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It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Phantoms by Dean Koontz

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Phantoms by Dean Koontz

The allegation is homicide. But defending it could be professional suicide… Dark Moon, A Legal Thriller by Deborah Hawkins

The allegation is homicide. But defending it could be professional suicide… Dark Moon, A Legal Thriller by Deborah Hawkins

Forget sugar and spice and everything nice … this year we want to show off our naughty side. Knotty or Nice (Kringle & Co Book 1) by Ines Johnson

Forget sugar and spice and everything nice … this year we want to show off our naughty side. Knotty or Nice (Kringle & Co Book 1) by Ines Johnson

A radical challenge to be a passionate follower of Christ… Ageless Faith: Wisdom for Overcoming Today’s Challenges by Rick McKinney and Jane McKinney

A radical challenge to be a passionate follower of Christ… Ageless Faith: Wisdom for Overcoming Today’s Challenges by Rick McKinney and Jane McKinney

Jaw-dropping twists, mesmerizing suspense, and a touch of romance… The Haunted Child by Dawn Merriman

Jaw-dropping twists, mesmerizing suspense, and a touch of romance… The Haunted Child by Dawn Merriman

When tragedy strikes, will love see their family through? Or will love fail in a world obsessed with wealth? Symphony of a Heart in Pieces by E. Masson

When tragedy strikes, will love see their family through? Or will love fail in a world obsessed with wealth? Symphony of a Heart in Pieces by E. Masson

In one night, she lost everything. Her hopes now rest in a faraway land that may not exist… A Currency of Control: The N-ergy Cycle – Book II by Charles Brass

In one night, she lost everything. Her hopes now rest in a faraway land that may not exist… A Currency of Control: The N-ergy Cycle – Book II by Charles Brass

Revenge may be a dish best-served cold. But love can melt the hardest heart… Empire of Billions: The Quadrillionaire Brothers by E. Masson

Revenge may be a dish best-served cold. But love can melt the hardest heart… Empire of Billions: The Quadrillionaire Brothers by E. Masson

In CiviLibra, perfection isn’t just expected—it’s enforced… Harmony’s Betrayal: A Dystopian Thriller (Book One of the C6 Chronicles) by Gavin Noble Mills

In CiviLibra, perfection isn’t just expected—it’s enforced… Harmony’s Betrayal: A Dystopian Thriller (Book One of the C6 Chronicles) by Gavin Noble Mills

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Whiteout by Ken Follett

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Whiteout by Ken Follett

Elizabeth’s forbidden love for a man her brothers hate could tear her family apart… Empire of Billions: The Quadrillionaire Brothers by E. Masson

Elizabeth’s forbidden love for a man her brothers hate could tear her family apart… Empire of Billions: The Quadrillionaire Brothers by E. Masson

Can a hastily-prepared volunteer militia of farmers defeat a battalion of trained soldiers? Their Village, Their Fortress by Dylan Madeley

Can a hastily-prepared volunteer militia of farmers defeat a battalion of trained soldiers? Their Village, Their Fortress by Dylan Madeley

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Shadow

Month: March 2010

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Sunday, March 7, 2010: Sushi for One? , and Millions More!

by
Product Details
Sushi for One? by Camy Tang

Product Details


In addition to the several dozen free promotion books listed below, Amazon has just created a new direct gateway to over 2 million other free books that you can download easily to your Kindle. Here’s what you’ll find there:

With over 420,000 titles, the Kindle Store contains the largest selection of the books people want to read including New York Times® Best Sellers and most new releases at $9.99, unless otherwise marked. And Amazon provides thousands of the most popular classics for free including titles like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island with more coming.
But of course, the Internet is huge and there are lots of older, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books online. We wanted to make it easier to find these collections, which today represent nearly 2 million titles. See the sites and instructions below to download free classic and other out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books and transfer via USB to your Kindle device or read on Kindle for PC.
Note that these large collections of older free books are typically created from scanned copies of physical books and can have variable quality.

