Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The $9.99 Factor

Here's yet another interesting post and follow-up discussion on Kindlekorner, this time, regarding the price of e-books. One publisher felt the wrath of the community by coming out with a Kindle edition that's well over the popular $9.99 price point. The title in question was quickly changed from a price of more than $20 to, you guessed it, $9.99.

Regardless of how Amazon is arriving at and settling on their pricing levels, you've got to believe there will be more and more community discontent every time a new Kindle edition comes out at something higher than $9.99. Amazon's response was swift in this case; it will be interesting to see if that pattern continues, particularly as the Kindle ownership base grows.

3 comments:

Xianfox said...

Interesting news, but I can't read the post as I'm not a member of the group. Perhaps a little more info about the discussion, the title in question, etc.?

Joe Wikert said...

You don't have to be a member of Kindlekorner to read that thread. You should be able to simply click on the first link in my original post.

Anonymous said...

the kindle community may think it's got power over pricing, but keeping the lid at $9.99 will just rule out a lot of good content. if a publisher can sell a book for $19.95 or $24.95, they'll be pretty leary about canibalizing their sales at $9.99 for an e-book. especially since Amazon keeps 65% of the $9.99 and the publisher only gets $3.50 - i wonder how many of those wrath wielding kindlers are aware of that.