Are e-books priced too high?

David Naggar, Amazon’s publishing chief, says a price of 99p sells more books.

Self-published authors  regularly sell  their work on Amazon for 99p  

Faced with two book by unknown authors which cost £9.99 and £2.99 respectively, which do you think most people would pick? 

Trad publishers find this "economically unwise"  because their business models are quite different. Indie authors sell at 99p via the Kindle platform and earn a royalty of between 35-70% of the retail price. Trad published authors earn 25% on e-books. 

Amazon has around 90% share of the ebook market in the UK according to the Publishers Association and according to them sales of trade ebooks fell by 17% in 2016 to £204 million.

One publisher (Alessandro Gallenzi) argues that nurturing authors requires a long term investment and cheap prices damage authors by devaluing and homogenising their work.

Matthew Lynn is the CEO of Endeavour Press and thinks that the market dictates the price, that e books are overpriced and £1.99 is a better price than 99p - though it does depend on genre.

"Digital and print books serve different audiences," he says..."cheaper ebooks are enhancing sales."

Evidently an Amazon spokes person has said that Naggar's comments had been intended to illustrate and example of KDP tactics to drive discovery for new authors. 

September 4, 2017 by Natasha Onwuemezi and Katherine Cowdrey