Amazon Kindle Store – Thousands of the most popular classics for free
The Amazon Kindle Store lets you choose from thousands of popular classics all available for free wireless delivery in under 60 seconds with Whispernet.

  1. Visit Kindle Popular Classics
  2. Search or browse for a title just like a normal Kindle book.
Internet Archive – Over 1.8 million free titles
Internet Archive is a non-profit dedicated to offering permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital format. Provides over 1.8 million free books to read, download, and enjoy.

  1. Visit archive.org
  2. Search for a title or browse one of the sub-collections like ‘American Libraries’
  3. When viewing a title, click the link on the left labeled “Kindle (beta)” to download the file to your computer
  4. Attach your Kindle to your computer using your USB cable and drag the file to the “Documents” folder on your Kindle. You can also e-mail the file to your Kindle using Whispernet for wireless delivery (charges apply).
  5. Open the book from your Kindle’s home screen and enjoy.
Project Gutenberg – Over 30,000 free titles
Project Gutenberg, one of the original sources of free electronic books, is dedicated to the creation and distribution of eBooks.

  1. Visit gutenberg.org
  2. Search for a title or browse the ‘Book shelves by topic’
  3. When viewing a title, scroll down to the ‘Download this ebook for free’ section and click the download link for ‘Mobipocket’ or ‘Mobipocket with images’ format.
  4. Attach your Kindle to your computer using your USB cable and drag the file to the “Documents” folder on your Kindle. You can also e-mail the file to your Kindle using Whispernet for wireless delivery (charges apply).
  5. Open the book from your Kindle’s home screen and enjoy.
Have you seen another great collection of free Kindle books on the web? Drop us a line.


©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: "What Do I Do if I Lose My Kindle?"

by

Thanks, and my heartfelt sympathy, to Kindle Nation citizen Terry D, who sent in this tale of woe:

Help – what do you recommend I do – I have lost my Kindle.  Heartbreak city!


I called Amazon and had them disable my one click account so that whoever has it can’t access my credit card and keep downloading books.


Why can’t Amazon tell if someone else registers my Kindle?
Also – I then went out and bought an ipod touch – happy days cos I found out I could use the kindle app to get my archived books….BUT – can I/should I attempt to buy any books with my itouch?  should I just get a new kindle and reregister with a new name?


I am confused and don’t know what to do next – could you do an article on this?


ps – lost it flying…it fell out of my bag somewhere, I have called lost and found to no avail….


thanks for any advice you can offer!
Love your newletter


TerryD

Terry, I appreciate your kind words about Kindle Nation Daily and I wish I had some “tips and tricks” that could really help you turn this one around. You’ve done the main “after the fact” thing, of course, which is to contact Amazon to de-register your Kindle and disable your one-click account account. You can do this either by calling Kindle Support (Kindle Support Phone Number 1-866-321-8851, or 1-206-266-0927 outside the US), or by going to your Manage Your Kindle page.

Unfortunately, a gadget that costs $259 is too expensive to simply replace without feeling some pain, but probably too inexpensive to be covered in any worthwhile way by any insurance program that I’m aware of. (Although that seems like a great niche for an entrepreneur!) But it may be worth a call to your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance agent to make sure that your Kindle was not covered — or to find out if you could add a Kindle to your insurance policy in the future.

One small consolation is that you haven’t lost any of the Kindle books that you purchased. If you haven’t already done so, it’s easy to download the free Kindle Apps for PC, BlackBerry, or iPhone or iPod Touch, and then you can go to your Manage Your Kindle page to send any or all of your Kindle books directly to the device of your choosing. For those of us who have grown accustomed to the pleasures of reading on a Kindle, other devices can take some getting used to, but my best mate has recently read Kindle editions of her last two book group choices — Committed and Of Human Bondage, no less! — on her iPod Touch, and she has enjoyed the experience. You can definitely keep buying Kindle books with your iPod’s Kindle App, and you’ll be able to send them easily to a replacement Kindle should you decide to get one.

