Apple iPad book prices may be lower than expected
It seems that some provisions in the Apple deal with book publishers for the iPad will work to keep prices down, especially on the most popular books, such as those from the New York Times best seller list.
When Steve Jobs was negotiating deals with five of the top six book publishers (the Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan, the Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster) he inserted provisions for the sale of the most popular books at the very popular price of $9.99. This may seem odd, since it was a $9.99 price limitation that got Amazon and their Kindle in such hot water with book publishers recently, which in turn made it easier for Apple to cut deals with the publishers.
It seems, though, that the $9.99 price is acceptable to the publishers for books that they sell in large quantities, such as those from best-sellers lists or from very popular authors, where high-volume sales are virtually guaranteed. The higher prices desired by the publishers (Apple negotiated levels from $12.99 to $14.99) are for those books that do not sell in large quantities and therefore do not have the economies of scale working for them. This allows the publishers room to make a profit even on less popular books, according to a New York Times story.
It seems that people close to the negotiations say that the $12.99-14.99 figures represent ceiling on prices rather than the norm. Just because it will be possible to charge the higher prices does not mean that publishers would always do so or that Apple would want them to. The publishers simply liked Apple’s deal because it was much more flexible than the $9.99 for all books rule that Amazon was trying to enforce.
Consumers will still have to see the exact terms of the digital rights management rules from the Apple book store before a judgement can be made about what sort of value they are getting from Apple and the publishers for their money. Still, it seems like the publishers of books (and now e-books) are willing to be much more flexible than their counterparts in magazine and newspaper publishing, as highlighted in a story in this space yesterday. In truth, everyone in the supply chain from publishers to readers will have to be a bit more flexible as the publishing industry changes from the paradigm of Dickens to the paradigm of the iPad and the Kindle.
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February 19th, 2010
$9.99 seems like a good price for a book, only if it has no DRM. Personally Ill just use an Appstore App (1.99) to read my PDFs. Article Bookmarked
July 23rd, 2010
Microsoft is not any stranger to having partners galore within the telephone enterprise, however its lineup of manufacturers for the upcoming, surprisingly promising Home windows Telephone 7 launch is not any less impressive. After plenty of rumoring, Microsoft has confirmed that Dell and HTC shall be making Home windows Phone 7 telephones, along with ASUS, LG, and Samsung who had already been confirmed. All of those corporations should have their stamp on hardware by the top of the yr, with the launch of the OS still vaguely slated for the “holidays” We’ve little doubt that every one five manufacturers can construct some compelling, attractive hardware, however we’re notably enthused to see Dell actually getting into the game after the spectacular Streak and that drool worthy leak a short time back. learn more at http://www.wp7forum.com followers group.