Planetfurry BBS

Mike Regan · Guest

Because someone is getting royally screwed.
The reason I decided to make the closing of the bookshelf store permanent and also stop publishing books is Kindle.

To put out the first book of Cirrel's Wilderhom Trilogy and make any kind of profit I must charge $20.99 for Riders of the Mind. Cirrel has since put it up on Amazon Kindle and it sells for $2.99. There is flat NO WAY I can compete against that price, I will not even try. No one will buy my book for $20 when they can get it for $2. Simple economics. The full 3 book set can be had for about $10 instead of $80.

But now I have looked at another book on Amazon and find the Kindle version sells for $71 while the actual print version on Amazon sells for just under $30.

So who determines how much to charge?

Vallus · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 5:54 pm Post subject:

That last price difference really has me scratching my head? Was it an old book that just got re-released on Kindle? Is there something extra with the electronic version that the print version doesn't have? You would think if there was something different or extra it would have to be something big in order to justify such a huge difference in cost.

Mike Regan · Guest

Maybe they have already driven all paper publishers of this book out of the market so now Amazon Kindle is the sole source and as such can ask anything they want now since they no longer have competition?

The paper book price is for '4 new and used' per the site.

Then people on Amazon are selling used copies of the Trilogy for the same price that I was selling new ones.

hikaru · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 9:12 pm Post subject:

Actually, I read an article about e-books recently that says Amazon Kindle's lost market share down to around 50% and it's still shrinking as other offers come into being.

The biggest problem is that people like me know that $10 for a paper book is worth it, but I'm not going to pay $10 for an E-version. There's no cost of printing, warehousing, shipping, etc.

As someone who owns a kindle, it's a nice thing to have when you're flying or planning on sitting somewhere a long time and don't want to haul books around, but for general reading I still go paper.

Cheers!

Mike Regan · Guest

I have Kindle ability; my phone has a free Kindle app for it so since it was free I installed it. I got the 'Sample' of Riders of the Mind to see how it looked on ebook, very disappointed. I might as well be reading a newspaper or a magazine. There is more to a story than just words on a page. Much more if it is a good story.

And all of you that got books from me at MFM 2007 and got them signed by Cirrel, keep them safe because with Kindle you are SOL for any signed copies ever again.

Tommy Fox Stone · Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:25 pm Post subject:

I hate too see the bookshelf store close for good, as for E-books I don't care for them at all, I'll stick with paper back, I don't like too rent books I like own them...

I;ll keeping my signed copies very safe...

PrincessB · Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 6:44 pm Post subject:

From what I've heard it's usually set by the author or seller. Maybe the massively overpriced one is one of the common greedy type.

Personally I have no desire to switch to an e-reader. I'm a bibliophile, I love looking at my old books on the shelves and remembering what they are about, where I got some, how old I was when I first read them. And I enjoy easily skimming through to see how far till next chapter and such. And I have no problem carrying paperbacks with me.

hikaru · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject:

I talked with a friend recently who was published by a large publisher, and they set the E price to be $1 under print price. He had no choice and makes the exact same amount off of each book.

No question who's getting screwed by the big publishers.

Jaymee Fox · Site Owner Joined: 02 Jun 2003 Posts: 582 Location: USA

I have amazon account set up a month ago so i can sell my books that I need to downsize my home. There were several books that were being on sale for 1 cent and I am like Phhfft I'm not going to set my book to 1 cent so i can compete with others to sell.

So I stick to the original plan. Look at the price of the book that would sell in the store ... IE: 50 dollars I put my down for 40 dollars and behold I sold it.

Those 1 cents are more likely crappy and they want good quality book but a few dollars less than the store price.

My suggestion to you... stick to your price you think your books are worth at and let it ride out. don't fall into the trap of "oh no.. i have to lower my price to practically free just for business.

Do what you think/feel is right. It has nothing to do with greedy people or whatever. They are just pricing to show that they are valuable and worthy writers.

Just like artists. Do you think I'll sell my print for 1 cent because everyone is doing it. no.

That's my two cents Smile

Jaymee Fox · Site Owner Joined: 02 Jun 2003 Posts: 582 Location: USA

PS: I know what you're talking about --- ebook and all of that. I was just using an example of what I'd price things if it's an object to sell, art I drew, or even a story i write. I'll really stick to the price I think my stuff are valuable at.

As for keeping books. the only books I am keeping in my collection is my archie andrew comics (lol) One day I'll sell them all at once or something like that ^^

Mike Regan · Guest

I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to �88 10s., while he has �220 standing to his credit in the Capital and Counties Bank.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1999-03-01). The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Kindle Locations 1989-1990). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Above is exactly one of the things I am talking about with ebooks as they are today. If I am correct all that garbage at two places in this passage is the HTML result when the converter came across the British symbol for pound like the American $. You have plain vanilla fonts! Never use ANY except ordinary characters in your story, if you do they will not work. Say you need to have a mathematical formula shown? Lots a luck!

Until they will allow DIRECT INPUT of a PDF file, not one that first must be converted to HTML they will not really be worth a damn.

By the way this book from Kindle is free as, I find, are Treasure Island and Alice in Wonderland. There are others but I did not look further.

I still can't believe that Cirrel would willingly set a book that sells for $20.99 in hard copy, even the used copies, to sell for $2.99.

Rabbit · Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:57 pm Post subject:

In my case, the publisher sets the price. They may or may not ask my opinion.

Many of the free or nearly-free books have huge coding errors in them. When I get one like that I point it out in a product review to save others from going through the same thing.

Kellan Meig'h · Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 11:14 pm Post subject:

All of those various iterations of freebies have serious coding errors.

What was genuinely sad was my publisher's attempt to do an ePub version of my book. It had so many errors in it that I asked that it not be released like that.

PDFs that have been coded to reflow works best as a portable document, IMHO.

Reason for edit: too many typo's