# Who sets Kindle book prices?



## RubyBlue (Dec 27, 2011)

Amazon or the publisher?  I ask because some kindle books cost far more then the actual book, in 1 case a hardback is on special offer for 6 pounds and the kindle version, also on special offer, is 11 pounds?  Doesn't seem to make sense.


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## Greebo (Dec 27, 2011)

RubyBlue said:


> Amazon or the publisher? I ask because some kindle books cost far more then the actual book, in 1 case a hardback is on special offer for 6 pounds and the kindle version, also on special offer, is 11 pounds? Doesn't seem to make sense.


It's because VAT is charged on e books, but not on the paper version.


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 27, 2011)

It's a fucking rip off adding VAT to ebook's...


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## RubyBlue (Dec 27, 2011)

Greebo said:


> It's because VAT is charged on e books, but not on the paper version.


Yeah I get this the but the items I'm talking about the increased cost for the Kindle version is far in excess of the 20% VAT. That I can understand, it's straightforward.


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## malice (Dec 27, 2011)

I'm not entirely sure but for the big publishers it's "agency model", so publishers set the amount and pay Amazon a fixed percentage of that price. For smaller publishers I'm not sure. It's all pretty contested at the moment, I think it's being looked at by the EU for competition regulation


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 27, 2011)

look for .mobi files on the certain evaluation sites and it costs far less


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## RubyBlue (Dec 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> look for .mobi files on the certain evaluation sites and it costs far less


I've down loaded loads of books mainly in pdf format but I read loads of fiction and newer books don't seem to be easily available.  Amazon do some pretty good offers at times but the difference between electronic and printed formats does at times seem odd.


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## RubyBlue (Dec 28, 2011)

malice said:


> I'm not entirely sure but for the big publishers it's "agency model", so publishers set the amount and pay Amazon a fixed percentage of that price. For smaller publishers I'm not sure. It's all pretty contested at the moment, I think it's being looked at by the EU for competition regulation


Ta - that makes sense.


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 28, 2011)

dont for pdf's look for . mobi files


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## RubyBlue (Dec 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> dont for pdf's look for . mobi files


OK - thanks for the tip - off looking


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## Zabo (Dec 29, 2011)

You might also think of adding the suffix _epub_ on your Goggle searches!


Meanwhile...

"It's bad news for anyone who has eBook readers such as Amazon's Kindle, Kobo's readers, or Barnes and Noble's Nook sitting under the Christmas tree. An agreement between six major publishers has seen prices rocket for many books worldwide - some of which are more expensive than the paper version. The agreement includes major publishing houses such as HarperCollins and Penguin. The agreement reportedly forbids retailers from discounting eBooks without a publisher's permission."

More:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...shers-band-hike-prices-higher-real-books.html


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 29, 2011)

epubs have to be converted


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Dec 29, 2011)

Ebook is fine. Obviously it's better to get it in the native format, but they can always be converted.


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## Zabo (Dec 29, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> epubs have to be converted



Calibre - Free! Truly magnificent!

http://calibre-ebook.com/


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## maomao (Dec 29, 2011)

I've been using Calibre for converting pdfs > .mobi but things like page numbers and any headers on the page get absorbed into the text (so you get things like '*page 29*' in the middle of a paragraph). Can anyone recommend a better application that can get rid of shit like that.

On the original subject, while looking through books on my kindle I've noticed quite a few of the more expensive ones have a note from amazon saying 'the price has been set by the publisher' so I guess it's not all amazon's greed.


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## Zabo (Dec 29, 2011)

maomao said:


> I've been using Calibre for converting pdfs > .mobi but things like page numbers and any headers on the page get absorbed into the text (so you get things like '*page 29*' in the middle of a paragraph). Can anyone recommend a better application that can get rid of shit like that.



I avoid the pdf mess up by converting the pdf to txt and then convert after adjustments. If that fails I format it in word and save word as txt.

Don't know of anything else.


