Amazon, with its Kindle platform, has done a tremendous job in promoting eBooks. Unlike physical books, the production cost of an eBook can essentially be considered zero. Why? Because it’s created once and then requires no additional resources (while each copy of a physical book uses paper and ink at the very least). After that, you can sell 10 copies or a million without incurring any further direct costs.
That’s why I’ve always said that selling eBooks is, in many ways, selling air. And it’s for this reason that the pricing model for them is so intriguing. Typically, the price is comparable to that of the equivalent paperback book. After that, various local factors come into play: who the publisher is, how well-known the author is, which country the book is being sold in, and so on.
The approach to selling eBooks also differs from country to country. Just recently, writer Alexey Pehov mentioned that in Germany, eBooks might be released before the printed version, with similar pricing, and publishers there don’t believe it impacts print sales. In Russia, however, it’s the opposite: there’s always talk that releasing an eBook “kills” print sales (although I’ve never seen direct proof of this). As a result, sometimes you have to wait several weeks, or even months, for the eBook version to come out after the print release.
But yesterday, I discovered that even within the same book, prices can vary. This came as a surprise to me, and I found out quite unexpectedly.
I decided to buy the Kindle version of a book on Amazon. I found it, saw the price—$6.13. I noticed I was browsing anonymously, so I logged into my account. And then, surprise! The price for the same book was now $6.30. Let me emphasize—it was the exact same eBook!
The difference wasn’t huge, but it piqued my interest. So, I tried searching for the same book anonymously, accessing the site via a VPN from different regions. From Russia, the price was also $6.30, but when I accessed the store as if from Chicago, USA, the price nearly doubled to around $12.
I did some research online and found that I’m not the only one who has noticed this discrepancy. However, Amazon doesn’t comment on the situation. Judging by posts, sometimes their support team even shuts down such inquiries with a note saying, “case closed” (which I find odd, as my experience with Amazon’s customer service has always been great—they’re usually very customer-oriented).
Some speculate that this might be related to local taxes or other factors (similar to how Steam now includes VAT for purchases from Russia). But this explanation seems unclear, especially given my own experience: I checked the book price from Cyprus while browsing anonymously, then logged into my account again from Cyprus—and the price changed. Yet, there’s no clear link between an Amazon account and a specific country (there’s a billing address, and I have several cards linked, so it’s unclear how they choose). And in Russia, where VAT is now applied, the price was the same.
So, this is just another example of a strange and still unclear approach to pricing for a digital product.