If you decide to replace your Kindle — and wouldn’t that really just be a matter of time for most of us? — just be sure to register it to the same Amazon account that was associated with your departed Kindle, and again, you’ll be able to go to your your Manage Your Kindle page to send your Kindle books wirelessly to your Kindle.

Which Kindle to get? While there’s been a great deal of speculation that we may see some new Kindle hardware features or lower Kindle prices soon — driven by any number of forces including the iPad launch — it’s all just speculation, until it’s not. For now, the choices are straightforward:

It is a little surprising that Amazon can’t provide Kindle owners with information about the registration status, or for that matter even the whereabouts, of their lost Kindles, but I suspect there are Amazon attorneys who could explain why it would not make sense for Amazon to get into the middle of such matters. With some other 3G devices such as the iPhone shown in this photograph from ArsTechnica, it’s possible to send a message that could show up right on the display of a lost device.

Meanwhile, I hope that there’s an enterprising app developer out there who is working on an app that will wake up a Kindle and inspire it to emit some kind of appropriate sound — presumably in response to a command sent via Whispernet — to help a Kindle owner find his Kindle before it’s too late! 

Finally, I sincerely hope that there is something I’m leaving out that will just make it all better, Terry, so I am going to send this post along to the fine folks at Amazon to see if there’s some other worthwhile remedy that I have missed, and if so I will post it and send it on to you directly.

©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

Updated Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Wednesday, March 3, 2010: New Religious Fiction, Dozens of Free Promotional Titles, and a New "Free Book Collections" Gateway to Over 2 Million Other Free Books!

by

  • Originally posted March 3, 2010 – © Kindle Nation Daily 2010 
  • “Free” in the Kindle Store refers, for now, to the price for download to US-based Kindles. Amazon adds various charges for Kindles based beyond US borders. However, you can scroll down to Free Book Collections for over 1.8 million titles that can be downloaded free from the internet to Kindles anywhere in the world (use USB connection to avoid wireless charges.)
Operation Sheba: Super Agent Series, Book 1
Operation Sheba: Super Agent Series, Book 1
As Young As We Feel: A Novel
As Young As We Feel: A Novel
Battle Of The Network Zombies
Battle Of The Network Zombies
Petals From The Sky
Petals From The Sky
Booth
Booth’s Sister
Cool Like That: A So For Real Novel
Cool Like That: A So For Real Novel
You Can
You Can’t Stop Me
Bride Most Begrudging, A
Bride Most Begrudging, A
Demonfire
Demonfire
Primitive
Primitive
Saving Sailor: A Novel
Saving Sailor: A Novel
New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and "Worked Examples" as One Way Forwar...
New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and “Worked Examples” as One Way Forwar…
Breakthrough! (Chapter 1): The World-s First Physician: Hippocrates and the Discovery of M...
Breakthrough! (Chapter 1): The World-s First Physician: Hippocrates and the Discovery of M…
Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis from the Good Play Project
Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis from the Good Play Project
The Civic Potential of Video Games
The Civic Potential of Video Games
Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project
Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age
The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age
Autobiography of a Yogi (Reprint of Original 1946 Edition)
Autobiography of a Yogi (Reprint of Original 1946 Edition)
The Joy of Pregnancy: The Complete, Candid, and Reassuring Companion for Parents-to-Be
The Joy of Pregnancy: The Complete, Candid, and Reassuring Companion for Parents-to-Be
The Hunters
The Hunters
Economic Report of the President
Economic Report of the President
Speed Dating
Speed Dating
A Very Special Delivery
A Very Special Delivery
Edge of Apocalypse Free Preview
Edge of Apocalypse Free Preview
The Wild
The Wild’s Call
Homespun Bride
Homespun Bride
Once a Cowboy
Once a Cowboy
Baby Bonanza
Baby Bonanza
When Night Falls
When Night Falls
Atomic Lobster Free with Bonus Material
Atomic Lobster Free with Bonus Material
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #2: Skyborn
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #2: Skyborn
The Reincarnationist Series
The Reincarnationist Series
Kiss Me Deadly
Kiss Me Deadly
The Bride
The Bride’s Baby
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #1: Precipice
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #1: Precipice
My Soul to Lose
My Soul to Lose
Dancing in the Moonlight
Dancing in the Moonlight
Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch
Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon
His Lady Mistress
His Lady Mistress
Irresistible Forces
Irresistible Forces
Amberville Free with Bonus Material
Amberville Free with Bonus Material
FANG: A MAXIMUM RIDE NOVEL - Free preview: Book One
FANG: A MAXIMUM RIDE NOVEL – Free preview: Book One
Slow Hands
Slow Hands
Equivoque Principle, The
Equivoque Principle, The
Hide in Plain Sight
Hide in Plain Sight
Love Yourself and Let the Other Person Have It Your Way
Love Yourself and Let the Other Person Have It Your Way
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)
Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)


