Overpriced: Reading the Bible in the Middle Ages

So I got the pre-pub email about this book: Reading the Bible in the Middle Ages. The pre-pub price in Logos is $44.99, and supposed to then go up to $69.99 after publication.

Compare this to Amazon.co.uk: £22.67. Now, I don't know what Amazon.com's price is, but even Logos' pre-pub price is way over the hard copy on the British Amazon.

I almost ordered the book on Logos, but when I saw Amazon, I decided against it.

Faithlife: can you reconsider your price?

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David Mullens

FWIW, I checked the US Amazon website and it has the paperback book at $39.95 and the hardback at $96.26 (both new) (Edit: Kindle version is $32.38). I usually assume the Academic books will be priced higher than paperback because of all the work they do tagging the text.

Jordan Litchfield

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/999691#Comment_999691

Yes, that makes some sense. But on the other hand, Logos doesn't have the cost of materials.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/999693#Comment_999693

Yes, that makes some sense. But on the other hand, Logos doesn't have the cost of materials.

What cost categories do you think FL incurs?

Jordan Litchfield

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/999709#Comment_999709

What cost categories do you think FL incurs?

Obviously they are better positioned to answer that than I am. However, from my limited knowledge of the work that goes into PBs, I would suggest there is all the tagging, hyper-linking and milestone markers that have to be put in.

There is no question that it would take a lot of work to do that. But in order for me to be willing to purchase a digital book that I am most likely going to read through, then it needs to be competitively priced to a hard copy. Though I have mostly digital books, I still prefer a hard copy in hand for reading through. Which means a digital book needs to be roughly the same price or cheaper to tempt me.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/999713#Comment_999713

Obviously they are better positioned to answer that than I am.

A couple other things that come to mind:

FL first has to pay the publisher a fee. FL can't change that amount. They could do loss leaders (selling you something that costs them more than the selling price) but that isn't a sustainable model for them.
FL has to pay for the data server space so that you have access to both the resource you purchase AND any notes associated with it.
FL has to develop the software (desktop and mobile)

All of these charges must be found in the sales of the books.

There is no question that it would take a lot of work to do that.

Indeed, and "work" = "money." The price the book is being offered seems fair compared to the US prices (which is what FL has to deal with).

Furthermore, consider this: what percentage of Logos users will purchase this book? The topic sounds very interesting to me, but I doubt it is a book 5% of users are going to purchase... I doubt if a full 1% would purchase it. The fewer the users who are likely to purchase a book, the higher the markup will be by necessity. There are at least two fixed costs FL has to deal with. 1) the publisher fee and 2) the cost of production. If it cost FL $5k worth of employee salary time, FL would have to sell 334 copies of the book at a $15 mark up (roughly the difference you are seeing) just to keep from losing money. And those are just the fixed costs for the resource (licensing fee, production costs).

I understand that the book is more than you want to pay... You will have to decide if it is worth it to you to have the resource in Logos.

Jordan Litchfield

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/999720#Comment_999720

Thanks for taking the time to go through all of that, JT. I can understand after all you've said that Logos may be forced to offer the book for that price. It's more than I'm willing to pay when prices are that much cheaper elsewhere, but I can see the logic in what you've said.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/999756#Comment_999756

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