Alm Hlgh's Blog - Posts Tagged "amazon"
To Be Informed
In the spirit of sharing information with fellow writers, I thought the recent post in the Amazon Community "Voice of The Author" was worth sharing to my fellow writers. You may view the complete log in the Amazon Community "Voice of The Author". This was written under the thread: PRICING EBOOKS and by penumbrapublishing on January 16, 2011. I simply copied and pasted it here because I feel the information should be shared.
Actually I urge you to visit the thread because since I've read this earlier this morning, there has been new information posted from other authors regarding this issue. http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com...
Here Goes: (Re: Pricing eBooks)
Personally we price books lower to encourage sales. We have some books that are selling extremely well, and some that are not.
Major publishers seem to have a tendency to price their ebooks at the same price as paperbacks. Readers, however, perceive that an ebook should be cheaper because of the following: cheaper delivery (no shipping), cheaper production (no printing cost) and cheaper because 'legally' the reader cannot sell or give away the ebook. So by all reasoning, the ebook SHOULD be cheaper than the attendant print edition.
HOWEVER, the REAL issue I have with ebook pricing is AMAZON'S ARBITRARY REDUCTION OF PRICE. We have all our best-selling books priced at the base price of $2.99 to get the 70/30 royalty split (we get the 70). However, Amazon has decided that instead of earning $0.86 on each sale, they want to lower the price to $1.99 and get $1.29 on each sale while we only get 35% or $70. So the royalty earnings are switched - with Amazon making more, and we make about a third of what we are supposed to get.
And the worst part is, WE CAN'T GET THEM TO STOP IT.
They are screwing us and making more money at the same time.
Our only alternative is to PULL OUR TITLES until they quit doing this to us. Is anyone else having this problem? Please respond.
I'd like to see a CLASS-ACTION SUIT filed agains Amazon for unilaterally dictating to us what our book price will be, just so they can make more money off each of our book sales.
THIS IS FINANCIALLY RUINING US AND DRIVING OUR AUTHORS AWAY, because they assume we are doing this to them, and not Amazon!
HELP HELP HELP!!!
Actually I urge you to visit the thread because since I've read this earlier this morning, there has been new information posted from other authors regarding this issue. http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com...
Here Goes: (Re: Pricing eBooks)
Personally we price books lower to encourage sales. We have some books that are selling extremely well, and some that are not.
Major publishers seem to have a tendency to price their ebooks at the same price as paperbacks. Readers, however, perceive that an ebook should be cheaper because of the following: cheaper delivery (no shipping), cheaper production (no printing cost) and cheaper because 'legally' the reader cannot sell or give away the ebook. So by all reasoning, the ebook SHOULD be cheaper than the attendant print edition.
HOWEVER, the REAL issue I have with ebook pricing is AMAZON'S ARBITRARY REDUCTION OF PRICE. We have all our best-selling books priced at the base price of $2.99 to get the 70/30 royalty split (we get the 70). However, Amazon has decided that instead of earning $0.86 on each sale, they want to lower the price to $1.99 and get $1.29 on each sale while we only get 35% or $70. So the royalty earnings are switched - with Amazon making more, and we make about a third of what we are supposed to get.
And the worst part is, WE CAN'T GET THEM TO STOP IT.
They are screwing us and making more money at the same time.
Our only alternative is to PULL OUR TITLES until they quit doing this to us. Is anyone else having this problem? Please respond.
I'd like to see a CLASS-ACTION SUIT filed agains Amazon for unilaterally dictating to us what our book price will be, just so they can make more money off each of our book sales.
THIS IS FINANCIALLY RUINING US AND DRIVING OUR AUTHORS AWAY, because they assume we are doing this to them, and not Amazon!
HELP HELP HELP!!!