In addition to the several dozen free promotion books listed below, Amazon has just created a new direct gateway to over 2 million other free books that you can download easily to your Kindle. Here’s what you’ll find there:

With over 420,000 titles, the Kindle Store contains the largest selection of the books people want to read including New York Times® Best Sellers and most new releases at $9.99, unless otherwise marked. And Amazon provides thousands of the most popular classics for free including titles like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island with more coming.
But of course, the Internet is huge and there are lots of older, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books online. We wanted to make it easier to find these collections, which today represent nearly 2 million titles. See the sites and instructions below to download free classic and other out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books and transfer via USB to your Kindle device or read on Kindle for PC.
Note that these large collections of older free books are typically created from scanned copies of physical books and can have variable quality.

Amazon Kindle Store – Thousands of the most popular classics for free
The Amazon Kindle Store lets you choose from thousands of popular classics all available for free wireless delivery in under 60 seconds with Whispernet.

  1. Visit Kindle Popular Classics
  2. Search or browse for a title just like a normal Kindle book.
Internet Archive – Over 1.8 million free titles
Internet Archive is a non-profit dedicated to offering permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital format. Provides over 1.8 million free books to read, download, and enjoy.

  1. Visit archive.org
  2. Search for a title or browse one of the sub-collections like ‘American Libraries’
  3. When viewing a title, click the link on the left labeled “Kindle (beta)” to download the file to your computer
  4. Attach your Kindle to your computer using your USB cable and drag the file to the “Documents” folder on your Kindle. You can also e-mail the file to your Kindle using Whispernet for wireless delivery (charges apply).
  5. Open the book from your Kindle’s home screen and enjoy.
Project Gutenberg – Over 30,000 free titles
Project Gutenberg, one of the original sources of free electronic books, is dedicated to the creation and distribution of eBooks.

  1. Visit gutenberg.org
  2. Search for a title or browse the ‘Book shelves by topic’
  3. When viewing a title, scroll down to the ‘Download this ebook for free’ section and click the download link for ‘Mobipocket’ or ‘Mobipocket with images’ format.
  4. Attach your Kindle to your computer using your USB cable and drag the file to the “Documents” folder on your Kindle. You can also e-mail the file to your Kindle using Whispernet for wireless delivery (charges apply).
  5. Open the book from your Kindle’s home screen and enjoy.
Have you seen another great collection of free Kindle books on the web? Drop us a line.


©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

Kudos to Publisher MacMillan for Speaking Up, Even if….

by

Along with most citizens of Kindle Nation, I happen to believe that some of the big publishers are making a big mistake by trying to control retail ebook prices and raise those prices by 30 to 50 percent. This mistake is compounded, in my view, by the apparent circumstance of its having been arrived at through a collusive, anti-consumer process in which the “Apple 5” of MacMillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Penguin, and HarperCollins have been lured by Steve Jobs into trying to fix prices and restructure retail relationships all at once.

