Amazon, Barnes & Noble Slash Prices to Sell Ebooks

Barnes & Noble has added a half-ounce, Wi-Fi only Nook and lowered the price of its e-reader by $50 in a move to encourage sales. The device will retail at stores like Best Buy for just $150. The world’s largest brick and mortar bookseller also dropped the price of its original 3G Nook from $259 to $199. Although ebooks themselves haven’t dropped much yet; Barnes & Noble still prices ebooks primarily in the $9.99 to $14.99 range which, to me, still seems pretty high. Both Sony and Kobo (Borders) have e-readers for $149 but neither currently has Wi-Fi capabilities.
So how did Amazon respond? The world’s largest online bookseller dropped the price of its basic Kindle from $259 to $189. The 3G enabled 10 ounce device has tremendous sales numbers and loyalty from consumers. Amazon still offers ebooks primarily in the $9.99 to $14.99 range though they have fiercely pressured the big six publishing houses to lower prices on all ebooks.
Obviously both of these moves are in response to Apple’s iPad, which retails for a starting price of $499 but does much more than just read books. Amazon and B&N are wisely doing whatever it takes to keep the book reading consumers in their camps while Apple easily runs off with the app-lovers.
What’s next on this front? Clearly the prices of ebooks will drop, and they’ll likely drop dramatically in just a few years. I can’t see how they can remain high for much longer, especially when more and more authors are willing to sell ebooks directly to customers without getting trapped by publishing house standards of old.
What’s the best way to sell ebooks? Drop the price of your e-reading device.
What’s the next best way to sell ebooks? Drop the price of the ebooks.
Another victory for Independent authors.

Pubit by Barnes & Noble lets Indie Authors Sell Ebooks Directly

Yeah, it’s here, it’s here at last. Pubit by Barnes & Noble is finally coming this summer 2010 which means Indie authors like you and me can upload our ebooks to the bookseller and sell ebooks. Hooray! Except wait… my ebooks are already on Barnes & Noble. They have been for months (see here and here and here). It’s a little thing called Smashwords.com that gets my ebooks formatted into every format (epub, mobi, lrf, pdb, etc) and sells ebooks with 85% royalties to me and they also get my ebooks into Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Apple’s iBookstore, Sony and Kobo. It’s also a free service.
So should I be excited about Barnes & Noble’s Pubit or just kinda ho-hum? I guess it’s sorta exciting but since I’m already there, maybe not so much.
The skinny on Pubit is that it will sell ebooks in epub format (good for Nook, iPad and many readers but not that Kindle thing from a major competitor). Authors will probably get a 70% royalty which seems to be the evolving standard with major retailers as Amazon moves to 70% this July and Apple is already there. Ebooks will be encrypted with DRM (Digital Rights Management) which fights piracy and has plenty of controversy already. Customers will be able to browse ebooks in their entirety in the store (not at home obviously) just as they would be able to browse a paper book.
I went ahead and signed up for notification when Pubit is ready. What the heck, let’s see if authors can get double shelf placement and determine if the sales and royalties are better with B & N directly or with B & N via Smashwords.
Some final thoughts. What took B & N so long to make this decision? Maybe a little something called Apple’s iBookstore or Google Editions or that darned competitor Amazon Kindle just made them feel like they were missing the boat. Even though they weren’t. Hmm…sorta like a paradox.
Oh well, time to sell the ebooks. As usual.