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Does the price of a book matter?
If you're prepared to pay for a particular book does the actual price make much difference to you?
Comments
If you picked one up, read the blurb and decided to have it, would the price make you change your mind? (I don't mean if it was £10000s of pounds - assuming it was close to the price of other paperbacks)
Would a special offer encourage you to buy a book you'd never otherwise have considered?
But that's me.
I've bought books at the standard price just on the basis of the blurb and reading a couple of pages, but that's usually within my own genre. I would be less inclined to do that if it was a genre I'd never tried before.
Will be interesting to see what others say.
If I was waiting for a book and it turned out to be 17.99 and there was an offer, then I'd think seriously about waiting for the paperback.
If it's on Kindle then the price matters MUCH more - as I would rather have copy of an actual book if it was too much.
Where it does make a difference is if you as an author are selling your own books where you do readings. People are not that happy about handing out a tenner, but for children will hand over a fiver, and for adult books up to about 7.99.
As for Kindle, I'm even more miserly. My logic may be completely wrong (feel free to tell me if so) but knowing there are no production costs, I don't want to pay the same as a paperback. I wanted to buy the Harry Potter books on my kindle, and was so shocked at the price I collected them for £1 each from charity shops instead, even though they're taking up most of a shelf and my daughter's not ready for them yet.
Well there are still production costs- the cover design of the paperback may not be good enough for the thumbnail image, so you might need a new cover, some may be okay, so this is a questionable cost.
Formatting the e-book for the different readers, kindle, ePub etc. That is time and in the checking, and we know time costs.
The (inescapable) extra cost in UK is VAT. E-books have to have VAT paid on them- unlike paper based books, they currently do not qualify for zero rate VAT, though the EU has been doing things with that issue.
Standard royalty rates are 25% for authors in mainstream publishers, compared to the lower % on print versions, so publishers will still expect to recoup costs and make a profit...
We have also had the earlier issue of publishers setting the price that retailers can sell their books at under the Agency model scheme, that has now gone the way of the world, and should make e-books a little cheaper.
Now back to PM's original question :)
"If you're prepared to pay for a particular book does the actual price make much difference to you?"
Mr Bear has asked for Pratchett's Raising Steam: £8 in hbk in UK, a whopping 23,74 here. That one's a no-brainer.
To answer your question, if it's a book I need as opposed to want, I'd be more likely to spend on it. If I saw it on offer in a bookshop, I'd be thrilled. If it's a book I fancy, I can wait. I saw a book advertised by an author I'd never read; I went to look it up, and found another by the same author for 3 less. I went for that, as a trial, rather than buy the higher priced one - why be disappointed for more cost? In fact the book I read was okay, though not great, and I may buy the other later if I'm stuck for something to choose.
What it comes down to is that I have no real disposable income to throw at things - so yes, price matters.
That's an interesting point, PM.
We're writers so we do have a deep attachment to books, but how many of the reading public just want to buy a book, read it, then dispose of it- give to a friend, sell it on ebay/amazon, or give to a charity shop?
So price may be more of an issue for them...
Likewise as mentioned by Mrs Bear, limited incomes...
Generally I'll spend anything up to a tenner if I'm reasonably sure I'm going to enjoy it. Sometimes it seems like a lot but when you consider how long a book lasts it's far better value than a cinema ticket or cup of tea in Starbucks, etc.
I don't really agree with Carol's comment that it's writers who have a deep attachment to books. I have plenty of non-writing friends who share my love of books and have shelves groaning with them - including my OH.
Sorry I was generalising with that comment, Claudia.
I meant the average person who enjoys reading, but wouldn't get overly enthusiastic about buying and keeping books, it's something they do but wouldn't be worried if someone turned around and said the only books that they could buy and read from now on would be digital.
I think if I read books a lot more quickly than I do I'd definitely switch to borrowing them from the local library. For me, the number of books I buy doesn't make it an expensive hobby - but it's time rather than cash that's in short supply!
I rarely by second hand books, but I do borrow a lot from the library.