Torquere's prices are going up on their shorter works -- everything below novel length. Apple doesn't allow any books to be sold elsewhere for a lower price than they're sold for in the Apple store, so... there you go.
New prices will be in accordance with wordcount rather than by line: up to 10K words will cost $1.99, up to 20K will cost $2.99, etc. Novels will stay the same price as before: $5.95 or $6.95 depending on length.
New books released in June already reflect the new pricing; backlist books will have their prices increased on 1 July. If you've had any older Torquere books on your wish list for a while, now's the time to go grab them.
Best Deal: for anyone who's been meaning to get my novelette "A Spirit of Vengeance," Torquere sells it for $2.49 right now, but Amazon has the Kindle edition for $1.99. After 1 July, it'll be $2.99, so you can save a dollar -- one third off the new price -- if you can read Kindle books.
Angie
9 comments:
I'm not really surprised. Some of the ebook prices have been amazingly low so far.
Charles -- this isn't really about the publishers deciding to raise prices, though. This is about Apple using its status as the 300-pound gorilla in the room (anticipating that they might well become the powerhouse in e-book sales that they are in electronic music sales) to dictate prices all across the industry. If a publisher doesn't toe the line IAW Apple's pricing policies, that publisher doesn't sell through Apple, period. Which kind of annoys me, you know? :/
[Cool new icon photo. :) ]
Angie
Thanks for the tip! Spirit's going on my TBR pile.
I'm a little curious about why Torquere didn't let Apple lower prices to match their current ones. Would there just not have been enough left after Apple's cut? Does Apple insist on a certain minimum price?
Kara -- Apple has some fairly strict pricing rules, one of which is that all e-book prices have to end in .99. So it was up to Torquere to decide to go either down or up, and that would affect their own prices plus the prices of every other vendor. The shorter stories already run on a pretty slim margin -- if you poke around the other similar publishers, Torquere's prices for similar wordcount ranges are among the very lowest, and most of the publishers don't sell stand-alone shorts at all because it's just not cost effective. I don't know exactly how much they make on, say, a $1.29 short story, but I'd be willing to bet it's not much, and that it'd be reduced down to nearly nothing or even something negative if the price went down to $.99.
If they could've told Apple to keep their (Torquere's) standard pricing, I'm sure they'd have done so. This is just Apple throwing their weight around -- see my comment above to Charles. [sigh]
Angie
Hey Angie:
Good looking out, its time for me to stock up on my summer reads...I'm in need of a good escape right about now.
I imagine Apple's policy will affect other publishers as well.
Whit -- you're welcome. :) I wanted to get word out ASAP so people had some flexibility, whatever they decided to do.
Bernita -- yes, so far as I know, this hits everyone who wants to sell through the Apple store. Also other retailers. I've read in a few places that this is the reason Fictionwise discontinued their club discount program; they're not allowed to sell books for less than the Apple store either.
Angie
AWESOME! I need to get on over there and pick some books up! Will do so very soon. :) Can't wait to read your book. (I've been a blog reader for some time and all of a sudden I realize you've written a book. LOL Just kidding. :) )
Dawn -- [tickle!]
Angie
Post a Comment