I’ve been getting really annoyed at the price of ebooks lately. I’ve done posts in the past that the cost is NOT worthwhile to readers, but seeing as I haven’t touched on it and it’s what I consider to be a major problem – let’s go there again shall we.
Pricing in ebooks is ridiculous. Readers pay out the nose per word with a cost that is not comparable to going to the bookstore and getting a dead tree paper book. Why? Because I think readers are not educated on costs and have been gradually acclimatized to accept “novellas” as the main length in the genre. Novel length stories are almost obscure and cost more, yet even “novel” length in most ebooks is below the average novel length of traditionally published work.
So let’s check out the cost you, the reader, are paying for your books at various publishers. Now since formatting is an issue and some publishers are guilty of horrendous formatting (and yes, Amber Allure, I’m looking at YOU with your 9 inch margins all around), let’s look at sheer word count for cost.
Now when I started this venture I thought I would take a sampling to get an idea and just started with one publisher whom I thought was over-charging. What turned into a sampling actually turned into looking at every single book in their listing and found almost NO standardization. Thus I’ll only be highlighting one publisher in this post – more to come.
Over on loveyoudivine, they are offering the following books:
3,800 words for $2.00
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=539
5,000 words for $2.50
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=534
5,400 words for $2.00
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=492
5,700 words for $2.00
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=491
10.5k words for $2.40
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=555
10.6k words for $2.50
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=541
11k for $2.75
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=547
11k words for $3.25
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=559
14k words for $3.25
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=548
14k words for $2.90
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=546
16k for $3.25
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=538
18k words for $3.75
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=496
23.5k words for $4.00
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=552
67k words for $6.50
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=22_3&products_id=490
I included the links so you can see the books for yourself but here is the breakdown of all 58 books in the m/m department of this publisher. There are no listings on the site about categories and pricing.
So a book that is under 10k words costs $2 – $3.25. The $3.25 is actually ~7k while the high end of word count at ~8 k is only $2.50. So you pay $0.75 MORE for 1000 LESS words. Sounds good to me!
A book between 10k and 11k costs $2.40 – $2.75, with the highest cost coming for lower word count once again.
A book between 11k and 20k costs $2.75 – $3.75. And anything over 20k is obviously more expensive ranging up to $6.50.
What I found was that the higher the book count, the more economical the word count is yet there is no standardization to the word count associating with cost. Two books by the same author at 5,200 words and 5,300 words cost $2.00 and $2.50 respectively.
Does this make ANY sense?
The lower the word count, the higher the cost! (quick graph because someone asked for it :D)
three am 
Wow, their pricing really is all over the place! I think most e-pubs have much more standardized scales, broken down by story length. There aren’t many companies, though, that accept work under 15k words.
My longest books (two at roughly 70k words and one that’s in the 90s) range in price from $5.50 to $6.99. They’re at three different publishers, and, oddly enough, the longest novel is the cheapest. So although readers should expect price variations from one e-pub to the next, they shouldn’t have to deal with capricious pricing within any one company.
It really is! I like some of their authors and even some of their books but that pricing is ridiculous. I’ve noticed that books over 70k seem to be very rare. More and more publishers are breaking up a 100k story into 3-4 smaller editions and charging more.
I’m almost about to get a tin hat and call it a conspiracy!
Are you and Jen conspiring to send me off on a rant of epic proportions??? I’m attempting to restrain myself here cos when you factor in crappy exchange rates the cost gets even more ridiculous. Okay, gotta go. I can feel the build up of steam already.
Sorry!! Not trying to blow anyone’s head off but I *DO* think it’s ridiculous. I’ve ranted on this a few times and it’s the reason I stop buying books at certain publishers. I completely stopped buying books at Total-E-Bound due to the high price, low word count and there are others publishers rapidly making the list. I want to read their authors but in the world of 600 book TBR’s… I don’t need to pay out the nose for the privilege.
*sigh* I think I’m going to have to go the way of stop buying from certain publishers myself. The whole thing is very frustrating. I just wish it was more consistent; not only re: the same publisher, but across the industry as a whole.
I now find myself shopping mainly when there are sales or where I can get a discount depending on the number of books I buy because I feel more comfortable with the price I’m paying at those times.
Great post Kassa. This has always been an issue for me. Yesterday I bought a couple of books from EC which cost 7.99 each because they were “super plus” novels I still balk at paying these prices for ebooks.
Kris
I remember that you raised the issue of pricing when I interviewed a couple of publishers, and they tried to justify their prices by breaking them down based on the word count. I believe LI was going to try and compete with ARe (you used ARe as a comparison because you get reductions or free books when you buy 10 or more books) in their new pricing structure. Did this ever happen?
Wave:
Yeah, my questions seemed to cause some defensive behaviour, didn’t they. LOL.
As was detailed to me in a separate email, LI did in fact implement a discount for those people buying 4 books or more. They also have a discount for those who purchase books by new authors. It also seems that they are releasing their books much sooner to places like ARe.
I think this is just proof of this particular publishers willingness to take onboard suggestions and try and do the best for their customers.
Interesting. I stopped buying direct and buy almost entirely from ARe – I sometimes even wait for a release. It’s something special that I go out and buy immediately. ARe is hard to beat. One stop shopping – no FW DRM crap , discounts, multiple formats, re-downloadable forever and easy shopping/buying. Pub’s themselves rarely offer this.
As for cost… I think it’s ridiculous the cost of most books considering over 75% of what we read are novellas. I think full length novels scare *sigh*