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by graeme
4329 days ago
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It's amazon's choice to sell for less. The publishers didn't want to price e-books low. So they refused to sell at a $9.99 price. Which is their right. Amazon believe a low priced e-book market would generate more profits overall. So they priced low anyway. That, in turn, was their right. I don't see how the publishers are evil in that situation. What would you do if a reseller was convinced your product was priced too high, and they wanted you to slash prices? The standard advice on Hacker News is "raise your prices". Amazon appears to have been right, but it was hardly obvious. And low pricing may not apply to all books. For instance, I don't release my books on kindle because of the low pricing structure for self published books. (Amazon gives 70% royalties for kindle books priced $2.99-$9.99, but only 30% for pricing above and below that, IIRC. The optimal price for my books on my own site is above $9.99, so I don't want that deal) |
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[Some made up numbers!]
The paperback costs $10. The publisher removes virtually all the direct production costs of creating the book itself (but obv. not the author, editor, type-setting, marketing and such which remain the same or lower). The publisher puts up the price of books because, hey, why use technology to open access to arts and information when you can use it instead to increase the wealth gap.
Yes, as I indicated, there may be extra utility in ebooks and that enables them to increase the price. But, with no price increase they still make more profit.
Yes, it's just capitalism; it's evil.