{"id":5159,"date":"2011-03-07T21:49:24","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T15:49:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-03-09T13:05:50","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T07:05:50","slug":"99-cent-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/99-cent-books\/","title":{"rendered":"99 Cent Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am having trouble convincing myself why digital books will not cost 99 cents within 5 years. All books, on average. Just as the price of music does not in general change on the length or quality.<\/p>\n

\"99cents.jpg\"<\/div>\n

Here’s a reason why they’ll be as inexpensive as music. The other day Joe Konrath<\/a>, a genre writer, and avid self-publisher of ebooks, said:<\/p>\n

\n

Eighteen days ago, I dropped the price of my ebook, The List, from $2.99 to 99 cents on Amazon. I was selling 40 copies a day prior to that.<\/p>\n

Currently, The List is #37 in the Top 100 Bestsellers on the Kindle. It’s selling 620 copies a day on Amazon.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Do the math:<\/p>\n

2.99 x 40 = 119.60
.99 x 620 = 613.80<\/p>\n

I don’t think publishers are ready for how low book prices will go. It seems insane, dangerous, life threatening, but inevitable.<\/p>\n

I predict we’ll be there in 5 years, (before the marginal price drops to zero, but that is another story.)<\/p>\n

UPDATE: My math is horrible; I originally had the decimal point wrong. Now fixed.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 2: Several readers asked what the figures would be if we factored in Amazon’s cut. Readers MCM and EsmeraldaGreene offered calculations. It is a significant reduction of the difference.<\/p>\n

\n

Amazon pays out 35% for ebooks priced below $1.99, and 70% for ebooks that are $1.99 and up.<\/p>\n

So the math is:<\/p>\n

2.99 x 40 = 119.60; x .70 = $83.72\u2028<\/p>\n

.99 x 620 = 613.80; x .35 = $214.83<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also, as others have noted, $1 is near to the royalty payment that an author will receive on, say, a paperback trade book. So in terms of sales, whether an author sells 1,000 copies themselves directly, or via a traditional publishing house, they will make the same amount of money.<\/p>\n

I am not saying this is good news for authors. 99 cents is not. It is good news for READERS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am having trouble convincing myself why digital books will not cost 99 cents within 5 years. All books, on average. Just as the price of music does not in general change on the length or quality. Here’s a reason … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}