This will be a graph and data heavy blog, so for those who want the answers before they see the evidence, here is a summary, which is also at the end of the blog:
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So, in sum, for the Amazon Top 100:
·
Prices of books that were on the Amazon Top 100
lists in 2013 and 2014 are considerably more expensive now, than they were
then.
·
Books that were in the top end of those rankings
have had their prices increased more than those that were in the lower part of
the lists.
·
Books in the 2014 list have had their prices
increased more than those that were in the 2013 list.
·
There is a weak relationship, at best, between
the current ranking, and the amount that prices were increased on these books.
·
The Big Five Traditional publishers have raised
their prices the most. Smaller Trads
have also raised the prices on these books, though not by as much as the Big
Five. Indies have not changed prices
significantly – if anything, they have tended to drop their prices since the
time they were on the “Top 100” list.
·
Books with the notation “Price set by publisher”
have had substantial price increases.
Books without that notation have seen their prices fall, on
average. This notation was used exclusively
by Amazon on traditionally published books.
·
Regardless of the books’ original prices, they
have gone up since then, on average. Books that were originally lower priced
have gone up a bit more than the others, though.
·
By genre, the price increases by Trads have been
quite general. However, Literary Fiction
and Science Fiction/Fantasy have increased somewhat more than the other genres.
·
There was no clear relationship between a book’s
average reviewer rating in its “Top 100” year and its price increase. Both lower and higher rated books increased
in price, as did mid-rated books. The
mid-rated books went up somewhat less, however.
So, what is an Indie to make of this? One could look at it and say:
- This adds confirmation to the trend of increasing Trad prices.
- Higher Trad prices open up market room for mid or lower priced Indies.
- However, as these were well-regarded books (in the Top 100 list in 2013 and 2014), one should be careful. It may be that Trad books that were not so well received have not seen these significant price rises.
- As always, one has to study the market, determine one’s niche (genre, quality, intended audience) and price accordingly.
- It’s easier said than done.
Recently, Amazon released lists of its 100 top selling new
titles for 2014. In this blog, I will
look at the change in prices for the books in the Amazon Top 100 for 2013, by
Jan 2015 and the same thing for books in the Amazon Top 100 for 2014. These are the “click-through” prices, on Jan
20 2015, which will be compared to the prices shown on the Top 100 lists. Presumably those are more typical of the
times the books were sold, in 2013 and 2014 respectively .
To summarize:
- In late 2013, when I first recorded the data for the Amazon Top 100 for 2013, I used the prices shown on the list on the Amazon website. I printed the list on Dec 16, 2013, so prices for those books are indicative of that point in time.
- I revisited that list about a month ago, about Jan 20, 2015. I recorded the prices shown on that list at that point in time. I also recorded the “click-through” price, that showed up when one went to the specific book in question. There were some interesting differences in all these numbers.
- For the 2014 data, I recorded both the list price and the “click-through” price. Again, there were some interesting differences.
- I assume that the “list prices” represent some representative price for the book throughout the year (i.e. their “Top 100” year), while the Jan 20, 2015 “click through” price was the price set at that particular time. Many of these had the notation “Price Set by Publisher”. More often than not, the price set by publisher price on that date was higher than the list price. I don’t know the details, but I presume it represents recent price increases by publishers, after re-negotiating their supplier deals with Amazon.
- Bear in mind then, that these are the prices changes for the same books, over the past couple of years. As we will see, there has been a marked shift in price upwards, for most of these books.
Overall Price
Changes
As the graphs below show, most of the books in the Amazon Top 100 in 2013 and
2014 have had their prices increased significantly, by Jan 2015. There
also appears to be a tendency for those price increases to be higher for books
that were originally ranked higher, in the Top 100 lists.
As usual, re-scaling the data
into deciles (tenths of the dataset makes these trends more obvious. Note also, that the price increases were
generally higher for the books in the Top 100 of 2014 than in the Top 100 of
2013.
A quartile view brings out the differences between the books
in the 2013 and 2014 list even more strongly.
So, it is clear that there has been a move to increase
prices on these books significantly.
This goes along with a traditional publisher push to increase prices and
profit margins per book. It is also
clear that the tendency is to increase prices the highest, on books that sold
best in the past. The price increases
have been higher for the books in the 2014 list than the 2013 list, so
publishers have let prices on those books drop, relative to newer books, as
might be expected. Basically, prices
have increased overall for these books, but more so for those with greater
imputed quality and more recently published.
