Saturday, January 30, 2010

New York Times Nonfiction Hardcover Best Sellers for Feb. 7, 2010 - eBook Prices

Each week I compare the eBook prices of the New York Times Fiction Hardcover Best Seller list at Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Nobles' eBook Store, Sony's Reader Store and KoboBooks to help determine how competitive each major eBook store is.


The New York Times Best Seller List
Hard Cover Nonfiction, Sun. Feb. 7th, 2010
#
Book Name and Author
Amazon
B&N
Sony
Kobo
1
GAME CHANGE
8.61 2
9.99 2
N/A
N/A
by John Heilemann & Mark Halperin
2
COMMITTED
9.99
9.99
11.99
9.99
by Elizabeth Gilbert
3
STONES INTO SCHOOLS
9.99
9.99
9.99
9.99
by Greg Mortenson
4
HAVE A LITTLE FAITH
9.88
9.88
9.99
9.88
by Mitch Albom
5
GOING ROGUE
9.99
9.99
9.99
9.99
by Sarah Palin
6
OUTLIERS
9.40
9.40
9.99
9.40
by Malcolm Gladwell
7
JUST KIDS
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
by Patti Smith
8
THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO
N/A 3
9.99
9.99
9.99
by Atul Gawande
9
SUPERFREAKONOMICS
9.99
9.99
9.99
9.99
by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
10 1
WHAT THE DOG SAW
9.00
9.00
9.99
9.00
by Malcolm Gladwell
11
DRIVE
9.99
9.99
12.99
9.99
by Daniel H. Pink
12
OPEN
9.99
9.99
9.99
9.99
by Andrew Agassi
13
INTELLECTUALS AND SOCIETY
9.99
N/A
N/A
N/A
by Thomas Sowell
14
EVIDENCE OF THE AFTERLIFE
9.99
9.99
13.99
N/A
by Jeffrey Long w/ Paul Perry
15
TOO BIG TO FAIL
9.99
9.99
9.99
9.99
by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Total Price:
126.80 4
128.18 4
128.88 5
108.20 6

Average Price:
9.75
9.86
10.74
9.84

(1) Sales virtually indistinguishable from the title above.

(2) Title available for pre-order.

(3) This title is a Macmillan title and may be withheld due to dispute with Amazon.

(4) Two titles not available for sale.

(5) Three titles not available for sale.

(6) Four titles not available for sale.

As with the Fiction Best Seller list, a Macmillan book is conspicuously absent from the Amazon ranks. No one bookseller manages to keep the same titles available for purchase which makes the total prices fairly hard to analyze. One thing is for sure, Sony seems hellbent on not playing the $9.99 game at any cost to their bottom line. It's quite astonishing how many unavailable titles (or pre-order titles) are on my reading list. I would probably pay $15 for those titles, and perhaps Apple knows this?

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for your weekly update on the best sellers list.

    I wanted to point out that while looking through reviews of the books I noticed that B&N has updated the pre-order price to $8.61 matching Amazons.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll be publishing these lists on Sunday, moving forward, rather than Friday or Saturday when the Times releases them. It's still a week in advance, but there's clearly been some movement on Sunday by the various sellers.

    ReplyDelete