That being said, congratulations to MacMillan CEO John Sargent for having the guts and transparency to speak up and address readers directly in this post on the company’s blog yesterday:

Macmillan CEO John Sargent on the agency model, availability and price

I had been critical of Sargent previously for addressing his earlier comments only to authors and literary agents, and consequently trying to position them to speak up on his and his company’s behalf, and this new post is well worth reading. He has not changed my mind, and I doubt he will change the minds of many ebook readers, but we will see. There are dozens of comments that give a good sense of the range of views generally in the ebook pricing controversy, and you may want to add your voice to those of other readers.

There are reasons for  optimism about the way that this will play out, and I see glimmers of hope both in the fact that Random House has yet to join the Apple 5 and in the fact that Sargent cracks open the door of flexibility an inch or two by acknowledging that some ebooks will be priced lower than $12.99 during their “hardcover new release” period. If readers are in a position where they are able to make buying decisions based on price as well as interest in particular books, it will be easier for publishers to gather information about the importance of competitive pricing.

Credit should be given to Sargent for staying away from two “that dog won’t hunt” arguments, at least for now:

  • He doesn’t try to claim that these dramatic increases are based on cost.
  • He doesn’t try to justify these dramatic increases by saying they will be good for authors or even lead to higher royalties for authors.

One omission that hurts his case involves the actual price that consumers usual pay for hardcover new releases. It is a classic  case of apples and oranges for Sargent to compare the hardcover suggested list prices of $25 to $35 with the $12.99 to $14.99 prices the Apple 5 wants to fix for ebooks. The retailers responsible for most hardcover book sales in the U.S. (Amazon, the chains, and the big box stores) have been discounting most hardcover new releases by 25 to 46% for years, and MacMillan is not taking any steps to limit this discounting. With publishers insisting that no discounting be applied to ebooks, the actual terms of comparison should be between $13-$15 ebooks and $15-$18 hardcovers, which doesn’t quite rise to the level of Sargent’s claim of “a tremendous discount from the price of the printed hardcover books.”

©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Wednesday, March 3, 2010: Dozens of Free Promotional Titles, and a New "Free Book Collections" Gateway to Over 2 Million Other Free Books!

by

Originally posted March 3, 2010 – © Kindle Nation Daily 2010 

In addition to the several dozen free promotion books listed below, Amazon has just created a new direct gateway to over 2 million other free books that you can download easily to your Kindle. Thanks to Bufo at ILMK Andrys at A Kindle World for the heads up. Here’s what you’ll find there:

With over 420,000 titles, the Kindle Store contains the largest selection of the books people want to read including New York Times® Best Sellers and most new releases at $9.99, unless otherwise marked. And Amazon provides thousands of the most popular classics for free including titles like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island with more coming.
But of course, the Internet is huge and there are lots of older, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books online. We wanted to make it easier to find these collections, which today represent nearly 2 million titles. See the sites and instructions below to download free classic and other out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books and transfer via USB to your Kindle device or read on Kindle for PC.
Note that these large collections of older free books are typically created from scanned copies of physical books and can have variable quality.

Amazon Kindle Store – Thousands of the most popular classics for free
The Amazon Kindle Store lets you choose from thousands of popular classics all available for free wireless delivery in under 60 seconds with Whispernet.

  1. Visit Kindle Popular Classics
  2. Search or browse for a title just like a normal Kindle book.
Internet Archive – Over 1.8 million free titles
Internet Archive is a non-profit dedicated to offering permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital format. Provides over 1.8 million free books to read, download, and enjoy.

  1. Visit archive.org
  2. Search for a title or browse one of the sub-collections like ‘American Libraries’
  3. When viewing a title, click the link on the left labeled “Kindle (beta)” to download the file to your computer
  4. Attach your Kindle to your computer using your USB cable and drag the file to the “Documents” folder on your Kindle. You can also e-mail the file to your Kindle using Whispernet for wireless delivery (charges apply).
  5. Open the book from your Kindle’s home screen and enjoy.
Project Gutenberg – Over 30,000 free titles
Project Gutenberg, one of the original sources of free electronic books, is dedicated to the creation and distribution of eBooks.

