“Maybe e-book prices won’t be rising so much after all,” Motoko Rich reports for The New York Times.
“Since Apple announced plans to sell digital books on its forthcoming iPad, it has been cast as something of a savior of the publishing industry for allowing e-book prices to go above the $9.99 that Amazon charges for e-books on its Kindle device, a price that publishers say is too low to sustain their business,” Rich reports. “But as more details come to light of the actual negotiations between Apple and publishers, it appears that Apple left room to sell some of the most popular books at a discount.”
Rich reports, “According to at least three people with knowledge of the discussions, who spoke anonymously because of the confidentiality of the talks, Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers — so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon’s $9.99. Essentially, Apple wants the flexibility to offer lower prices for the hottest books, those on one of the New York Times best-seller lists, which are heavily discounted in bookstores and on rival retail sites. So, for example, a book that started at $14.99 would drop to $12.99 or less once it hit the best-seller lists.”
Read more in the full article here.
*awaits uninformed reactions from the peanut gallery*
I think the iBookstore is overrated. Unless Apple plans to restrict ebook apps on the iPad (which would be a PR disaster), I’d probably prefer to continue purchasing books with third party apps like Kindle and Barnes & Noble eReader.
The iBookstore app itself will likely be sub par because Apple never thinks of the little features like night mode and automatic scrolling. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were both missing.
I would hope that since they’re using the epub format that any of those readers should be able to read the material.
Who in there right mind would pay more for a ebook so of course the prices have to be competitive. This is one if the reasons blu ray hasn’t taken off in the same way DVD did. People can’t justify the extra expence with what is not a massive jump in picture quality (compared to VHS to DVD)
This is welcome news! Is iBooks going to be compatible on iPhone and iTouch or not?!!
Wait….
Can you hear it yet….
The bitching is about to begin.
It’s not low enough. It’s too high. It’s “insert random thought” ready yet.
Sigh…
@R2
“Apple never thinks of the little features…”
WHA??!!
I’d be the first to say I will probably never give up paper, but just as not all apps are same price, not all ibooks should be the same price. All depends on what people are willing to pay for content. I can see an interactive children’s book where kids can poke an animal to make a sound or flip over graphical objects with touch, it is more like an app and so not necessarily price the same as regular print. New media and story telling ideas and teaching tools will contribute to what will differentiate the iPad and make it worth getting.
Looks like we’ll be debating similar issues until (and I’m sure after) the iPad is released. eBook reading… not the killer app for me. Don’t care, physical books (and the library) are fine for me.
But to think Apple will not optimize the experience compared to others is silly… they may not have all the features everyone wants… but it will be a nice user experience.
The problem, my dear friend, is the DRM.
It seems we’ll be forever haunted by it.
@bon
It’s important to examine the paradigm here. Not all media is consumed in the same way. Songs? They are bite sized data chunks that you listen to over and over. The DRM was imposed at the insistence of the music publishing companies. Apple took most of it off (but had to raise the price in the bargain).
Books are consumed differently. You MIGHT read a book more than once (especially a reference work or text book) and the content is less easily cut and pasted, emailed, or basically stolen. The content costs more (more money involved always means more controls imposed). DRM is probably useful for some books but those sold in the iPad format will not be able to be copied or transferred.
Movies are consumed differently too. Unless you are complete nut you primarily watch movies once. DRM is fundamentally part of monetization of this form.
Interesting isn’t it that our degree of interest in repeated consumption of the media forms is inverse to the cost of creating them?
The whole point is that creating media costs something. Money is at the heart of all of it. If we lived in a society where we all lived endless, healthy happy lives with no need to pay for things that would be nicely ideal but that’s not gonna happen. People will quite literally steal you blind if you let them. What Apple has done is make it EASIER and in the process worth it to do the right thing. Pay a fair price to those who’s living depends on the revenue from the products they create.
” … I think the iBookstore is overrated …”
So – something that nobody outside of Apple has seen yet is overrated?
You’re probably right though –
The 2014 Corvette never did live up to the hype.
Windows 12? Ya – we know that’ll suck.
@R2
think before you write..
So he goes like, “I think the iBookstore is overrated. Unless Apple plans to restrict ebook apps on the iPad (which would be a PR disaster), I’d probably prefer to continue purchasing books with third party apps like Kindle and Barnes & Noble eReader.
The iBookstore app itself will likely be sub par because Apple never thinks of the little features like night mode and automatic scrolling. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were both missing.”
And then I go like, WTF?
And then I see it’s like the R2 dude and I go like, Oh, nevermind.
Here’s a great take on the DRM question in a roundabout way.
Creative works have been stolen for so long online that a whole generation now equates “THEFT” with FREEDOM…not so damn fast there shorty.
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2010/02/academic-dont-conflate-infringement-with-social-justice/
Apple won’t care what the price is. If the publisher charges $100 a book, Apple gets 30%, if they charge $10 a book, Apple gets 30%. If the publisher can’t figure out they’ll sell more than 10x copies by charging $10 rather than $100, they deserve to fail. Apple will still get 30%.
@PR–Obviously you don’t have kids who want to watch WALL-E or Finding Nemo for the 17th time…but your points are well made.
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@R2: Just as people shop at more than one brick-and-mortar bookstore, no problem with shopping at different e-bookstores. But don’t assume anything about Apple’s reader till it’s actually in action.
Regardless of what book publishers there are, what books are published, best sellers … whatever….
The Bible is still going to pop up into that list as the undisputed champion.