Where Does Logos Get Thier Prices For Printed Titles?

Am curious to know too!

By and large they're the MSRP at the time the product was released. I do check them from time to time, and find them mostly reliable — although they'll often give the hardback price, even when a paperback is available. They don't really reflect what you'd pay, of course, as most print books are discounted by 20%-50%.

Super.Tramp said:

I used to check them against Amazon. It appears to be Publisher's MSRP for hardbacks.

Interesting, but not as funny as:

abondservant said:

By throwing darts at a number board

Well for all modern published books it would be the Hard Back MSRP, for older works it is hard to place because they end up being an educated guess. For when an item has not appeared in print for over a hundred years the original list price of say $2.50 would mean very little to us, when it might have meant the price of groceries for a family for a week when it was published. I have more than a few older volumes in my physical library and it is always quite quaint to see get this paperback for 25 cents or this hardcover book for 90 cents.

-Dan

Most of you have the right idea: we match the publisher's SRP for modern books, and we go with hardback prices where it makes sense (assuming that the difference in price from hardback to paperback isn't measured in the $100s...). For public domain works, we hit up the internet and estimate what the most consistent lowest price is for facsimile reprints, print-on-demands, and old used copies (as if we were a seminary student or professor looking to purchase a reliable edition without paying too much money for it). And this is if it's even available--some volumes in our Classic Commentaries and Studies series aren't available for purchase or download anywhere, but are only available in libraries preserved in microfilm format or are rare books falling to pieces in their own binding. In that scenario, we guess how much a publisher or facsimile printer would sell the book for (most often, under $20, because they're usually not super technical). I suppose in that case we become the only retailer of that book, and so our price is its standard.

The print price is supposed to be a fairly reliable standard with which you can measure our own prices for comparison. While it wouldn't match what you would find if you went to Amazon, B&N, and did your own competitive shopping, we want a solid, standard price that doesn't frequently change. Amazon's prices are changing every day, and other retailers (and even the publisher in many cases) have special sales and discounts on their books, which becomes too much information for us to be able to be on top of. (Remember, we have over 40,000 books here... and counting)

Brandon Rappuhn said:

Most of you have the right idea: we match the publisher's SRP for modern books, and we go with hardback prices where it makes sense (assuming that the difference in price from hardback to paperback isn't measured in the $100s...). For public domain works, we hit up the internet and estimate what the most consistent lowest price is for facsimile reprints, print-on-demands, and old used copies (as if we were a seminary student or professor looking to purchase a reliable edition without paying too much money for it). And this is if it's even available--some volumes in our Classic Commentaries and Studies series aren't available for purchase or download anywhere, but are only available in libraries preserved in microfilm format or are rare books falling to pieces in their own binding. In that scenario, we guess how much a publisher or facsimile printer would sell the book for (most often, under $20, because they're usually not super technical). I suppose in that case we become the only retailer of that book, and so our price is its standard.

The print price is supposed to be a fairly reliable standard with which you can measure our own prices for comparison. While it wouldn't match what you would find if you went to Amazon, B&N, and did your own competitive shopping, we want a solid, standard price that doesn't frequently change. Amazon's prices are changing every day, and other retailers (and even the publisher in many cases) have special sales and discounts on their books, which becomes too much information for us to be able to be on top of. (Remember, we have over 40,000 books here... and counting)

Agreed Mab. I have a substantial print library and as a student I move back and forth between Florida and NC on a semi regular basis. My print library is to the point where I need to make a truck load all by it self just for the books (or as part of trips home to preach, and for holidays etc, many truck cab fulls).

IE it costs me ~400$ a year just in transport costs for my library, not to mention the wear and tear on the books, and the hassle of putting them up on book shelves once they are in the same state as the books again. 

With Logos I have nearly 10000 books on my computer/laptop which always travels with me any way. Can't imagine the difficulty involved in moving 10000 books any other way, not to mention that a number of the books in Logos are quite rare.