Price Change,
Association with Ranking in Jan 2015
The graph below shows how a book’s price has changed since
its time on the “Top 100”, as a function of its ranking in January 2015. Note that the x-axis is shown with a
logarithmic scale, to better see the relationships. This graph includes both the 2013 and 2014
“Top 100” list books.
One might have expected that books with current high
rankings would have had their prices increased, while books with lower rankings
would have had their prices left as is, or even dropped, to increase
sales. Surprisingly, this doesn’t seem
to be the case, in any but a very weak fashion.
In fact, many books with relatively low rankings (between 1000 and
10,000) saw their prices go up, sometimes quite considerably.
As the graph so aptly shows, it was basically a scatter shot
approach.
Price Change, Association
with Publisher Type
The graph below shows how a book’s price has changed since
its time on the “Top 100”, as a function of “Top 100” year rank quartile and
publisher. The trend is obvious:
·
The Big 5 Traditional Publishers raised their
prices across the board, but somewhat more for books that ranked high in their
“Top 100” year.
·
The smaller trads raised prices as well, but it
was highly dependent on their “Top 100” year ranking. Books in the lowest quartile of the list in
that year actually saw prices come down.
·
Indies didn’t really change the price of their
books that were in the “Top 100” list, and to the extent that they did, they
were more likely to drop than raise prices.
Furthermore, some books were listed with the phrase “Price
set by publisher”. Presumably, Amazon
wanted to let its customers know that the price increases were not their
doing. As the graph shows, not
surprisingly, the “Price set by publisher” books had their prices increased
substantially, on average, and they were exclusively Trad published.
Price Change,
Association with Original Price
The graph below shows how a book’s price has changed since
its time on the “Top 100”, as a function of its original price range (in the
year that it was on the “Top 100” list).
The price rise for these books was quite general, though it was a bit
bigger for those books that were lower priced to begin with. Presumably it was thought that lower priced
books had more “upwards space” for price increases.
Price Change,
Association with Genre
The graph below shows how a book’s price has changed since
its time on the “Top 100”, as a function of its genre. The price rise for these books was quite
general, though there is an interesting tendency for Literary Fiction
(LITFIC) Science Fiction and Fantasy
(SFF) to have been bumped up higher than the rest, at least by the Trad
publishers. Perhaps publishers thought
that these categories had audiences with more “true fans” and/or who were less
price sensitive than the others.
Price Change,
Association with Average Review Rating
The graph below shows how a book’s price has changed since
its time on the “Top 100”, as a function of its Reviewer Rating at that
time. Although there is a slight
tendency for the Trad books that were rated as better by reviewers to have a
greater price increase, the tendency is quite weak. Furthermore, Indies dropped prices,
regardless of average reviewer rating.
So, in sum, for the Amazon Top 100:
·
Prices of books that were on the Amazon Top 100
lists in 2013 and 2014 are considerably more expensive now, than they were
then.
·
Books that were in the top end of those rankings
have had their prices increased more than those that were in the lower part of
the lists.
·
Books in the 2014 list have had their prices
increased more than those that were in the 2013 list.
·
There is a weak relationship, at best, between
the current ranking, and the amount that prices were increased on these books.
·
The Big Five Traditional publishers have raised
their prices the most. Smaller Trads
have also raised the prices on these books, though not by as much as the Big
Five. Indies have not changed prices
significantly – if anything, they have tended to drop their prices since the
time they were on the “Top 100” list.
·
Books with the notation “Price set by publisher”
have had substantial price increases.
Books without that notation have seen their prices fall, on
average. This notation was used exclusively
by Amazon on traditionally published books.
·
Regardless of the books’ original prices, they
have gone up since then, on average. Books that were originally lower priced
have gone up a bit more than the others, though.
·
By genre, the price increases by Trads have been
quite general. However, Literary Fiction
and Science Fiction/Fantasy have increased somewhat more than the other genres.
·
There was no clear relationship between a book’s
average reviewer rating in its “Top 100” year and its price increase. Both lower and higher rated books increased
in price, as did mid-rated books. The
mid-rated books went up somewhat less, however.
So, what is an Indie to make of this? One could look at it and say:
- This adds confirmation to the trend of increasing Trad prices.
- Higher Trad prices open up market room for mid or lower priced Indies.
- However, as these were well-regarded books (in the Top 100 list in 2013 and 2014), one should be careful. It may be that Trad books that were not so well received have not seen these significant price rises.
- As always, one has to study the market, determine one’s niche (genre, quality, intended audience) and price accordingly.
- It’s easier said than done.
