The Department of Justice’s ebook pricing settlement was approved last Thursday, and HarperCollins, one of the three settling publishers, has already entered into new contracts with ebook retailers — including Apple (s AAPL). The retailers can now set their own prices on HarperCollins titles. So what kinds of changes are we seeing? A roundup of select titles (the prices are correct as of Tuesday morning afternoon, but are subject to change. I updated them at 3:36 ET but won’t do so again.)
(Note: The chart is cutting off part of the last column, Sony. You can see my full pricing spreadsheet here.)
| Title | Author | Pub Date | Ebook List Price | Amazon | Apple | B&N | Kobo | Sony | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Cutting Season |
Attica Locke | 9/18/2012 | $14.99 | $10.94 | n/a | $14.99 | $14.99 | $10.94 | n/a |
| Telegraph Avenue | Michael Chabon | 9/11/2012 | $17.99 | $9.99 | $18.99 | $12.59 | $17.99 | $12.99 | $13.50 |
| The Rise of Nine | Pittacus Lore | 8/21/2012 | $11.99 | $7.99 | $7.99 | $8.39 | $9.59 | $9.59 | $10.20 |
| Judgment Call | J.A. Jance | 7/24/2012 | $14.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $10.94 | n/a | $10.94 | $12.00 |
| The Fallen Angel | Daniel Silva | 7/17/2012 | $17.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $12.59 | $17.99 | $13.13 | $13.50 |
| Bloodline | James Rollins | 6/26/2012 | $14.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $10.94 | $14.99 | $10.94 | $12.00 |
| The Shoemaker’s Wife |
Adriana Trigiani | 4/3/2012 | $10.99 | $7.99 | $7.99 | $8.02 | $10.99 | $8.02 | $9.35 |
| State of Wonder | Ann Patchett | 6/7/2011 | $10.99 | $9.35 | $9.99 | $9.78 | $10.99 | $9.78 | $9.35 |
| Family Affair | Debbie Macomber | 1/4/2011 | $5.99 | $5.69 | $5.99 | $5.69 | n/a | $5.69 | $5.99 |
| The Happiness Project |
Gretchen Rubin | 12/29/2009 | $11.99 | $3.99 | $10.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $9.78 | $9.35 |
| Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man |
Steve Harvey | 1/27/2009 | $9.99 | $7.29 | $7.99 | $7.29 | $9.99 | $7.29 | $9.99 |
| The Art of Racing in the Rain |
Garth Stein | 5/13/2008 | $10.99 | $7.99 | $7.99 | $9.68 | $10.99 | $9.78 | $9.35 |
A couple notes:
- Amazon (s AMZN) doesn’t show the ebooks’ list prices. I had to go to Barnes & Noble (s BKS) for those. I obviously haven’t looked at HarperCollins’ entire list, but you can see that in some cases it’s raised ebooks’ list prices. For example, Michael Chabon’s upcoming Telegraph Avenue, which would have been priced at $12.99 or $14.99 under agency, has a list price of $17.99 in the new world.
- Apple is now discounting titles too (that wasn’t true yesterday).
In some cases, as you’ll see above, Apple is offering lower prices on new bestsellers than Amazon.Amazon dropped prices to match Apple’s this afternoon. More on that here. - Amazon is offering the lowest prices. Based just on the titles above, the average price on Amazon Kindle was $8.43; on Apple, $9.81; on Barnes & Noble Nook, $9.57; on Google (s GOOG) Play, $9.91; on Sony (SNE), $10.42; on Kobo, $12.25.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / Thomas Bethge
