Apple and five leading publishers have been served with a lawsuit alleging that they have conspired to keep electronic book (eBook) pricing artificially high, and that they used their power to prevent Amazon from establishing “pro-consumer” eBook pricing. According to the UK’s Guardian News, Amazon tried to establish lower eBook pricing for its Kindle customers. Apple worked with publishers to “force Amazon to abandon its discount pricing and adhere to a new agency model. The article claims that eBook prices are, in some cases, 50% higher than they were before Apple and the publishers conspired to raise them.
Author Michael A. Stackpole mentions in his recent post “Price isn’t the point” that there seem to be three major schools of pricing for eBooks. The first says that 99 cents is “the” price to use. The second says that $2.99, which is the lowest price at which retailers will pay 70% royalty to the author, is the best price. The third school says that eBook pricing should be from $5 up to the price of a mass market’s paperback. Stackpole argues that “the main comparison point for sales is not the price of other ebooks, but the price of the equivalent book in print.” Note that none of Stackpole’s price models indicates that an eBook should be priced at or above that of a physical book. That seems to be how things are since the alleged collusion took place.
As a consumer, I think there is something to both these arguments. Pricing electronic books at or above the price of physical books is unreasonable. Electronic books cost much less to keep “in inventory”, require very little money to duplicate and ship, and are only accessible as long as your reading device has power. Physical books are expensive to reproduce, weigh more (in bulk) than eBooks, and require (generally speaking) more storage space. Their greatest advantages are that they don’t require electricity, may be easier to read outdoors in daylight, and can be more readily loaned or re-sold when you’re finished with them.
On the other hand, authors deserve to receive a reasonable royalty for their work. Having written a couple of novels, I know that it isn’t easy to do. It takes many hours, and a lot of effort. It’s not necessarily “fun” work, but there is a degree of satisfaction when it’s finished. If the compensation for that work isn’t appropriate, authors will not be encouraged to write books for us. By the same token, if eBook prices are too high, readers will not be as inclined to purchase them. It seems like there should be a happy medium here. Unfortunately, if book publishers are controlling the minimum price, I doubt that is going to happen.
This is yet another reason I suggest that smart authors will be investigating self-publishing, at least in the short term. Self-publishing allows you to set a reasonable price for your electronic and print books, without interference from the publishers and media deliverers like Apple.
