Our latest survey of ebook prices reveals the surprising news that ebook prices in the UK Kindle Store are now higher across the board than ebook prices in the UK Kindle Store….
But first … a word from Today’s UK eBook Sponsor
4.7 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
Kindle Price: $0.99 Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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–Nancy Holder – author of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Blood and Fog
Young Ilien knows nothing of the dark tales told around late-night fires, or of the legendary Nomadin wizards and the prophesy that haunts them. But all that is soon to change. For a shadow touches the peaceful land of Nadae. An ancient evil is stirring. Already a NiDemon has crossed from the land of the dead. And now Ilien must run – from a monster of unimaginable cunning and power, toward a fate more frightening than that which hunts him. But he cannot run forever. Eventually he will have to make a stand. Sooner or later he will have to face what even the legendary Nomadin cannot . . . himself.
UK Kindle customers: Click here to download Nomadin
(or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
(or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
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Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
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UK Kindle Store Prices are Higher Than US, But Customers May Be Saying “Thanks But No Thanks”
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By Stephen Windwalker
Editor of Kindle Nation Daily ©Kindle Nation Daily 2010 |
Although the average prices of ebooks among the UK Kindle Store’s Top 100 Paid Bestsellers remain dramatically lower than those that make up the US Kindle Top 100 Paid Bestsellers, our most recent comparative analysis of UK and US Kindle Store prices reveals a dramatically different story.
In fact, the overall array of UK Kindle Store ebook prices is significantly higher.
Back on August 5, a few days after the launch of the separate UK Kindle Store, Kindle Nation Daily reported that an unscientific comparison of the top 25 bestsellers showed U.S. Kindle owners were paying 60% more for their favorite books than U.K. Kindle Store customers:
“As of 4:30 pm Eastern time today, August 5, a US Kindle customer could have purchased the top 25 bestselling books in the US Kindle Store sales rankings for a grand total of $252.10. Over in the UK, at exactly the same time, a UK Kindle customer could have purchased the top 25 bestselling books in the UK Kindle Store sales rankings for a grand total of £99.13, which is the equivalent of $157.58 in US dollars.”
While prices at the top of the bestseller list haven’t changed much and remain significantly cheaper in the U.K., a broader analysis of the overall composition of the Kindle Store catalogue during the past 48 hours shows higher prices in the UK. Looking at the US catalog of over 700,000 Kindle ebook titles as of September 5 and the UK catalog of 456,329 Kindle ebook titles as of September 21, we compared converted price points to conform with the major U.S. Kindle Store price ranges that we have been studying throughout the year:
- £6.43 and up, which converts to $10 and up in US dollars;
- £1.92 to £6.42, which converts to $2.99 to $9.99 in US dollars; and
- £0.00 to £1.91, which converts to $0.00 to $2.98 in US dollars.
Using these ranges, we found that more than twice as high a percentage of the UK Kindle Store’s catalog is priced at the equivalent of $10 and up as the percentage of such titles in the US Kindle Store:
- 34.76% of the UK catalogue is priced at £6.43 and up, compared with 15.96% of the US catalog at $10 and up;
- 45.79% of the UK catalogue is priced at £1.92 to £6.42, compared with 63.47% of the US catalog at $2.99 to $9.99;
- 19.45% of the UK catalogue is priced at £0.00 to £1.91, compared with 20.57% of the US catalog at $0.00 to $2.98.
Although Amazon has been cutting back on free Kindle books offered directly in the Kindle Store, the 16,700 free US Kindle Store titles (2.28% of the catalogue) still is more than double the percentage of free UK Kindle Store titles (4,821 titles, or 1.06% of the catalogue).
Of course, it’s one thing to set higher prices and another thing to get higher prices. Only Amazon and perhaps some publishers have access to the numbers that would tell us whether the average transaction price for actual Kindle Store sales is higher in the UK than in the US. The price array of the titles that compose the UK Kindle Store’s Top 100 Paid Bestsellers compared with those that make up the US Kindle Top 100 Paid Bestsellers, might be taken to suggest that UK Kindle customers are more price conscious that their counterparts in the States: only 12 of the top 100 paid bestsellers in the UK store are priced in the £6.43 and up range, whereas 32 of the US top 100 are priced in the equivalent $10 and up range.
But other explanations are also quite likely: Amazon.co.uk, unconstrained by the agency model through which publishers are fixing ebook prices in the US, is obviously cherrypicking likely UK bestsellers and offering them as loss leaders in order to build its UK Kindle store and installed base and compete with other ebook retailers.
In our next analysis of UK Kindle issues and how they affect Kindle owners on both sides of the pond we’ll take a look at the growing controversy over Hachette’s efforts to impose the agency model on UK ebook retailers.
