Average Ebook Best-Seller Price Drops as Hachette and Simon & Schuster Ink New Retail Deals
New deals signed last week between Hachette and Simon & Schuster and their ebook retail partners have driven down prices of ebook best-sellers.
This week, both Hachette and Simon & Schuster inked new retail contracts with Amazon and their other partners, giving up pricing control per a settlement both publishers signed with the Department of Justice over the issue of ebook price-fixing. The retailers have wasted no time discounting some of the publishers’ ebook titles.
Michael Connelly’s The Black Box (Hachette, No. 1 on the best-seller list this week) was $14.99 at Amazon and other retailers and is now priced at $12.74 at Amazon and elsewhere. Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, No. 9 on the best-seller list) was $9.99 and went down to $8.74 last week; the book is currently priced at $7.99.
As a result of those price changes and others, the average price of a book on the Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller List has dropped to its lowest point since it was launched, $9.06. That’s down from $9.79 last week and the high of $11.79 on Oct. 20.
Partially responsible are several lower-priced titles hitting the list, led by Stop the Wedding, a self-published hit by Stephanie Bond. It rocketed up the list last week to hit No. 6 and is currently sitting at No. 2. A holiday sales push could make it the first self-published title to hit No. 1 on the list — stay tuned!
See the rest of the the best-seller lists for the week ending Dec. 8:
– Digital Book World Best-Selling Ebooks Priced $10.00 and Above
– Digital Book World Best-Selling Ebooks Priced $8.00 – $9.99
– Digital Book World Best-Selling Ebooks Priced $3.00 – $7.99
– Digital Book World Best-Selling Ebooks Priced $0.00 – $2.99
Read and comment on our methodology.
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| Rank* | Title | Author | Publisher | Price** | Change |
| 1 (2) | The Black Box (A Harry Bosch Novel) | Michael Connelly | Hachette | $ 12.74 | +1 |
| 2 (6) | Stop the Wedding! (a romantic comedy) | Stephanie Bond | NeedtoRead | $ 0.99 | +4 |
| 3 (3) | The Forgotten | David Baldacci | Hachette | $ 11.04 | – |
| 4 (1) | Notorious Nineteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel | Janet Evanovich | Random House | $ 12.99 | -3 |
| 5 (4) | The Racketeer | John Grisham | Random House | $ 12.99 | -1 |
| 6 (7) | Gone Girl: A Novel | Gillian Flynn | Random House | $ 12.99 | +1 |
| 7 (5) | Merry Christmas, Alex Cross | James Patterson | Hachette | $ 11.04 | -2 |
| 8 (9) | The Last Man: A Novel | Vince Flynn | Simon & Schuster | $ 11.99 | +1 |
| 9 (21) | Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife | Eben Alexander III M.D. | Simon & Schuster | $ 8.43 | +12 |
| 10 (n/a) | Threat Vector | Tom Clancy; Mark Greaney | Penguin | $ 14.99 | New |
| 11 (10) | Life of Pi | Yann Martel | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | $ 4.99 | -1 |
| 12 (12) | Fifty Shades Freed: Book Three of the Fifty Shades Trilogy | E. L. James | Random House | $ 9.99 | – |
| 13 (20) | Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy | E. L. James | Random House | $ 9.99 | +7 |
| 14 (19) | Fifty Shades Darker: Book Two of the Fifty Shades Trilogy | E. L. James | Random House | $ 9.99 | +5 |
| 15 (13) | The Hobbit | J.R.R. Tolkien | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | $ 6.41 | -2 |
| 16 (n/a) | A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows: An Outlander Novella | Diana Gabaldon | Random House | $ 1.99 | New |
| 17 (11) | The Perfect Hope: Book Three of the Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy (The Inn Trilogy) | Nora Roberts | Penguin | $ 9.99 | -6 |
| 18 (8) | Cold Days: A Novel of the Dresden Files | Jim Butcher | Penguin | $ 12.99 | -10 |
| 19 (16) | Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) | Suzanne Collins | Scholastic | $ 5.99 | -3 |
| 20 (15) | Reflected in You: A Crossfire Novel | Sylvia Day | Penguin | $ 9.99 | -5 |
| 21 (14) | My Kind of Christmas (Virgin River Series: #18) : | Robyn Carr | Harlequin | $ 1.99 | -7 |
| 22 (17) | Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) | Suzanne Collins | Scholastic | $ 5.99 | -5 |
| 23 (n/a) | The Pact | Jodi Picoult | HarperCollins | $ 2.99 | New |
| 24 (22) | Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel | Sylvia Day | Penguin | $ 9.99 | -2 |
| 25 (23) | Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot | Bill O’Reilly; Martin Dugard | Macmillan | $ 12.99 | -2 |
* Previous week’s list rank in parentheses.
** Price reflects minimum price across all retailers throughout the week. Price may vary between retailers and may change throughout the week. Contact Iobyte Solutions for more information on e-book pricing.
Methodology available here.
