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Comment by vijayr | Hacker News Reader

This is a nice summary.

Just out of curiosity - why do ebooks cost so much? (I am talking in general, not with respect to this particular book). Of course, the value of the content is high etc etc - but wouldn't pricing ebooks less make more people buy them? A $30 ebook is much more expensive, especially if you are not in US/Europe (if you are in Asia, Africa etc), than a $9 ebook, wouldn't the volume make up for the lost dollars? Again, I am not talking about big name publishers, they have their own reasons. I am only talking about independent authors, who have full control over their books/course materials.

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You're making a few assumptions though:

* Those in Asia,Africa, etc... would actually purchase ebooks if the price were lowered. Look at China, everything is pirated there regardless of price. For this reason, most content producers tend to target North America/Europe.

* That the price of an ebook is highly elastic. You're hoping that dropping the price from $30 to $10 would yield sales greater than 3x. But what if it only gave you 2x? And at a lowered price, the margins per sale are slimmer since you have to factor in marketing costs and conversion rates.

Personally, as a North American programmers I wouldn't think twice to drop $30 on a good book that I'd find valuable. My time is more important than a $20 price difference.

There are many ways to do pricing and I won't pretend that my method was scientific. Lowering the price of the book may (or may not) have increased revenue. I priced the book this way because I felt it was fair value for the content.

These two articles on pricing nicely highlight some reasoning behind low vs. high: http://blog.asmartbear.com/perfect-pricing.html and http://blog.asmartbear.com/higher-pricing.html.

Those are really great articles. The classic Camels and Rubber Duckies is still relevant as well though with less practical advice: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...

I can't thank you enough for those links to the "A Smart Bear" blog. Both articles were exceptional (and should be read in the sequence above to get the full impact).

Sometimes you don't want higher volume, because that requires more customer management-- and you get a lot more tire kickers and refunds at lower price points.

There are a few "indie" authors now selling Kindle books for a buck or two and selling hundreds of thousands of copies. For instance, Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking.

noone picks numbers out of thin air.

they do a/b testing to see what gets the most revenue.

Usually at $9...you only sell twice as much as you do at $30...so you actually lose money.

That's because to most people $30 or $9 makes very little difference

Why does college cost so much?

I'm not sure if this whether you're being serious or not. If you aren't, than could you please explain the relation between ebooks and college? I see the knowledge-is-pricey relation, but I find it weak. Writing a book and building a school, hiring staff, etc. is not a strong comparison.

If you were being serious, than the reason college is costly is because everything that goes into me being able to attend a college costs money.

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