Comments on: Kindle Pricing So Low that Amazon Is No Longer Discounting Paperbacks?

By: MoJo

MoJo — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:07:59 +0000

Re: Kindle/early adopters

I tend to agree with Mr. Wikert. The Kindle is too proprietary for the price. If you can *only* get your ebooks from Amazon in Kindle, you’re missing a lot of other ebooks from other sources. Of course, they have their conversion service and possible Mobi compatibility, but then add DRM on top of it and, well, no.

I personally spent $150-whatever for the eBookWise because it’s so dang versatile with regard to format AND reasonably priced to boot. I also got the eBook Librarian to do conversions of my own documents. Do I miss that I can’t buy ebooks from Amazon without a bunch of rigmarole? No. They’re not even a blip on my radar.

By: Read

Read — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:12:12 +0000

I agree. It has to be less expensive. That’s just too much. But also agree with the above that this is not just about business readers. I think the world is ready for a light, inexpensive reader that they can take to the park, on an airplane in the car and just throw it in their backpack without worrying about it breaking. I mean, you are not going to break a book. But when you pay $399 for an electronic device, you are going to be a little careful about it. Right there, some of the experience goes away.

Keep at it Amazon. You almost have it right.

By: Joe Wikert

Joe Wikert — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:18:09 +0000

Hi Jane. Yes, I’m well aware of Harlequin’s history with e-books. I’ve seen them referred to elsewhere as a leader and I would tend to agree. But, how much money does the typical Harlequin reader spend on dedicated e-book hardware? My guess is not much. There are exceptions and you’re probably a great example of that.

Btw, I don’t think Amazon has built Kindle just for the business reader, techies, etc., as you note. Amazon is definitely looking for the mass market…but they won’t get there with a $399 device. As prices come down you’ll no doubt see a broader adoption by the mass market, of course.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:51:26 +0000

I think that a) i am the wrong person to ask since I bought the Iphone the day it came out and the Sony Reader as well and b) that you might be asking the wrong question and that is who is the Kindle intended for?

Do you know who is probably the most progressive epublisher in the market? Harlequin. They release every book, all 120-140 of them each month, in ebook format. I read somewhere that the sales of digital books for Harlequin has not yet reached even 1% but Harlequin seems to believe that the market for ebooks is not the early adopter but the voracious reader.

If the Kindle and thus, Amazon’s success, rests solely on the shoulders of business individuals, techies and the like, I don’t see it going mainstream.

Certainly that isn’t the market Harlequin is aiming for and it is not the market that makes epublishers like Samhain successful either.

By: Joe Wikert

Joe Wikert — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:32:27 +0000

Hi Jane. Thanks for the complement about my blog. Perhaps I didn’t do a good job stating my point in this earlier comment. Let me ask it this way: How many fans of romance genre books are also out there buying the latest technology gadget? How many of them bought the original Tivo in the first 6 months? How many absolutely *must* have the latest computer hardware or operating system? These are the early adopters of technology that I’m talking about.

Most of the folks I see jumping on the latest technology item don’t seem to fit the romance book audience. I don’t mean to speak in absolutes with this, btw, as there are definitely exceptions, but I think the typical technology early adopter is a very small percentage of the romance book buying crowd.

Without sounding too sexist, I see the people in line for the new gadgets and they’re typically men. (Again, there are plenty of exceptions but gadget freaks tend to be male.) On the other hand, it appears that the romance book buyer is typically female. (Once again, there are exceptions, of course.)

Does that help clarify things or have I dug an even deeper hole for myself?

Joe Wikert
Publishing 2020 Blog
http://www.joewikert.com

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:24:17 +0000

Mr. Wickert - I have much respect for your online voice at your blog but this statement has raised my brows:

Based on the $399 price point it’s clear Amazon is just trying to sell this product (initially) to early adopters who don’t mind paying a hefty premium. That doesn’t sound like the person shopping for a $5.99 mass paperback.

The lifeblood of the romance genre is exactly the person who shops for the $5.99 mass market paperback and that is exactly the type of person who will make the ereading market successful.

The bestselling books in the ebook market are not hardcovers in the non fiction, business area. They are romance books that sell for $7.99 and less.

By: Joe Wikert

Joe Wikert — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:17:00 +0000

A quick check of BN.com shows that they’re selling those four books listed in the original post for the same price as Amazon. You can get a discount if you’re a “B&N Member”, but membership is not free. My guess is the same deal applies to the brick-and-mortar stores, so while there’s no discount now for buying these books on Amazon, it’s not like you’re getting a better deal somewhere else.

I also doubt there’s a correlation between this discounting change and the release of the Kindle. Based on the $399 price point it’s clear Amazon is just trying to sell this product (initially) to early adopters who don’t mind paying a hefty premium. That doesn’t sound like the person shopping for a $5.99 mass paperback.

Amazon is pretty smart when it comes to discounts and programs like this. They never do anything arbitrary. My guess is they studied a *lot* of data before making this change. Further, if the results aren’t what they expect you can bet they’ll make additional tweaks to their discounting.

For the record, although I do *not* work at Amazon I *am* involved in the publishing industry.

Joe Wikert
Publishing 2020 Blog
http://www.joewikert.com

By: Stephen Windwalker

Stephen Windwalker — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:20:40 +0000

Amazon mass market paperbacks have been priced at full retail for over a year now.

By: Claudia

Claudia — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:16:25 +0000

I remember mass market Amazon discounts years ago. I bought all my books online then and spent mucho money on category romances in particular. I even had spreadsheets counting pennies saved by buying certain books from Amazon vs Books a Million. The discount was especially useful because many publishers didn’t have e-stores then and my favorite local bookstore didn’t carry romances.

Amazon let’s you view your entire order history, but the info doesn’t include list vs. Amazon prices and out print books don’t contain pricing information when you look at them now. Still, I can tell which books were discounted because the cent amounts vary from the usual .95/.99 list prices.

My return to “brick and mortars” happened immediately after Amazon’s mass market discounts disappeared. Crown discounted all books in local stores then and BN and Waldenbooks often had competing paperback promotions.

It’s currently cheaper to use 20%-35% coupons at Borders, especially if one isn’t an Amazon Prime member or doesn’t want to use the free, slower shipping . I sometimes see Amazon mass market discounts for new releases in popular series or or the latest “it” book, but nothing otherwise.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:49:44 +0000

I don’t understand why so many people are having conflicting reports on the Amazon discount. I know that I have received it multiple times. I wonder why it would show up for some but not for others?… Thanks for the info Jane. The only real selling point that Amazon had for me was the discounts. I guess I’ll have to browse around and find a place with a better price now.