(2011-03-08) Kelly All Ebooks Dollar

Kevin Kelly wonders whether almost all EBook-s will have their price driven to $1 (actually $0.99). Joe Konrath provides a current example: Eighteen days ago, I dropped the price of my ebook, The List, from $2.99 to 99 cents on Amazon. I was selling 40 copies a day prior to that. Currently, The List is #37 in the Top 100 Bestsellers on the Kindle. It's selling 620 copies a day on Amazon.

I Commented that

• not everybody will make more significantly more sales if everybody drops their price - the Attention Economy has its own limits. (Though others note that even at high prices lots of books get bought but not read, so maybe sales will increase but not reads. People are buying an option to read.)

• maybe the way for authors/publishers to respond is with a form of Price Discrimination - lead with a cheap Thin Book, then have some up-side offering for people who want more (of the topic and/or the author) - like a Teaching Sells model?