This isn't scientific, but it certainly communicates the basic truth of the matter.
As of 4:30 pm Eastern time today, August 5, a US Kindle customer could have purchased the top 25 bestselling books in the US Kindle Store sales rankings for a grand total of $252.10.
Over in the UK, at exactly the same time, a UK Kindle customer could have purchased the top 25 bestselling books in the UK Kindle Store sales rankings for a grand total of £99.13, which is the equivalent of $157.58 in US dollars.
The books that make up the two lists, of course, are not exactly the same, although there is a fair amount of overlap. In general terms, the average of $10.08 for US Kindle Store bestsellers and $6.30 as the dollar equivalent of the average for UK Kindle Store bestsellers summarizes the overall pricing scheme quite well.
The difference between $252.10 and $157.58 is $94.52, and it means that US Kindle customers pay 59.98 per cent more for our Kindle bestsellers.
But we've got the agency model, and the Brits don't! So there....
Oh, one more thing.
21 of the top 25 UK bestsellers have text-to-speech enabled, compared with 10 of the top 25 in the US.
5 comments:
In non-Agency price model most of Kindle books in US are still $9,99 (not so far from 10.08) - so it isn't just Agency model that cause such difference.
Sorry, Vitaly, doesn't matter if it's cricket or baseball: you swung and missed on that one. There has never been a time when anywhere near most of the Kindle books in the US were $9.99. Prior to agency model 12.3% of Kindle books were $9.99; it has since fallen into the 9-10% range.
Check out http://bit.ly/KindlePricing for background on this, or read http://amzn.to/eBookPrices . Cheers!
Yep, sorry. I meant books in Kindle top-25 that are compared here. I think most of books that usually in bestsellers was about $9.99.
Even now - Larrsons books are not under Agency model and they are still cheaper in UK.
That's a good point re: Larsson's titles, Vitaly. But there's no question that the agency model has been the driving force in pushing prices higher, and without it, in the UK, Amazon is free to set prices that will attract customers to the Kindle and its content. There may even be some cultural factors involved too, such as greater class and consumer awareness and less willingness to pay an impatience premium in the UK. Also worth noting, however, that Amazon is charging rather higher device and accessory prices in the UK store, and one wonders if there is some margin-shifting going on there to subsidize lower ebook prices at least at the start.
I am not arguing that Agency model pushes prices higher.
I just try to point that low prices in top bestsellers mean not much in evaluating pricing in UK store.
Of course people will buy cheap books in first days. And UK top 100 clearly illustrates this - there is not much books with price over $9.99 (converted) in UK store.
And there are books that priced higher in UK store. For example:
he Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which is not under Agency model and priced $9.99 in US store is £9.59 = ~$15 in UK store.
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