  1. Visit gutenberg.org
  2. Search for a title or browse the ‘Book shelves by topic’
  3. When viewing a title, scroll down to the ‘Download this ebook for free’ section and click the download link for ‘Mobipocket’ or ‘Mobipocket with images’ format.
  4. Attach your Kindle to your computer using your USB cable and drag the file to the “Documents” folder on your Kindle. You can also e-mail the file to your Kindle using Whispernet for wireless delivery (charges apply).
  5. Open the book from your Kindle’s home screen and enjoy.
Have you seen another great collection of free Kindle books on the web? Drop us a line.


Keep scrolling down for the latest free promotions in the Kindle Store:


  Product Details 
 Product Details
Bride Most Begrudging, A by Deeanne Gist 

 Product Details

As Young As We Feel: A Novel by Melody Carlson

Product Details

Primitive by Mark Nykanen and Deborah Smith

Product Details

Operation Sheba: Super Agent Series, Book 1 by Misty Evans

Product Details

Booth’s Sister by Jane Singer

Product Details

Saving Sailor: A Novel by Renee Riva   
 Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)
Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)

Serial
Serial by Jack Kilborn (J.A. Konrath)
Amberville Free with Bonus Material
Amberville Free with Bonus Material

Economic Report of the President
Economic Report of the President
Love Yourself and Let the Other Person Have It Your Way
Love Yourself and Let the Other Person Have It Your Way
The Reincarnationist Series
The Reincarnationist Series
The Joy of Pregnancy: The Complete, Candid, and Reassuring Companion for Parents-to-Be
The Joy of Pregnancy: The Complete, Candid, and Reassuring Companion for Parents-to-Be
Equivoque Principle, The
Equivoque Principle, The
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
FANG: A MAXIMUM RIDE NOVEL - Free preview: Book One
FANG: A MAXIMUM RIDE NOVEL – Free preview: Book One
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon
Edge of Apocalypse Free Preview
Edge of Apocalypse Free Preview
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
Homespun Bride
Homespun Bride
Baby Bonanza
Baby Bonanza
Once a Cowboy
Once a Cowboy
A Very Special Delivery
A Very Special Delivery
Speed Dating
Speed Dating
Kiss Me Deadly
Kiss Me Deadly
Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch
Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch
Dancing in the Moonlight
Dancing in the Moonlight
The Bride
The Bride’s Baby
His Lady Mistress
His Lady Mistress

My Soul to Lose
My Soul to Lose
Slow Hands
Slow Hands
Irresistible Forces
Irresistible Forces
Hide in Plain Sight
Hide in Plain Sight
Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project
Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project
New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and "Worked Examples" as One Way Forwar...
New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and “Worked Examples” as One Way Forwar…
The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age
The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age
The Civic Potential of Video Games
The Civic Potential of Video Games
Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis from the Good Play Project
Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis from the Good Play Project
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
Atomic Lobster Free with Bonus Material
Atomic Lobster Free with Bonus Material
The Wild
The Wild’s Call
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #1: Precipice
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #1: Precipice
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #2: Skyborn
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #2: Skyborn
Autobiography of a Yogi (Reprint of Original 1946 Edition)
Autobiography of a Yogi (Reprint of Original 1946 Edition)
The Hunters
The Hunters
When Night Falls
When Night Falls

©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

About eBook Prices and Author Royalties: Price Elasticity and the Demand for Books

by
By Stephen Windwalker
Originally posted March 2, 2010 – © Kindle Nation Daily 2010

Chris B, a reader from the Dallas area, got right to the heart of one of the challenges of thinking about the effects of the ebook pricing controversy on authors in this comment left yesterday on my post The Math of Publishing a Book in Print or Electronic Format:

When you put the “author royalties” of the 9.99 version as 2.50, realize that few authors ever make more than a few thousand dollars on a book. A $3 difference in sale price is not going to decide whether a book hits the NYT bestseller list (and makes some real money), but it might make a difference in feeding the author’s kids for another month.

