Why is almost every single headline regarding this story saying "Slower" or "lower" sales when it it's lower growth? i.e. sales were still higher, but not as much higher as the previous period.
Besides that minor irritation, I guess journalists, or bloggers don't know the difference between correlation and cause/effect...
So the article begins about music sales, and then turns to Amazon, Books, the Kindle, and Apple's ridiculous iPad. Can you idiots write an article that remains on topic with the headline? Books have nothing to do with music sales. Perhaps the reason why sales are down is because most new music released sucks. No one wants to spend money on CRAP!
Bronfman reportedly said, "It?s interesting that the book publishing industry, on the iPad, has much more flexibility than the music industry had."
It's not interesting Mr. Bronfman. It's common sense!
An entire book is more complex than a track of music idiot. Of course the pricing model should be equally more complex. these music executives keep finding new ways to prove their incompetence.
One could also make the argument that the book industry has done a better job of leveraging the value of their content creators - authors - as opposed to the machine of the music industry which has pretty much turned most recording artists into bland replicas of each other (but with different skin color and wardrobes).
Why is almost every single headline regarding this story saying "Slower" or "lower" sales when it it's lower growth? i.e. sales were still higher, but not as much higher as the previous period.
Besides that minor irritation, I guess journalists, or bloggers don't know the difference between correlation and cause/effect...
I agree that headlines should be more clear, but a slowing in digital music sales growth is still not good news as they should probably be accelerating at this point, and sales would have been higher with $0.99 songs.
Your examples are albums, not individual songs as the article states. I randomly checked 3 of the albums you posted and none offer the 69¢ pricing. Some songs even had the $1.29 pricing.
Solipsism, still splitting hairs I see ... technically you are right, but I would suggest to you that if I found 7 or 8 individual songs by an artist I enjoyed ( @ 0.67 or less) on an album that costs 7.99 it's a great deal because as anyone who has ever bought an album will tell you ... most times there is at least one track that doesn't get radio play but turns out to be a great track ... at least that's been my experience. The Jazz example I mentioned is a perfect example. While I am not a HUGH Jazz fan, already I have heard 2 tracks I love and will no doubt hear more as I sample the whole album ... and at 0.05 per track it's not a large risk.
No matter how many times they repeat this statement, I can never understand. If anyone does, could you please enlighten me? How is it possible that the model will help them make more money "on every digital sale" but not lead to greater profits?
More money per sale = more profits. If not, that means the higher prices hurt demand, and if that's the case, then it is just a dumb move and they would not do it, as no one would gain from it.
Higher price means they will sell less, hence the lower profit.
According the way how Amazon can manage to subsidize Kindle Books sale with the Kindle hardware, I would say that the demand for ebook is pretty low. So low that the publishers doesn't think it make sense to cater to that market. So low that Amazon won't lose money from subsidizing eBook with the Kindle.
If the eBook sales is somewhat decent, they will be adopting the game console model, where software subsidize the hardware, not the other way around.
And I've yet to see ANY song at 69 cents. Even stuff from the 70's or 60's is full price. And god forbid some 70's song was just in a movie - price magically jumps to 1.29....
You make the assumption that any 70s song used in a movie soundtrack doesn't automatically require you to buy the whole soundtrack from iTunes if you want that one song.
That's been my experience with a disappointingly high number of songs so far, for which the version included with the soundtrack is either the only version available, or the popular mix of a given song. I won't do it, don't really want to "steal" it via P2P, and can't find a lot of them in the lackluster music stores I do have access to.
The bottom line is, the music/books comparison is off because the 99-cent price point and $9.99-12.99 album pricing was in line with what the physical media cost for most people (who buy their music at Best Buy, Walmart, Target or Amazon). The $9.99 price point for eBooks was not when you consider that a hardback will often run you $20-25 easy. There was room to slide prices up for books that didn't exist with music, regardless of the existence of iTunes.
Music and books are quite different businesses. Music is a commodity, with zillions of units being traded. It also had a huge piracy problem. By comparison books are a niche market now, with units being sold to few readers (compared to music listeners). There was also very little piracy in the book market compared to music. Music vendors can easily make up in volume what they lose in unit price. Book sellers don't have as much margin to do that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jrandersoniii
You can't really compare books and music.
Books, really can't be consumed through other means. Sure, you can go to the library or borrow the book. Maybe buy it used after several weeks to months after the initial release. But most people who buy books - buy books. Many keep them to be enjoyed again.
Music, on the other hand can be consumed on the radio for free. Satellite radio for a fee. It may be torrented or downloaded by other means, eschewing the exchange of money for a product. Further... the general lack of quality music these days in pop music -- means that music is disposable and not "timeless."
