Kindle eBook Pricing Puts Fluffy Ceiling on Book Markets

I stopped buy­ing new book­shelves in the 1990’s, but I con­tin­ued buy­ing new books.  I had found Ama​zon​.com, where I could sell books (after I read them) for a few dol­lars less than I had paid for them.

Then every­body found out how to do that and they did. 

First, it knocked down the pric­ing of used books.

• So I bought used books through Ama­zon, read them and sold them on Ama­zon for about what I had paid for them.

Then every­body found out how to do that on Ama­zon and they did.  Used book­stores dis­ap­peared from our neighborhoods.

 
• Pric­ing of new books began to slide with deeper dis­counts. Used book pric­ing on Ama­zon dropped, often below $5, then lower still — 99-cents is not uncommon.

This reduc­tio ad absur­dum on Ama­zon nearly blew away my per­sonal read-and-recycle pro­gram.  Even with ship­ping and han­dling added to the finan­cial cal­cu­la­tion, I couldn’t moti­vate myself to pack-up a book and carry it to the post office for a net gain of small pocket change.   Who is doing that?

• Well, I bought a used copy of Bruce Berger’s “There Was A River” for one cent plus $3.99 ship­ping.  The invoice came through Ama­zon, show­ing the sup­plier as Red Shield Stores – also known as the Sal­va­tion Army.
• Then I got a DM through Twit­ter — self-introduction from the Bay Area Free Book Exchange.

The Book Exchange deal:

• You give them your books for free and you can take as many of their books as you want.
• They cherry-pick what­ever books they can sell prof­itably on e-Bay and
• Use the money to run their free facil­ity in Berkeley.

So, I cherry-pick my own books for sale on Ama­zon — although fewer of them make the cut. I put the rest into boxes in my garage.  My New Year’s res­o­lu­tion is to give these unsellable books to the Book Exchange this year.

So, how has Kin­dle begun to play a role in all this?

• Sim­ply, giant Ama­zon owns the Kin­dle and now actu­ally sells Kin­dle edi­tions of 390,000 titles, mostly at $9.99.
• When Ama­zon actu­ally sells a lot of Kin­dle books (as they did this Christ­mas), the actual sell­ing price becomes a valid force in the book pub­lish­ing, buy­ing and sell­ing mar­ket place.

New “phys­i­cal” books already feel the Kindle’s pric­ing pres­sure. Where?

• On Ama­zon of course.
• One of the top-selling “phys­i­cal” books, “The Lost Sym­bol” by Dan Brown, dis­counted from $29.95 to $12.00, also became the best sell­ing Kin­dle edi­tion at $9.60.
• At this writ­ing, I can­not find a mean­ing­ful used price — but “The Lost Sym­bol” is clearly headed for a quick trip to the Book Exchange or the Sal­va­tion Army.

Mean­while, Amazon’s Kin­dle Reader is turn­ing my garage into a library.