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 29, 2011)

Zabo said:


> Calibre - Free! Truly magnificent!
> 
> http://calibre-ebook.com/



nice , thanks


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## mr steev (Dec 29, 2011)

Zabo said:


> Calibre - Free! Truly magnificent!
> 
> http://calibre-ebook.com/



My gf's been using that. Just before xmas a mate popped round and dumped over 8 gigs worth of books on her pc


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## maomao (Dec 29, 2011)

Zabo said:


> I avoid the pdf mess up by converting the pdf to txt and then convert after adjustments. If that fails I format it in word and save word as txt.
> 
> Don't know of anything else.



So you delete the extra stuff manually from _every page_ of the .txt before converting to .mobi? That's long man, is there not a better way?


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## Zabo (Dec 29, 2011)

Depends. In Word I do a Ctrl-F and tell it to replace replace unwanted occurrences with a blank.

I'm patient!


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Dec 29, 2011)

Zabo said:


> I avoid the pdf mess up by converting the pdf to txt and then convert after adjustments. If that fails I format it in word and save word as txt.
> 
> Don't know of anything else.





maomao said:


> So you delete the extra stuff manually from _every page_ of the .txt before converting to .mobi? That's long man, is there not a better way?



Indeed! That is patience and a half! If I can't find it another format I get used to, but it's not ideal.


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## GarfieldLeChat (Dec 29, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> It's a fucking rip off adding VAT to ebook's...


Something the UK govt says too however it's a European law not a UK specific one.

But yes it's ridiculous. 

Publishers are terrified of ebooks and are setting the prices which their titles cannot be sold below. Amazon and others take a feed from other companies and the prices are set based on the hard back price. Usually.


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 30, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> Something the UK govt says too however it's a European law not a UK specific one.
> 
> But yes it's ridiculous.
> 
> Publishers are terrified of ebooks and are setting the prices which their titles cannot be sold below. Amazon and others take a feed from other companies and the prices are set based on the hard back price. Usually.



Yup although I note the gov ain't exactly rushing to give up that revenue by lobbying for a change.

The book industry are basically where the music industry was a decade ago...and that lot hold a few lessons for them...


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Dec 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The book industry are basically where the music industry was a decade ago...and that lot hold a few lessons for them...



I think that's what scares them so much. 

I'd say the one thing in they've got going for them is it's a lot harder to make a decent copy of an ebook, far more hassle then it was to put a cd in your computer and rip to mp3. It's only the most geek loved genres like sci fi/fantasy there is anything close to a decent selection of stuff more then a few years old and much is riddled with OCR errors that are not easily correctable.


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## Sunray (Dec 30, 2011)

Zabo said:


> I avoid the pdf mess up by converting the pdf to txt and then convert after adjustments. If that fails I format it in word and save word as txt.
> 
> Don't know of anything else.



Mobi pocket creator, its free and does a 1/2 decent job of converting pdf's.

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp


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## Mapped (Dec 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yup although I note the gov ain't exactly rushing to give up that revenue by lobbying for a change.
> 
> The book industry are basically where the music industry was a decade ago...and that lot hold a few lessons for them...



These guys are complete cunts with their charges and licensing agreements/limitations where I work. They make some people's jobs borderline impossible.

Pirate away folks 

If anyone wants a good private tracker that has loads of ebooks on it them pm me. I only have one invite though so it's first come first served


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## elfman (Dec 30, 2011)

Prices go up, 'piracy' increases.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 30, 2011)

it's deffo  publishers.   there is no way in hell  amazon pays anywhere near   the price set on amazon  for ebooks and  amazon  know full well that in this case less really is more.

can you imagine  what would happen if  big name  writers  cut  deals  with amazon?    what  would happen if  airport novels  like steven king or  clive cussler   decided that they could get a better cut  on amazon?

shit  amazon  could start giving away kindles for free if they  got a deal with   a load of the big selling authors.  buy  this kindle  and  get  every single new novel by X for only £1.50!  give  that £1.50 direct to the author and they will still probably get more than classically.


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## RubyBlue (Mar 21, 2012)

Are the publishers reducing ebook prices?  Seems so, I just bought a book which came out in hardback on 15 March (£18.99 although can be bought for less)  for £5.19 - it's not available in paperback until September!

