Kindle Pricing

Considering the hardback edition is priced at £12.50 the decision to charge customers £14.99 for the DIGITAL Kindle editions is laughable.

An own goal if I've ever seen one. Won't be buying this for my Kindle, won't be buying it from Amazon at all as long as they pursue these ridiculous pricing policies.

I agree. It is not like you have to print and distribute it. As I have a new Kindle I had considered getting the electronic version of the series. Not Now. It is not the only one more expensive than what amazon sell the book for.

The reason for the difference is that VAT is chargeable on Ebooks - £12.50 x 120% = £15.

RRP is £25. The Amazon price is £12.50. Yes they have to add VAT but they could also lower the price of the Kindle version further, then add VAT. As to the haggling with the publishers over acceptable prices, now that's another story...

Just saw this when thinking of buying and had to laugh at that price. A digital download costing more than a hardback book of this size? Nearly twice the price of the paperback?
Not a chance in hell I'm buying it.

I would just nick it online before i would pay that

I think Amazon does this to create a furore to try to get people to campaign to have VAT lifted from ebooks so the price can be lowered (though given this government's policies, this is more likely to backfire and they'd probably just whack VAT on paper books as well).

It is worth noting that A DANCE WITH DRAGONS will be published in two volumes in paperback. That means that both the ebook and discounted hardcover prices will be more competitive than the standard paperback price (2x £8.99 versus £12.50 or £14.99) and probably comparable with the discounted paperback prices.

It is not Amazon pricing the Kindle books, but the publishers. The publisher nowadays determines the price at which the electronic books can be sold at and they price them high, because they are afraid of electronic books.

I find it highly unlikely that an organisation as powerful as Amazon has no control over this. My theory is, the kindle version is priced so high because it's actually the most practical (and therefore valuable) form in which to buy a book like this. I certainly don't fancy trying to read the hardback edition on the train to work.

They can charge anything they want really. The Kindle is such a closed platform that it basically forces most people to buy it for whatever price regardless.

Others are forced to pirate the books and convert them.

I think if people refrain from buying the kindle edition as soon as the book is out, the price will go down in a couple of days. Of course the hype will put extra pressure on, but a book on paper costing more than its digital version is an absurd and opens a precedent that we'll have to literally pay.

Remember that Amazon aren't the ones charging this price. This is why Amazon always put "This price was set by the publisher" underneath the kindle book so you know that they are not responsible for the daft pricing.

I won't be buying the kindle version at that price...it's just ridiculous. In fact I'll not buy the hardback version either since I'll also have to pay postage.....This book can wait until I go to Aberdeen where I'll probably get it at a discounted price anyway....Really must think we're all stupid!!

The value of the book isnt in the paper and distribution, your paying for the intellectual proprety and to some extent the market dictates how much the owners of that intellectual property can charge. Just because there is no perceived cost in providing an ebook doesnt mean the content is worth any less than a paper book. And to be honest in terms of entertainment hours per pound books are way under priced compared to video games or a trip to the movies.

That still doesn't explain why the eBook is MORE than the hardback. I understand VAT, but there are surely printing costs which aren't associated with ebooks that SHOULD reduce the price. I don't mind paying decent money for a good book but what's the point in ebooks if they're more expensive?

If the printing costs for a hardback were so small then paperbacks wouldn't be less expensive. There's no reason why any ebook should cost more - if Amazon wants to prevent piracy of ebooks increasing it needs to do something about the pricing.

Bizarre. The Amazon.com version is priced at just $11.74, which at today's exchange rate works out as £7.31. Mind you, the Amazon.com Kindle itself is less expensive than one sold on .co.uk...

"That still doesn't explain why the eBook is MORE than the hardback. I understand VAT, but there are surely printing costs which aren't associated with ebooks that SHOULD reduce the price. I don't mind paying decent money for a good book but what's the point in ebooks if they're more expensive?"

Printing costs for hardcovers make up around about 13% of the cost of the book. So if you remove that, but then slap on VAT of 20%, it's still more expensive. If the ebook is more than 7% more expensive than the hardcover, then something has gone wrong somewhere or someone is trying to make more money out of the book.

Printing costs also come down due to economies of sale if a lot of copies are printed. Given that ADWD has more than 100,000 hardcovers in print for the hardcover, according to Voyager Books, its printing costs should be somewhat less than the norm.

I won't be buying it at that price either.

It won't be long before publishers complain about people downloading ebooks illegally when they help push people to do exactly that.

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I want to buy the Kindle Version so I can read it on the train BUT I also want the Hard back to continue my set and to get the maps etc plus I like books and the Kindle is a convenience thing for travel...I would like to see an option where if you buy the Hardback you can then get a voucher of somehing like £10 off the Kindle version.

Forget the VAT, end user price can be the same as the hard back if they wanted it to be.

You really think its fine to spend £15 on a digital book that costs them nothing to distribute?

Why not? The author, Amazon and the publisher are all operating in a competitive markets and they'll set the price at whatever they believe the market will bear.

"and they'll set the price at whatever they believe the market will bear"

yeah and if we all had your attitude to ripoff pricing we'd all be spending £20 on ebooks and not complain

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Some people really do astound me and I do wonder if they are really on the same planet.

Dim, you post is hilarious, since when is a fantasy fiction book a luxury item? Are mp3's luxury items? Compare to the price of a football match ticket? Are you saying we should be paying £50 for this luxury kindle book that costs them next to nothing to distribute and be happy about it? Not all of us are made of money. It's ok though because if we can't afford to buy an ebook there are other ways of obtaining them.

I know, why don't you 'donate' extra money to the publisher for their luxury ebooks... (which are really just standard ebooks) and the rest of us will continue to pay reasonable prices or get the book elsewhere.

You should be on the apprentice, honestly... luxury item, lol