What's the going rate for a bestseller these days?

Book pricing has always been dicey. How do you know what you want to pay for a book before you read it? Why are hardcover and paperback prices so divergent? How much should we charge for an ebook? These things are still evolving and norms are emerging. But here are 3 trends that are shaping this part of the industry:

1. International variability: There are different norms of what people are willing to pay in different cultures, markets, and countries. Michael Tamblyn, Chief Content Officer of Kobo, gives a great background on why that is the case-- and talks about which market is the most ferociously competitive in his experience!

2. Discount size: One interesting trend that Book Bub, one of the biggest ebook daily deal email lists, has noticed is that the larger the percentage of a book discount, the more traffic a particular deal gets. As reported by paidcontent.org: "Josh Schanker, founder of BookBub, says, “The greater percentage discount the publisher offers, the greater the response rate." BookBub has found that ebooks discounted by 90 to 99 percent saw 300 percent more click-throughs and purchases than ebooks discounted by 60 percent."

3. Less Focus on Free: Earlier this year, the main advice to anyone selling ebooks was that they should give a whole bunch away for free, or make the cost of their book, well, free. The enthusiasm for free is shifting, and people are understanding that there are benefits and costs to that strategy, and that it works better for some authors or books than others. The result overall is that there is a general movement away from offering books for free.

4. Average cost of a bestseller: It's still right around $7.00 in the U.S. And that's been relatively stable for quite a while now. It fluctuates a bit, but it hovers around that amount. Keep in mind that that is just for the bestsellers, meaning that people are fine with paying that much for a book that everyone else is buying. 

Image source: epSos.de via flickr