Oh, honestly Stephen!

[rolanni]

Who on the lady's green earth is going to fork over thirty-five dollars for an ebook? Surely, you must have garnered a Clue by --

No, guess not

Comments

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

you really think he set that price?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

He has reportedly had input into these sorts of decisions before, so it's not unlikely in this case.

I guess we could ask; I'm a little too far away for him to hear me if I just open the kitchen window and yell. Maybe Mr. Hetley will walk a note over for me if I ask him nicely.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Mayhap they's figuring that a 1,000 pages is about 5 regular books, so a premium price is good? Or they is trying to push the growing mass of ebook addicts back over to those bargain-priced hardbacks? Or, of course, there's always just plain and simple stupidity.

Maybe it's an auction? Going once, going twice... not sold to the audience that won't be reading it? I don't think I've heard of a variety of auction where you start with an artificially high price and slowly reduce it... I take that back, fashionable stores do it all the time. And even Walmart has pricing rollbacks, so that the longer it hasn't sold, the lower the price. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Nah, I'm sticking with stooopid.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Let's see...

$9 for an actual book in hand, or $35 for a e book on my computer that may or may not crash and eat it... Gee, guess which one I'd go with?!?

Of course, the hubby says it's a no brainer, I'd get the actual book right off, cause I hate ebooks and vastly prefer a real book any day.}:P

[pedanther]

The bit that impresses me is the bit where, due to real-world supply-and-demand considerations, the physical book costs *less* than the ebook.

[spiritdancer]

Someone over there is smoking crack.

Meanwhile, all indications are that Baen is doing well with selling ebooks on Webscriptions at a substantially lower price. They've been getting my (limited) disposable income. Stephen King? Won't be seeing any of my money any time soon, at that price.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

*headshake*

Maybe I'll have to walk over there and have a word with him . . .

[(Anonymous)]

Not me, that's for sure. I'll get it from the Library.

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

So the hardcover is available for $9 and the e-book is $35??? What IS he smoking and where can I get some?

[elgordo303.livejournal.com]

No doubt Scribner will interpret the result of this fiasco to be that the e-book concept simply doesn't work.

[pgranzeau.livejournal.com]

I would think that e-book prices should be set to equal the current price of hardcopy. Of course, the proportion of the price of an e-book which is profit is much larger than the cost of hardcopy, due to there being so much less cost of production (no printer or binder) or distribution (no warehouse, no jobber, no wholesaler, no retailer). If the King book being discussed retails for $35, then, I suppose the publisher may demand that price for the e-book.