GWB’s “Decision Points” Kindle eBook more expensive than actual printed copy
Nov.10, 2010 in
Articles
I’ve been hearing a lot about George W. Bush’s new book, Decision Points
I’m not normally one for politically-themed reading, but I’m a sucker for presidential history, so I thought I’d pick up a copy.
I went to Amazon & was shocked to see that the Kindle edition is actually more expensive than the print version!
Are you kidding me, Amazon? Let’s go over the reasons why this is ridiculous.
- It costs nothing to produce a copy of an eBook. Nothing. Here’s how you do it: cp book copy_of_book. Not that hard, now was it? On the other hand, it does cost money to print an actual, tangible book. Yet somehow the more costly version is cheaper. WTF?
- If I pay for the eBook edition, it’s locked to my Kindle via a DRM protection scheme. One reader, one copy. Publishers don’t have to worry about lost revenue via loaning, gifting, or resale. You’d think such a heavily restricted copy would be cheaper than a book that you could read then re-sell, wouldn’t you? Of course you would, because that makes perfect sense. Apparently not to Amazon.
I’m sorry, but I see this as a big “F**K YOU,” from Amazon to me. I was an early adopter who paid $360 for my Amazon Kindle. And they thank me by charging me more for my purchases?
Thanks, Amazon. Thanks a lot.
November 21st, 2010 at 7:05 am
Looks like it’s $9.99 now. And if it was more expensive before, the price was almost certainly set by the publisher. Also, you can read Kindle books on up to 6 devices or Kindle cross-platform applications. Finally, Kindles are indeed getting a lending feature later this year.
December 27th, 2010 at 12:45 am
Eddie: Well, I think that the pricing of this book for the kindle is not due to Amazon, but mayhaps to the publishers wishesas Scott has asserted above. What he, nor you for that matter didn’t think of, is that it is very, very simple to remove the DRM of kindle books and I am very sure that the “circuit” already already is offering this book for free. So the publishers may be just trying the discourage e-book sales in the beginning so that the massive sales of this book over the holyday season will generate extra buzz and momentum for the book so that the will have gooten their money before th people that just copies stuff get it for free…
So for once I don’t concur with the motion that the big bad corporation is giving us the big fat “F*#k-YOU”
March 12th, 2011 at 1:14 am
Amazon had a big fight with publishers over how much to charge for e-books, and Amazon lost. I’ve written a bit on this–here’s one of my posts:
http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/03/18/nyt-exposes-amazons-fiendish-plot-to-sell-books-for-less-money/
March 13th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
[...] I’ve been critical of Amazon’s eBook pricing schemes in the past. If large publishers can’t see that lower eBook prices are the way to mass sales, I’m glad to see that individual authors are successfully filling the void. [...]