eBookstores Now Dropping Prices on SOME Random Penguin Solutions eBooks

random penguin solutionsIt's been nearly 7 months since Penguin settled with the US Dept of Justice, but it wasn't until today that the prices finally started dropping.

There's no explanation for why this took so long, but earlier today several blogs reported that Nook, Kindle, Google Play Books, and other ebookstores are no longer pricing ebooks at the publisher-mandated retail.

Curiously enough, Amazon is still reporting that the titles are still selling under the agency price (example). I have no explanation for that, but I suspect it is simply a bug. On a related note, I have learned that the RH titles will be sold under the wholesale model starting some time later this month.

I've checked the first few dozen titles listed here, and Amazon has almost always had the lowest price. They've marked most ebooks down 5% to 15%, with a few popular $15 bestseller ebooks marked down to $10.

Barnes & Noble has matched Amazon's prices across the board, and Google Play Books has matched Amazon's price on most titles. Kobo and Sony haven't lowered any prices just yet; they're still charging full retail.

 

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About Nate Hoffelder (11474 Articles)
Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader: "I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

4 Comments on eBookstores Now Dropping Prices on SOME Random Penguin Solutions eBooks

  1. According to my eReaderIQ alerts they started dropping on July 3rd. I’ve gotten alerts for various titles everyday since then.

  2. burger flipper // 12 July, 2013 at 1:36 am // Reply

    I wonder if the settlement credit amazon sent an email about almost a year ago will ever happen. Thought that was supposed to happen February-ish.

    • That was when the first three settled. I’m sure it was delayed because the other publishers settled as well.

  3. My experience in the Kindle store: Penguin and its imprints dropped prices on a whole bunch of titles at the beginning of April (2nd quarter)–typically by 15 percent; these drops ranged from backlist midlist fiction to recent bestsellers to nonfiction books, old and new. They then started dropping prices on a whole new batch of titles at the start of July (3rd quarter). I believe this is testing price points, possibly in anticipation of a new deal and is NOT a reflection of the end of their agency contract (persistence of publisher set the price note is NOT a bug). Note that we haven’t seen a similar drop in prices for Random House and its imprints.

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