Cost of Kindle Books -

Plummielass Reading bill rogers

02 Jan 2012, 12:38 PM | Post: #1

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Cost of Kindle Books

Why are some books so expensive on Kindle. The new Claire Tomalin on Charles Dickes, is actually more expensive to buy on Kindle that in paperback?

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Stephen Brown

02 Jan 2012, 12:54 PM | Post: #2

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RE: Cost of Kindle Books

Two lines of the Amazon listing give the reasons here.
'Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT.'
'This price was set by the publisher.'

This book is published by Penguin, who operate the 'Agency Pricing Model' where the publisher dictates to the seller the Retail Price of the e-book and allows no discount of any sort on this price.
Amazon sell the hardback version for £14.85, the kindle version for £17.99, the difference between these prices is almost exactly the amount of the VAT on the e-book version compared to the print book.

At the moment all you can do if you don't want to pay this price is wait and see what the price is when a paperback version is published, or hope that the EEC inquiry into the 'Agency Model' has a quick result and forces publishers to abandon this policy and allows retailers like Amazon to set their own prices, which would hopefully be somewhat lower. (We can but hope!!!)

Stephen

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joo Reading Off The KUF Vol I

02 Jan 2012, 01:01 PM | Post: #3

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RE: Cost of Kindle Books

You can use http://www.ereaderiq.co.uk to track book prices until it's at a price you are willing to pay.
Or do as a lot of us here do, ignore the mainstream books (and their high prices) and discover the fab world of indie and KUF authors.

Hedgehogs rock.

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Phil Reading The Lost Empress by Steve Robinson

02 Jan 2012, 02:06 PM | Post: #4

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RE: Cost of Kindle Books

This post was last modified: 02 Jan 2012 02:08 PM by Phil.

Good news though on the VAT front. VAT is being reduced to 3% on ebooks in the EU so the price difference should be reduced somewhat.

The greedy publishers though will still charge a premium for their ebooks as they really don't want people switching to ebooks, so they appear to be elevating the prices to put people off. Its working as well I no longer buy main stream authors - well done to the publishers Whistle

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Rosen Trevithick Reading

02 Jan 2012, 02:23 PM | Post: #5

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RE: Cost of Kindle Books

(02 Jan 2012 02:06 PM)Phil Wrote: Good news though on the VAT front. VAT is being reduced to 3% on ebooks in the EU so the price difference should be reduced somewhat.

I did not know that! Brilliant news! When's it coming in?