February 21, 2012

Kindle books -- a pricing plot?

I'm beginning to wonder if the book prices I'm seeing are being adjusted.

I've bought four Rex Stout mysteries so far. The first, The Golden Spiders, cost me $5.99.

Some Buried Caesar and Gambit were $7.99. And then Too Many Cooks was $11.99.

Some computer program going, "Ha! We got a live one here! Hooked on this author, so let's hike the price on him!" ?

I'm thinking I should go through all the others I'm considering and write down their prices, just to see if they change on me later.

I can't really think of any other reason why Too Many Cooks would cost twice as much as The Golden Spiders. They're nearly the same length.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at 10:21 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 You might also want to double check with someone else who uses the Kindle.  That way you could distinguish targeted price increases from simply variable prices.

Posted by: metaphysician at February 21, 2012 10:59 AM (3GCAl)

2 At first glance, it looks like mostly batch pricing set the day they uploaded each group of his books, with a few individually priced ones that the publisher thought stood out one way or another.

So, of the 9 books uploaded on July 9, 2010, Fer-de-Lance is 6.99,  Too Many Cooks and Please Pass the Guilt are 11.99, and the rest are 7.99.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 21, 2012 11:13 AM (2XtN5)

3

For what it's worth, I'm seeing the same pricing on those books, and I also see the "pricing set by the publisher" notice, which I guess means it's not Amazon jerking you around (that disclaimer isn't on every book).  No idea why the prices would be so different (for a shorter book, no less).  

I think Amazon used to have standardized pricing on all Kindle books, but the publishers threw a fit a while back and now they get to charge more (or less)...

Posted by: Mark at February 21, 2012 04:43 PM (i24Ag)

4 Ran across this earlier today, and this post reminded me of it:

http://carlos.bueno.org/2012/02/bots-seized-control.html

One self-published author's adventures in robotic arbitrage.

Posted by: pgfraering at February 23, 2012 05:46 PM (IUKRp)

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