eReader Drops Prices – No Book Over $12.95!
Posted on 30 June 2009, at 8:35 pm, by Jessica Fritsche
I received my weekly email from eReader today, and for a change I was actually SHOCKED when I opened it! Usually I find that, even on sale, eReader books are too expensive. New eBooks often cost more than a brand-new physical copy! Bestsellers have also been prohibitively expensive. Well, eReader is finally answering my wishes–no book will be more expensive than $12.95.
One thing that really impressed me about the Amazon Kindle Store was the fact that books were, for the most part, very reasonably priced. I honestly feel that eBooks shouldn’t cost more than $9.99 at the VERY most for a brand new book, and Amazon has come the closest to that I’ve seen so far. They price most bestsellers and new books at $9.99, which I appreciate. However, I don’t have a Kindle, and until recently I couldn’t read Kindle books on my main eBook reader, which is my iPhone.
I am sure that eReader/Fictionwise have been feeling the pain of losing market share left and right to the Kindle, both from a format perspective and from a price perspective. I mean, why wouldn’t people want to find a cheaper way to read eBooks? Now that they’ve been acquired by Barnes & Noble, I am sure that B&N wanted to do something to attract customers back immediately!
I know that some books on the Kindle Store have been as much as $15–I wonder how the same eBooks will be priced on the eReader store. Many of them have been new releases, and I see that eReader is promising new books will be $9.95 OR less. I have noticed that on the Fictionwise store, NYT Bestsellers will be $9.95, but I have seen nothing about books not being more expensive than $12.95. Hopefully it’s the same across the board.
The real question is…will eReader be able to win back customers now that they’ve lowered their prices? I know they’re tempting me back!
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July 1st, 2009 at 8:15 am
I hope this drives Amazon to open the kindle app up to more platforms. EReader has a major head start in that you can get it for just about any platform…if Amazon has a Kindle app that works on WinMob/Symbian/Blackberry/Mac/PC that would be awesome.
I admit, it makes me want to install ereader on my E71x just to have it and keep 1-2 books handy for times when I’m not near my Kindle.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:51 am
I wish I could just get my eReader library onto my Kindle… :-/
July 1st, 2009 at 10:18 am
Once eReader is out for Android, I’ll definitely be back.
It’s the one thing I miss most about moving from WM. My eReader library is huge!
July 1st, 2009 at 10:46 am
I’ve got at least one Kindle book that cost more than $15! It’s nice, though, to see that B&N is going to keep up the pressure on Amazon!
Amazon is already working to put the Kindle reader onto WM, so that will push things back into that direction as well. I wonder, however, how the overall eBook market is actually doing. Are eBooks really anymore popular than they were a few years ago?
MP3 existed for quite a while before the digital music market took off and I suspect eBooks are waiting for a couple of things – a consistent format – and decent pricing. The second one seems to be here. Now how about the first!