Harper has launched another modest experiment in the UK, offering bundles of print and ebook editions on 8 titles, exclusively through Foyles. The ebooks are redeemed through a printed voucher shrinkwrapped with the hardcover edition. The Bookseller reports that “Foyles said the price of the bundles will be around £5 more than buying the hardback title alone.” But that seems to compare the bundle price to the paper list price, rather than Foyles’ own selling price; the effective cost of the bundles looks to be much higher. On Foyles’ site, the bundle of Amy Tan’s Valley of Amazement at £22.99 […]
Pricing
Scribd Joins the eBook Subscription Race
Scribd has officially rolled out an expanded version of their ebook subscription program, now promoted front-and-center on the site and boasting “the majority” of HarperCollins’ backlist among the available titles. Scribd’s program offers unlimited online access (and up to10 downloaded titles) for $8.99 month — including a free month’s trial. While the current deals are with US publishers, whenever rights are available the books are available to Scribd’s 80 million users across 100 countries. Harper has contributed “far more [titles] than the other two subscription deals that we did, which were about a couple of thousands titles,” ceo Brian Murray […]
Higher Price Bands Make More Money for Self-Published Authors
Smashwords has published some findings derived analyzing the recent 11 months of sales (thrugh March 31) for 120,000 ebooks distributed by the company. Those sales represent $12 million in net receipts for authors and publishers (after Smashwords’ and retailers’ commissions; if you like math, you’ll find that means Smashwords collected about $2.2 million in distribution fees during that period). As usual, some of the prose is happy talk about the wonders of self-publishing — even though the first graph proves that a very small number of titles account for the vast amount of sales. (Their No. 1 selling title outsold […]
eNews: Sony Ends 20p eBook Promotion in UK; DA VINCI CODE eBook Free for a Week; And More
Sony’s 20p discounted price on select ebooks, a promotion that lasted for more than eight months, has ended after the company redesigned its ebookstore. In a statement to the Bookseller Sony said “Discounted 20p pricing is not currently offered on the newly relaunched UK Reader Store. However, pricing is always subject to revision. The duration of our 20p pricing is indicative of our commitment to provide great e-books at exceptionally accessible prices, which is a philosophy we continue to hold.” Now that the steep discount on books such as Yann Martel’s LIFE OF PI and John Lanchester’s CAPITAL (and earlier, […]
Discounting of Macmillan Books to Start By Next Week
When Macmillan ceo John Sargent said in a letter Friday morning that discounting of their ebooks under the settlement with Department of Justice “will take effect quickly,” he really meant it. The court filing is more blunt on the matter: “Macmillan must allow its e-book retailers to discount within three business days of agreeing to the settlement, even if it has not formalized new contracts with retailers.” DOJ writes that “the proposed Macmillan Final Judgment does not give Macmillan a choice” in notifying and renegotiating with retailers–as the original settlement had done–“to provide for more prompt relief to consumers.” But it’s […]
Nook Adds Beta Text-to-Speech Feature; Penguin Library eBooks Sold At Consumer Price
Though not an advertised feature, Nook appears to have added text-to-speech “read aloud” capability for all ebooks in its latest releases. The National Federation for the Blind posted about the “beta” feature–which appears as an “accessibility” setting–last week: “We selected enable accessibility (beta) which will actually provide speech to read Nook books. That’s quite momentous, and would be even better if it were documented somewhere we could find it, or if any of the customer service reps knew about it. Still–it’s more than we’ve seen previously.” In August, the California Public Library Authority reached a settlement with the NFB over […]