I am a big fan of e-books and a long-time customer of eReader, a Fictionwise company. One area of eReader’s business model that I’ve been less than happy with, however, is the pricing of newly released books. Its pricing has always been competitive with paper book releases, but not with Amazon’s new release pricing for Kindle e-books. That has all changed, according to an email I got from Fictionwise today.
Amazon Kindle customers have enjoyed paying just $9.95 for newly released books, and for good reason. That pricing compares nicely with hardcover book prices, as it is much cheaper — as it should be. The cost of producing e-books is obviously much lower than that of printing real, dead-tree books, and the Amazon pricing makes perfect sense.
I’ve purchased new releases from Amazon instead of Fictionwise for that very reason — the eReader price was simply too high. I was thrilled to get this notice today from Fictionwise that details its new pricing scheme:
- No e-book priced over $12.95
- All new e-books $9.95 or less
- All New York Times bestsellers $9.95
- Plus 15% rewards on all purchases
This is wonderful news and will save me big bags of money. It shows how great competition is for the consumer and also how good Fictionwise’s purchasing strength must be now that it belongs to Barnes & Noble.
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/06\/30\/ereader-now-matching-amazon-e-book-pricing\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_2aa9abfbe17980c073803819285e69d5","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}