I’m in the process of formatting a review for And Lady Makes Three, an anthology featuring Anya Bast, Nikki Soarde and Ashley Ladd released by Ellora’s Cave. I like to include links (when possible) to where the books we review can be purchased in both print and e-format.
As I mentioned before, my personal preference for buying e-books has always been Books on Board. Mainly because their prices are much lower than many other e-sellers. Or they were.
Can someone explain to me why the Adobe version of this particular book is $12.51 after an automatic savings of $3.47 at BoB? On the Ellora’s Cave website the e-book is only $7.99. That’s almost TWICE the price. But it gets better, because the paperback price at Amazon is only $10.39. $2.12 less than the e-price. At Diesel eBooks it’s $14.32.
First of all, it’s ridiculous that eBooks are becoming more expensive than print books. While I enjoy eBooks and the instant gratification they offer me, I don’t enjoy them enough to pay twice the paperback price for them. I don’t care what book it is.
Casee mentioned this to me the other day, because she was searching for a book at BoB and it was twice the price also. Is this the new trend? Are we looking at the future of technology?
If so, I’ll go back to buying everything in Print, much as it will pain me to do so.
Epubs are shooting themselves in the foot. Whenever I would buy from them, I’d buy a few new-to-me authors too because it was only a few bucks more. Now? Buying books “on spec” seldom happens anymore.
As for print books that are also available in e? Seems to me that since production costs are negligible with ebooks, pricing them the same (or higher) than print just brings more pure profit in. I’ve found that they often pull this same stunt with audiobooks. Buy it on CDs and it’s often much cheaper than a download. whyWhyWHY? The costs are higher on CD, so again, the downloads are pure profit for everyone!
I’m all for making money on a product, but this seems to cross the line into greediness that will hopefully come back and bite ’em in the butt.
Chantal,
I know, we’ve both been bitching about it. But the trend I was referring to is the eBooks costing more than the print books. That hasn’t happened before. Yes, e-prices have steadily been rising, but they haven’t been more than print until now. Or not that I’m aware of, anyway.
Bev,
I agree, it’s greediness. Or that seems to be the case, anyway. And like you, I’m all for these companies making a profit (they wouldn’t be around if they didn’t, right?) but there’s a huge difference between making a profit and raping and pillaging. JMHO.
Uh no, not a new trend. I have been bitching about this very fact for close to a year.
🙁
I tend to use the ebook selling sites as browsers to find what I’m interested in, but when I’m ready to purchase? I go right to the epublisher’s site. Prices are ALWAYS better at the source in my experience.
(in the interest of full disclosure, I write for an epub as well as read ebooks)
Diana,
I agree that lately the prices are better at the pubs site, but for awhile there it was actually cheaper to buy from Books on Board or other places. I remember adding a book to my cart on an ePubs site and then checking it at BoB and it was almost $2 less at BoB.
Obviously that isn’t the case anymore.
In your example you’re sighting an Ellora’s Cave title. Those are always going to be cheaper directly from the publisher. That’s why you can get very few of their titles from other sellers. To get them to other sellers they must be going through a distributor, like LightningSource, to provide them (instead of providing them to the sellers themselves) which is adding another finger to the pie & the distributor is basing the pricing on the list price for the dead tree book instead of basing it on the ebook list price from the publisher (this list has to come from the pub as the distro isn’t pulling it out of the air). I think it’s actually a case of this particular publisher, Ellora’s, not really wanting their books available from anywhere but their own site (they make more that way).
Someone like Samhain obviously knows how to do it right as their books are available cheaper at Fictionwise & BoB than direct.