Kindle Store Pricing?

[lstyer]

Does anyone have any insight into why books 3 and 4 of the Vanguard series are priced at $15.99 each in Kindle format on Amazon while the rest of the series is priced at $9.99 or less in that same format and store. That seems very unusual for two middle books that are both nearly ten years old.

I'm in the process of rereading the early books in that series with the intent to move forward beyond what I read years ago and finish it off, and I repurchased the first couple books for my Kindle, but $16 each for ebooks of novels I've already purchased has given me pause.

I've not extensively researched Trek novel prices in the Kindle store, but what I saw incidental to my search for the next couple Vanguard novels was far more in line with my expectations.

 

[Daddy Todd]

It appears that Pocket prices e-books on a formula based on the price of the in-print "dead tree" version. Because these two are currently available as pricey POD trade paperbacks, the e-book price is correspondingly high.

This only makes sense to an accountant, in a business that only begrudges keeping e-books in print for a tiny minority of readers interested in catalog titles.

TL;DR -- Because Pocket says so.

 

[John Clark]

For what it's worth, the Amazon UK Kindle versions are at the normalish price, though I have seen other Trek novels that are expensive (Like @Daddy Todd says - it does usually seem to tie in to how easy it is to get the paperback versions). That said, it hasn't affected Reap The Whirlwind (as of now anyway) with paperback being £29 to Kindle £4.

I remember when I was first trying to get Articles of the Federation and both paperback and Kindle were higher priced than normal.

 

[lstyer]

It appears that Pocket prices e-books on a formula based on the price of the in-print "dead tree" version. Because these two are currently available as pricey POD trade paperbacks, the e-book price is correspondingly high.

That's an explanation, though as you say it is only a reasonable explanation in light of Big Publishing'a distaste for ebooks. I think you're probably correct.

For what it's worth, the Amazon UK Kindle versions are at the normalish price

Thank you! I'll see if I can purchase that way.

 

[John Clark]

I'm not sure if it will be that easy unfortunately. I've been looking around and there still seem to be issues depending on where your Kindle is registered. (You can relocate it, but then would that stop home bought stuff from working?).

I'm sure some of our other more knowledgeable people may know. I'm afraid I pretty much only buy them from the home site and read them.

 

[lstyer]

Yeah, a quick trip to Amazon.co.uk wouldn't allow me to purchase, and I really don't want to have to try to fight to buy it. The US price is completely unreasonable.

 

[ronny]

I happened to notice this morning Rosetta was $16 while I was stealing some cover images for my book page. Man, they are making it prohibitively expense to go back to the old stuff if you're a new reader. It's a shame.

 

[JD]

I'm just glad it's only a few of the older books and not all of them. I don't really understand why they have to make these books the same as the POD versions. I can kind understand when they match new hardcovers, but it's ridiculous to expect people to pay $15 for an old book that was half that price when it was new.

 

[Smitty]

agreed, next they will be shocked that people pirate the books. Glad I got my ebook editions back when they were reasonable.

 

[JoeP]

I have a suspicion that the books that have the over-expensive pricing have been mis-labeled as trade paperbacks instead of mass market paperbacks in S&S's system, and it's affecting the pricing on Amazon and other retailers. For example, searching on the S&S site for trade paperbacks, these books all have inflated pricing on Amazon:

Whereas, these that are listed as MMPB don't:

I have yet to find any examples of MMPB-labeled books on the S&S site that have high prices on Amazon, so I'm inclined to believe it's not a coincidence.

I've been meaning to send an email or a tweet to John Van Citters since he's somewhat active in social media to bring it to his attention. Hopefully he'd be able to forward it to someone at S&S to have them take a look.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I have a suspicion that the books that have the over-expensive pricing have been mis-labeled as trade paperbacks instead of mass market paperbacks in S&S's system, and it's affecting the pricing on Amazon and other retailers.

The trade paperbacks are, as I understand it, print-on-demand editions. And since those are the current in-print editions of the book, the ebook price is related to that.

 

[JoeP]

The trade paperbacks are, as I understand it, print-on-demand editions. And since those are the current in-print editions of the book, the ebook price is related to that.

Ah. I didn't even know that was a thing...

 

[DimesDan]

Ah. I didn't even know that was a thing...

It was explained in the second post in this thread.