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Agency ebook pricing
I posted this in my journal a few days ago by accident. (I'd meant to post it here, and just utterly not noticed which journal I'd set it to.) So some of the phrasing here may be a couple of days outdated--these changes have officially gone live, but we haven't seen how they've affected all the ebookstores yet.
April 1, "agency pricing" went live for ebooks. This has the potential to drastically change the way ebook stores work.
Five of the "big 6" publishers have switched their ebook sales away from normal retail systems, wherein they sell to the bookstore at ~50% of retail price; the store sells the book to you at 100% retail price minus whatever discount they're pushing this week. (Random House is the one holdout, and its reasons are probably not altruistic.) The old method allowed Amazon to price bestsellers at $9.99, even when the official digital price was $20 or more, by selling at a loss to bring in customers.
Several publishers were upset at this practice, claiming it caused people to devalue books and it cut into hardcover sales.
Enter the iPad, going live soon. And the new iBookstore. And Apple's new ebook sales contract, setting ebook prices based on pbook prices and requiring that books sold in its store not be undersold at any other site. Enter the "agency" model, where the bookstore acts as "agent" to the publisher. Publisher sets price; bookstore gets a pre-approved cut of that price. No negotiation. No discounts. Except that maybe Apple gets to provide discounts; cue screaming and price wars.
Right now, several ebook stores are missing books from the "agency five" while they're sorting out new coding/sales software. No idea if they'll be back or not. The good (?) news: Stores will have to compete more on the basis of site features, which may mean we see better-designed, more interactive ebook stores.
TeleRead had been posting almost hourly updates on the state of the industry over the weekend, and the Mobileread forums are discussing the issues non-stop. I expect a solid barrage of posts in both as we start to see the actual changes roll out.
April 1, "agency pricing" went live for ebooks. This has the potential to drastically change the way ebook stores work.
Five of the "big 6" publishers have switched their ebook sales away from normal retail systems, wherein they sell to the bookstore at ~50% of retail price; the store sells the book to you at 100% retail price minus whatever discount they're pushing this week. (Random House is the one holdout, and its reasons are probably not altruistic.) The old method allowed Amazon to price bestsellers at $9.99, even when the official digital price was $20 or more, by selling at a loss to bring in customers.
Several publishers were upset at this practice, claiming it caused people to devalue books and it cut into hardcover sales.
Enter the iPad, going live soon. And the new iBookstore. And Apple's new ebook sales contract, setting ebook prices based on pbook prices and requiring that books sold in its store not be undersold at any other site. Enter the "agency" model, where the bookstore acts as "agent" to the publisher. Publisher sets price; bookstore gets a pre-approved cut of that price. No negotiation. No discounts. Except that maybe Apple gets to provide discounts; cue screaming and price wars.
Right now, several ebook stores are missing books from the "agency five" while they're sorting out new coding/sales software. No idea if they'll be back or not. The good (?) news: Stores will have to compete more on the basis of site features, which may mean we see better-designed, more interactive ebook stores.
TeleRead had been posting almost hourly updates on the state of the industry over the weekend, and the Mobileread forums are discussing the issues non-stop. I expect a solid barrage of posts in both as we start to see the actual changes roll out.
no subject
Dear Reader Store Customer,
The publishing industry is turning a page and so are we.
Beginning April 1st some major publishers will be instituting a change in the pricing of eBooks, which puts decisions on eBook pricing firmly in their hands. As a result, prices of bestsellers and new releases from these publishers will be changing on the Reader Store, and during the transition time, some titles may be unavailable. Although most of these eBooks will be priced from about $12.99 to 14.99, there will not be a broad pricing change across the Reader Store. In fact, new releases and bestsellers from other publishers will still be priced at $9.99.
Starting a new chapter can be a good thing. With this change, you may see more of your favorite books available in eBook format at the same time they’re released in print. Book lovers like you are driving a revolution in digital reading and the Reader Store is committed to providing you access to the widest selection of digital reading content. Since its inception in September 2006, Sony’s Reader Store has introduced a wide offering of new releases, bestselling eBook titles and newspapers. Today it features access to more than one million titles and links to borrow eBooks from local libraries nationwide.
For more information please visit the Reader Store FAQ: http://ebooks.custhelp.com
Thank you,
The Reader Store
no subject