I love ebooks. They’re always my first choice for reading, partly because they are cheaper (usually), but also because they are easier to store and easier to read than a paperback. (To those of you who can still read paperbacks without glasses: good for you.)
But just because ebooks are cheaper doesn’t mean I’ll pay whatever the publisher is asking. I recently saw a blog post where the writer pointed out that the US has experienced close to 20% inflation since 2019, which means the authors who were charging $4.99 for an ebook in 2019 should be charging $5.99 now in order to make the same amount of money. While I see his point, my salary hasn’t gone up 20% since 2019, and I’m sure I’m not alone. If anything, I’m less willing to spend money on ebooks than I was in 2019, because while I can survive without buying more books, I do need to eat and have you seen the price of food lately?
So, how much do I think is too much to pay for an ebook?
First, if the ebook and the paperback are the same price, I won’t buy the ebook and I probably won’t buy the paperback either .
Also, I never pay full price for an ebook from a traditional publisher. I know they justify the $9.99 price by saying they still have to design the cover, edit and format the book, and distribute it to retailers. I understand that publishers have to make a profit if they are to continue to sell books and pay authors. But $9.99 for an ebook when the paperback is only a few dollars more feels like too much. If I’m going to spend that much, I want a paperback I can display on my bookshelf and loan to friends, not a licence to use an electronic file that costs only a few cents to send me.
I tend to buy ebooks from self-published authors, or when they are on sale. I will spend up to $5.99 on an ebook, but only when it’s a full-length novel from a favourite author.
My cap is around $3.99 for shorter novels (e.g. the length of a Love Inspired novel).
If it’s a new-to-me author, I look to pay 99 cents or maybe $2.99 if the Kindle sample blew me away (and there have been a few of those in 2023). If that 99 cent ebook is the first in a three or four-book series, I may even binge my way through the series at full price 😉
Of course, that 99 cent ebook then gets tax added on and converted to New Zealand dollars, so I end up paying a couple of dollars for it, depending on the exchange rate and the bank fees. And that’s the other reason I hesitate to buy more expensive books: because I always end up paying more than the US dollar price I’m quoted on Amazon.
