What is the cheapest ebook format?
Posted on 14. Jan, 2010 by JD in News
With the glut of ereaders on the market and the deluge from CES about to hit, plenty of newbies will be discovering ebooks this year.
They’ll be hard to avoid.
The first thing they’ll learn is that your choice of reader often locks you in to one ebook format.
So do all formats cost the same? The short answer is no.
So which is the cheapest format? Here’s a quick cost comparison (in USD) using http://www.ebookprice.info/ a very handy ebook search site similar to addall.com
(For the purposes of this experiment I’m ignoring public domain ebooks. We all know they’re free but, seriously, who’s going to stick to them exclusively? Ditto “free” books via rebate.)
Price Store Format Discount
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
$14.86 Diesel Mobipocket Rebate
$9.60 B&N ePub
$14.98 BOnBoard Palm
$9.60 Amazon UK Kindle
I, Alex Cross by James Patterson
$9.99 Kobo, B&N ePub
$9.99 Sony Sony BBEB
$9.99 Amazon UK Kindle
$14.99 Diesel Mobipocket Rebate
Open by Andre Agassi
$9.99 Kobo, B&N ePub
$19.98 BOnBoard Palm
$19.99 ebooks.com Mobipocket
$9.60 Amazon UK Kindle
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
$9.99 ebooks.com Mobipocket
$9.24 Waterstones Adobe PDF
$14.44 Fictionwise Palm/eReader
$7.50 Amazon US Kindle Club
$7.50 B&N ePub
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
$3.06 Fictionwise Palm Club, Rebate
$10.32 Waterstones Adobe DE
$7.65 Fictionwise Palm/eReader Club
$9.20 Amazon US Kindle
$7.20 B&N ePub
So there you have it – it’s neck-and-neck between Kindle and ePub, forget the rest.
This makes sense. At the moment these two are the dominant formats – it’s almost a case of Amazon v The Rest, with the competition having to match Amazon’s prices. Along with the availability of books in each format (I wouldn’t jump on a bandwagon other than the two majors right now), price is definitely a factor.
If you bought a conservative 15 ebooks a year at these prices, the difference may be $100-$150 extra in your pocket. Enough to buy a low-end ereader this year, I’ll warrant.
JD
