Nathan Bransford - The Forums

How intense are the price wars between competing booksellers? I think they’re pretty intense. Until a few months ago, Amazon always seemed to have the lowest prices. Recently, I’ve noticed competing companies offering the same books and movies at lower prices. My jaw just about dropped on the floor today when I discovered that Lulu is now reprinting best-selling books from the big publishing companies in paperback and offering some of those paperbacks for less money than the Kindle eBook version. I received an email from Lulu, letting me know that they now have “Discounted best-sellers and free shipping”. One of their discounted best-sellers is a 752-page paperback version of THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE by Stieg Larssen, now available at Lulu for $5.35: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/t ... f/center/5. A notice in the book’s description at Lulu says: “This content is made available through a partnership with Ingram Book Company in full compliance with copyright law.” (Ingram is a book distributor.) Also available at Lulu are copies of the same book at widely different prices: http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?f ... gCategory=.

In comparison to Lulu’s $5.35 price for this paperback book, Amazon’s charging $7.99 for the same book in their eBook format for the Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Who-Played-F ... 547&sr=1-1.

I decided to check to see if my own books have become caught up in this price war. This time, my jaw did drop onto the floor. I was amazed to discover that, for the first time I've ever seen anywhere, my novels are being sold for less than $5 on the Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... &x=10&y=17 ... and for only $2.13 on the Nook: http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com ... ilyn+peake. I was stunned to discover this. I’ve been published for seven years, and have never seen my own book prices this low.

I’ve got to believe this intense competition is due to book-selling companies getting really nervous about who might control the book market, now that eBooks are becoming more mainstream. What does everyone else think?

Interesting - though it's not clear to me whether they are just selling the publisher's edition at a low price or reprinting the edition themselves. But this could be an interesting price war.

Nathan,

That's really interesting. I didn't know that Lulu was even allowed to sell books from other publishers. I've decided that it's an amazing time to be a reader. I've never seen lower book prices. I now find myself trying to decide whether to continue buying certain books in Kindle format (I had started buying all my books on the Kindle) or return to buying paperbacks when they're cheaper than the Kindle version, even though I'm running out of shelf space. I'm also trying to decide how many books I should buy right now. I feel like I should stock up on new books while they're 1/2 to 1/3 of their normal price.