable use page:

Prohibited Activities:
You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:

1. violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation

2. relate to sales of (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a risk to consumer safety, (b) drug paraphernalia, (c) items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity, (d) items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime, (e) items that are considered obscene, (f) items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction, (g) certain sexually oriented materials or services, or (h) certain firearms, firearm parts or accessories, ammunition, weapons or knives

(emphasis mine)

So while I totally understand your frustration with no PayPal (I use it online all the time & get frustrated when people refuse to), it’s not the fault of the ePublisher, they are only obeying PayPal’s rules.