March Madness: Logos High Prices

Often, for the books I'm interested in, Logos is not priced competitively. I'm not interested in other's defense for Logos' pricing; I've heard those before. I'm posting these examples in hopes that Logos would consider a more competitive pricing strategy. I for one would buy a lot more if I felt Logos was always at - or below - market.

Three examples from the latest March Madness illustrate Logos' high pricing:

1. Cranfield's ICC 2 Volume Romans Commentary is regularly priced by Logos at $90 and $85 for volumes one and two, respectively. Only with today's 40% off deal does the price become $54 and $51. This compares to Amazon pricing of approximately $45 and $45 for each volume. Amazon lists the retail price at $60 each, no where close to Logos' $90 price tag. Logos, I would have purchased this set long ago if you could cut your "everyday price" in half, reflecting market values. If you are looking for customer feedback, please know that running a 40% off sale on an item and still not being competitive with the market is a turn off for me. I used to be committed to buying books on Logos, but current pricing on the books I'm seeking gives me no customer satisfaction.

2. A second example for the March Madness sale is for Calvin's Institutes. Logos, you sell the Beveridge edition for $35! This really is incredible considering it is a public domain. And, I was disappointed to not see the Battles / McNeill edition offered in the sale. I know it's under development. I'm writing to let you know that I would have purchased another book from Logos had the pricing been competitive. But for now, I can get the McNeill edition for $40 elsewhere.

3. Many of Bridges' titles are overpriced too. Only with the 35% off coupons did his Gospel for Real Life become competitive with Amazon. Again, it's frustrating when you don't save any money on your big sales; saving 35% means you simply don't get gouged by everyday high pricing.

Logos, I know this is a negative post, so I will say I'm genuinely thankful for the software and have purchased a lot of books from you. This post is to let you know that I would buy more books if pricing was competitive. Perhaps others would too.

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Comments

Rev Chris

Yeah - I find Logos to be very useful for commentaries, dictionaries, and language tools. I'm willing to pay more than market price for those, since they become much more useful when added to the power of the Logos program. But books that are simply meant to be read front to back I tend to buy from wherever has the cheapest price. One would think that this latter category of books would be closer to market price on Logos, since presumably they require less tagging and preparing. Unfortunately, that is often not the case.

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352903#Comment_352903

For me personally the ability to read books front to back with verses being clickable is worth a little increase in expense (although vyrso.com is incredibly competitive). Then add the benefit of being have books searchable alongside my entire library not just by keyword but with verse reference search (<John 3:16>) and proximity search and it is worth quite a bit more.

Now with my books available and able to be marked up on my iPad and have those markups sync back to Logos 4, I am very content to pay a premium for most books (although often there isn't much of a premium to be paid).

Evan Boardman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352909#Comment_352909

Im a big Logos fan, but even I got to admit this March sale stinks.[+o(]

Paul N

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352917#Comment_352917

man and I was just thinking to myself what a deal I just got on two of Sproul's commentaries...

Mitchell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352909#Comment_352909

I have to say I agree with the OP here. eBooks should cost, for the base product, less than a paper book. There's no printing cost, no materials cost, no warehousing overhead, no shipping costs... it's dramatically cheaper. The marginal costs on an eBook can be measured in fractions of pennies, and the fixed costs are still less than paper. If publishers didn't engage in price-fixing behavior, eBooks should cost about 50% what traditional books costs and still be able to give more money to the author.

Logos adds value by tagging the books. I get that. For a reference volume, that's a lot of work, and it adds a lot of value. I doubt I'll ever buy a reference work outside Logos again. However, for a book meant to be read front-to-back, it's a lot less work and it adds a lot less value. In my mind, the tagging pretty much makes up that extra 50% or so and justifies charging the same price for the Logos edition as for the paper edition. More, and I'll just get paper. Take into account that I can easily lend out a paper book and the argument gets stronger. There's no point paying, for example, $25 for Surprised by Hope when I can get a brand-new hardcover
for half that.

Just my 2¢. I know Logos has to make a profit, I know they're often beholden to publishers (albeit not for public domain works), and I know the cost of the software is distributed throughout the resources, but a lot of these prices still strike me as exorbitant.

Rev Chris

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352962#Comment_352962

but a lot of these prices still strike me as exorbitant.

This is the only part I disagree with. It's supply and demand - if people stopped buying non-reference books from Logos at high prices, they'd stop selling them at high prices.

Johann

This post is to let you know that I would buy more books if pricing was competitive. Perhaps others would too.

From what I can gather, in many cases the price is set by the publisher.

I agree that I would buy more from Logos if it were closer to the price of a Kindle version of a book or even available outside of a set. I have been teaching through Matthew and bought two items on Kindle over the Logos version. The first is France's NICNT commentary on Matthew, which if I wanted in Logos I would have to buy the whole NICOT/NT for $1600. That's just not an option for me. I also bought the Kindle Commentary of the New Testament use of the Old Testament for almost half the price of the Logos version. If I wanted the hard copy it would still be $20 cheaper than the Logos version. From what else I've seen the Kindle version (when available) tends to be close to half the price as Logos versions. My system of working with Kindle + Logos, while not preferable, still works and in the end saves money, so I can buy more resources.

Logos has IMHO some good deals, which is the reason I've bought from them. I don't own a base package, because I don't think I would use most of what is in it. I bought a bunch of $10 Bibles, a great NAS package for $30 (including Calvin's Institutes [:)] ), the EBC, an illustrated dictionary, and an atlas. Maybe not great, but it's sure not bad. I would love to add new resources to Logos instead of Kindle, but it's going to be a case by case decision that unfortunately is based on price.

It's supply and demand - if people stopped buying non-reference books from Logos at high prices, they'd stop selling them at high prices.

In my case this is already true. I don't know how many it would take to make a big enough difference for Logos to notice. Resources that are already produced cost them nothing to keep available indefinitely. If their cost is covered, it would make sense to lower the price some to get more sales - especially on public domain titles.

Jerry Fourroux

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352997#Comment_352997

I would say that I bought Cranfield in Hardback which was over $90 a piece. The paperback is the $60 cost. In all of my interest in T&T Clark Publishers, I find that they often set their prices way way to high.

I think that is more of the issue than just Logos charging for their service. Amazon is selling at loss usually to beat competition, but the T&T Clark's are not that much discounted.

Randy Lane

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/352909#Comment_352909

For me personally the ability to read books front to back with verses being clickable is worth a little increase in expense (although vyrso.com is incredibly competitive). Then add the benefit of being have books searchable alongside my entire library not just by keyword but with verse reference search (<John 3:16>) and proximity search and it is worth quite a bit more.

Now with my books available and able to be marked up on my iPad and have those markups sync back to Logos 4, I am very content to pay a premium for most books (although often there isn't much of a premium to be paid).

[:)] [:)] [Y] [I]

Ditto!! Ditto!! Ditto!!

[:)] [:)] [Y] [I]

My sentiments entirely. I'm disappointed now when I have to resort to using my iPad Kindle app to read/mark-u a book electonically because it is not available in Logos, or is in Logos but not available on iPAd/iPhone.