What customers complain about on "boycott forum"….Take a look

In relation to my last post, here I have compiled some comments from Amazon kindle forum “Boycott anything over $9.99″:

• I don’t like what Amazon is doing playing with pricing. I’ve noticed the “new” Wally Lamb book is $16 and they raised the fourth Twilight book over $9.99

• Ok, now I am mad! I looked for the latest Sookie Stakehouse book, which was at $9.99. I thought I would wait, and give it a chance to come down a little, while I read the first 7 books, all of which were under $6 (which is about what they are worth). Well, I am currently at book 6, and after reading this thread thought i would take a look, and see that the paperback is out, at $7.99, and the kindle version is $11.99! It doesn’t really hit home until your ox is the one being gored! Well, I guess I will order it from the library – i certainly have enough to read until it comes.

• I was disapointed when I seen a book I wanted to buy for 1.62 and when I when back to buy it, it when up to 6.99 now. What is happening to the prices going up now?

• I “preordered” Scarpetta, and imagine my shock when it came out at $16+! Then 2 days later it settled at 9.99. I called kindle Support, and they did credit my account. However if I hadn’t noticed, I would have needlessly paid the higher price.

• In the 1+ years I’ve now had my kindle, I’ve watched book prices fluctuate all over the place. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to many of the fluctuations and it’s like trying to buy stock on the cheap, never knowing what tomorrow’s market will bring. Should I buy now or wait until later? I also refuse to pay more than $9.99 for a book unless it is a technical manual of some sort. And I’ve even seen $14 or more being charged for books that are in paperback for around $6 or $7. That’s just crazy.

• I *think* I may have figured out *one* of the pricing patterns from publishers that’s going on..

• I am on list to receive notice of new books released for Ebooks from amazon..an example of what I saw with the latest notification:

• BooK: Fire and Ice by Julie Garwood, In Hardback: list price is $26 and the Amazon price is $17.16

• The book is released simultaneously in EBook form with the *Digital List* at $26 (same as list on hardback) and the kindle price at $14.30.

• It seems they are basing the kindle price off the list of the hardback.

• There is absolutely no relationship in my mind between the price of a book and its value. Let me give you an example. Back in October when I was looking for authentic fiction about the 50s, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates was recommended. It was available on kindle for $1.75 and I was thrilled and downloaded it immediately. Now, because of the movie release, Amazon is asking $7.99. Is it now a better book then when I paid $1.75?

• I held off on buying a Linda Fairstein novel published on March 2008 because it’s $14.30 in kindle edition while the hardcover is only $17.

• Those are not the only that have jumped like that. Many books have. For instance: Janet Dailey all but about 10 of her books were priced for $1.00, these are books that have been out for 5 years or so. A couple weeks ago, when all the prices started going up, they marked them at $7.19 each. Some are now $6 and some change and some are still the $7.19.

• I purchased the new Wally Lamb book from kindle for $9.99 when it first came out. I wonder if it is Amazon or the publisher who controls the price. I do see that it is now $16!

• You must know some trick I don’t. I wrote to Amazon and called the kindle line about 2 books that were $9.99 when they first came out, and are now $14.32 and $14.92. I got a form E-mail from Amazon C.S and “I’m sorry you’re frustrated,” from the kindle line. The prices remain inflated.

• Initially, I thought it was the publishers setting the higher prices too.However, I too, am seeing an even more definitive pattern in price setting (I mentioned it in a previoius post but since someone else noticed it, I’ll reiterate with another example).

• Book: From Dead To Worse (in hardback but not yet in paperback til March ’09). (Note: this book is Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Series which the HBO series True Blood is based on) (also note it is *No longer on NY Times Bestseller list although it’s on Amazon’s Bestseller list).

• Hardback Price: $14.97, kindle Price: $11.99,Paperback is due out in March ’09, can be pre-ordered and is priced at: $7.99

• I’ll bet the farm that at the point it’s out in paperback for $7.99 the kindle price will drop to compete with the paperback. (Note: right now the kindle price is set to compete with the hardcopy).

• I bought James Patterson’s “7th Heaven” about three weeks ago for $9.99. Today it is being sold for the kindle at $11.99. It’s interesting that publishers are assuming the popularity of the kindle means they can keep upping prices. Will they be right?

• The book I called about was $9.99 in August. It is now $14.82 I asked 3 Amazon employees tonight, “Would you like to get $9.99 for this book right now, or nothing?” The answer was nothing.

• The Piano Teacher is $14.27 on kindle and a new hard copy on the Amazon Marketplace is only $14.21!! An e-book for more than a hard bound paper book? What a crock and rip-off!

• Wally Lamb book was ORIGINALLY 9.99, then suddenly shot up to $16+ for a couple of weeks, then dropped back to 9.99. This is how wild things are.

• I clicked on Plum Spooky from another thread and it was $15.37.  I wanted to track the price, but the tracker didn’t show up.I opened a new tab for Amazon to see if the tracker showed when I went straight in to Amazon and it did. The price had also risen to $16.77.

• It couldn’t have been two minutes between the first and second time I viewed the book.

All these comments show some level of disdatisfaction with kindle e-book pricing. Amazon should be more transparent in pricing. Is it amazon that set prices or the publishers? Even if the publishers set the price amazon can sell them whatever they like. This is waht they are doing for all the NYTimes bestsellers. Is amazon loosing money by doing this? Not really. Amazon has low margin of profit per e-book sale; but they are maximizing their gross profit by selling volumes. By selling bestsellers at $9.99 amazon is really addressing the cause of readers – it’s kind of setting a standard of prcing of e-books. But when amazon change the price to higher level for the e-book that they have sold at $9.99 earlier, it makes comsumers angry.

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