I don’t want to see Kindle books go up in price, but we have to be realistic about it. We’ve always known Amazon was selling books at an artificially low price to do that.

Believe me, I do not want any authors’ kids, including my own, to miss their three squares a day. In fact, I think it’s important to save some authors from themselves here. While Motoko Rich’s New York Times piece and my post drill down on the pricing and costs of an individual book as they might play out for a hardcover print run of 15,000 copies, it’s impossible to think intelligently about the effects of these economics on an author without serious contemplation of the number of copies sold.

So, fair warning:

 Discussion of Price Elasticity Ahead

The economic law of demand states basically that “if the price of a product increases, the quantity demanded decreases, while if price of the product decreases, its quantity demanded increases.” This price elasticity of demand is most pronounced when it is accompanied by three conditions:

  • the product represents a discretionary purchase rather than a necessity;
  • the product is one out of many choices available to consumers to meet a particular interest or want; and 
  • the product is available to consumers without much marketplace friction, i.e., it can be purchased without significant outlay of travel, shipping, time, or other accompanying expenditure.

With millions of titles available in multiple formats, it is obvious that books meet these conditions about as well as any type of product, for most consumers. And all marketplace friction vanishes completely once a consumer has access to ebooks either through ownership of a Kindle or competitor’s ebook reader or by being able to run a Kindle App on a PC, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch, or other device.

The result is that readers pay close attention to what they have to pay for books. Many wait for paperback availability of their favorite authors’ titles rather than pay a premium for the opportunity to read those books in hardcover a few months earlier. For those trade paperback copies, the author’s royalty is usually little more than a dollar per copy, far less than half of the average hardcover royalty of $3.90 referenced in the Motoko Rich piece. So that’s one form of price elasticity of demand.

Another kind of price elasticity of demand comes into play where ebook prices are concerned.

The recent Winter 2010 Kindle Nation Citizen Survey showed evidence that Kindle owners have become more price-conscious as a result of the recent ebook pricing controversy and are very resistant to paying more than $9.99 for an ebook: 75 percent of the 1,892 respondents identified with the statement that “I’ll pay over $9.99, but only rarely when I simply must have an ebook.”

As of this morning there are 102,160 titles priced at $10 and up in the U.S. Kindle Store, or about 22 percent of the overall total of 451,317 ebooks in the store. None of those $10-and-up titles are currently ranked among the top 40 Kindle bestsellers, and only four are ranked between 41 and 100. 13 of the top 100 are priced at $9.99.

So, if an author’s royalty is $2.50 for a Kindle book priced at $9.99, and $3.25 for a Kindle book priced at $12.99, let’s do the math. If the book sells 30 percent more copies when priced at $9.99 than it sells when priced at $12.99, the author’s royalties are at break-even and her readership — people might buy her other books — is significantly larger. Indeed, from what I have seen, the sales differential is probably more like 50 to 100 percent, and some of the most successful Kindle authors are making far more than the “few thousand dollars” referenced in Chris’ comment by pricing their books below $9.99.

Of course, the same percentages and competitive-pricing benefits that are available to authors ought to apply to publishers, were it not for the likelihood — evident from the industry sources quoted in Rich’s article and in numerous comments by publishing insiders throughout the recent ebook pricing controversy — that publishers are trying to reverse the Kindle Revolution. As publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin told Rich: “The simplest way to slow down e-books is not to make them too cheap.”

If that’s the case, it also seems likely that an increasing number of those midlist authors — those of us who have to pay close attention to “feeding [our] kids for another month” — will be forced to consider another offer that Amazon has put on the table for us: the possibility of receiving direct royalties of 70% by going “around” the publisher and dealing directly with the Kindle platform for ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99.

©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert for Tuesday, March 2, 2010: Battle Of The Network Zombies, Dozens of Free Promotional Titles, and a Link to All 20,144 Kindle Freebies

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  Originally posted March 2, 2010 – © Kindle Nation Daily 2010

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©Kindle Nation Daily 2010
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