At the moment I find that there can be real bargins on Amazon but you have to look and check prices but really it does seem that prices are getting much better.  I've also pre-ordered a couple of books at great prices.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 22, 2012)

Not sure but have noticed them a bit cheaper, perhaps they're preemptively reducing due to renewed scrutiny and investigations into price fixing?


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## Riklet (Mar 22, 2012)

The prices are still high considering the incredibly _poor fucking quality _some kindle ebook versions are.  Fucking conversion character errors, weird spaces, messed up tables/graphs/numbers, no chapter breaks, no page numbers, glitches and all the rest.

Pretty lame how publishers are releasing stuff no one's even skim read through! Really poor.  I still buy kindle books but i am a bit wary if there are no reviews for the kindle editions etc.

I still think the publishing industry has yet to start really feeling the impact of this, but it's coming (watch out dwyer).


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## dessiato (Mar 22, 2012)

I am often confused by the pricing of DVDs, CDs and e-books. Do the producers of these not realise that by setting the prices high there is more likelihood that the books etc. will be pirated? If the price is set at a more reasonable level, at least a price more attractive to the consumer, there is more likelihood of the consumer buying rather than pirating. I know that availability of these at a reasonable/attractive price means that I am far more likely to buy.


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## mrs quoad (Mar 22, 2012)

Read the first page only, so apologies if askew.

There was something on R4 about this recently, saying that Amazon had originally worked with a 'centrally priced' model (i.e., they chose) but the iPad / Apple book store had made that difficult bc it'd implemented an agency model (i.e. publishers / printers / authors set their own price).

Someone's probably already said what's happened since then; but that's my understanding of the early models / working system.


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## laptop (Apr 2, 2012)

RubyBlue said:


> Amazon or the publisher? I ask because some kindle books cost far more then the actual book, in 1 case a hardback is on special offer for 6 pounds and the kindle version, also on special offer, is 11 pounds? Doesn't seem to make sense.


 
Just found this thread.

Economics of e-books - from author' point of view.


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## laptop (Apr 2, 2012)

N1 Buoy said:


> Pirate away folks
> 
> If anyone wants a good private tracker that has loads of ebooks on it them pm me. I only have one invite though so it's first come first served


 
Er... much more than music, books and e-books pay significant royalties to the _actual authors_, who depend on these _entirely_ to get paid for their work. See link above. "Advances" on royalties are pretty much a thing of the past. People beg and borrow to fund the time to write the thing, then hope for royalty cheques.

So pirating e-books is taking the bread directly from the mouth of an actual human.


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## Mapped (Apr 2, 2012)

laptop said:


> Er... much more than music, books and e-books pay significant royalties to the _actual authors_, who depend on these _entirely_ to get paid for their work. See link above. "Advances" on royalties are pretty much a thing of the past. People beg and borrow to fund the time to write the thing, then hope for royalty cheques.
> 
> So pirating e-books is taking the bread directly from the mouth of an actual human.


 
Blimey I don't even remember writing that! On 27th Dec I wasn't in a very good way, so mustn't have been thinking properly.

I was having (and still have) some digital licensing issues at work so that comment was a 'fuck you' to the publishers. I agree with what you say about the authors and I actively promote and help them in my field though assisting with research, contributing and arranging events with them. I don't pirate ebooks myself, I've got no need to


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## Corax (Apr 2, 2012)

They're fucking idiot tbh.

There are several books I would have happily paid a reasonable amount for to download.  But the price was more than the paperback, so I yo-ho-ho'd them.  I suspect I'm not alone.

So their current pricing practices are fuelling a growing market in ebook piracy.  **slow hand clap*    *


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## Corax (Apr 2, 2012)

laptop said:


> So pirating e-books is taking the bread directly from the mouth of an actual human.


Not if the author's dead it's not.


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## laptop (Apr 2, 2012)

Corax said:


> Not if the author's dead it's not.


 
OK, from the orphans then 

One of the original motivations for extending copyright was as a kind of pension fund for authors...


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