We all agree that books and music are very different, but my take is different from the above.
The typical intention behind buying one song is to listen to it repetitively. It is background entertainment; no unique information is gained from it; the value is in the mood it imparts to the listener.
The typical intention behind a book is either to gain knowledge which is unique to the reader or to experience entertainment which is unique to the reader. (Unique in that they haven't experienced that particular knowledge/entertainment before.)
The amount of time spend reading one book may or may not be less than the total amount of time spent listening to one song. But the unique gain derived from the book is completely incomparable to what is obtained from listening to a song over and over.
More significantly, a long non-fiction book might impart an enormous amount of information, while a novella imparts a little bit of entertainment. It is not at all surprising that they might have different costs.
By comparison, a short song and a long song still have (very roughly) the same value, since a repetitive listener can spend the same amount of time listening to either one.
I hate to chime in with yet another "me too" but here it goes.
The music industry doesn't get it. (And this isn't the first time that Bronfman in particular has said something that showed this to be painfully true, at least for the the label he represents.) People are only going to pay so much for a song, and to a certain extent, Apple has kind of "conditioned" us to believe that 99¢ per song is a reasonable price.
Back in the days of Napster when it was just a music downloading tool, I was on dial up and even at fifteen minutes per song, my downloading habits were pretty prolific. People may or may not believe it, but in my case, the exposure to all that music (and the frequently less than perfect rips to MP3) did a lot to foster my interest and create a desire to actually buy a copy of an artist's work on CD. I'd listened to the radio for years prior to that and still do today, but the effect wasn't the same. (And yes, I know that not everyone who downloaded music went on to purchase said music legally. But a lot of people--myself included--did!)
They called this theft, piracy and punished some of those who did it. At least in my case, it led to them making sales that they wouldn't have otherwise made!
If you graphed the number of CDs I'd purchased prior to Napster, and the number purchased after its downfall, you'd see a flat line and then a massive spike. There was a time I did not think I would fill a 25 disc CD changer. Then I didn't think I'd fill a 400 disc changer (and it's 90 *purchased* discs on the way so far).
Given time, I have a feeling that the home recording studio may also do a lot of damage to the big labels...as will some of this social networking stuff.
For whatever it's worth, there's my take. (Probably not much...hope you didn't pay much to see it. )
Solipsism, still splitting hairs I see ... technically you are right, but I would suggest to you that if I found 7 or 8 individual songs by an artist I enjoyed ( @ 0.67 or less) on an album that costs 7.99 it's a great deal because as anyone who has ever bought an album will tell you ... most times there is at least one track that doesn't get radio play but turns out to be a great track ... at least that's been my experience. The Jazz example I mentioned is a perfect example. While I am not a HUGH Jazz fan, already I have heard 2 tracks I love and will no doubt hear more as I sample the whole album ... and at 0.05 per track it's not a large risk.
It's not splitting hairs. The price range reported when iTunes switched from fixed pricing to variable pricing was for individual songs. Under the old fixed pricing scheme, purchasing an album also meant that each individual song cost less than $0.99 even though the cost of an individual song was fixed at $0.99.
No big surprise. Raise prices, sell less. Lower prices, sell more. Songs are still $0.99 so more customers buy from Amazon. # of songs sold is effectively the same since supply and demand hasn't changed. Only impacts # of songs sold through iTunes.
Solipsism, still splitting hairs I see ... technically you are right, but I would suggest to you that if I found 7 or 8 individual songs by an artist I enjoyed ( @ 0.67 or less) on an album that costs 7.99 it's a great deal because as anyone who has ever bought an album will tell you ... most times there is at least one track that doesn't get radio play but turns out to be a great track ... at least that's been my experience. The Jazz example I mentioned is a perfect example. While I am not a HUGH Jazz fan, already I have heard 2 tracks I love and will no doubt hear more as I sample the whole album ... and at 0.05 per track it's not a large risk.
Calling you out for proclaiming a poster stupid for not reading despite the article specifically stating individual songs is splitting hairs? You're the one trying to split hairs by saying you can get lower prices by buying albums despite that being the case since day off the iTMS.
The individual song price change gave a 30¢ rise and drop alternative making 69¢, 99¢, and $1.29 options for individual songs. The poster pointed out that they have seen the higher price but never the lower priced option.
Your examples are for 05¢ to 67¢ song prices in albums has absolutely NOTHING to do with this thread or the poster you called stupid for not reading. You don't call that splitting hairs?
So the article begins about music sales, and then turns to Amazon, Books, the Kindle, and Apple's ridiculous iPad. Can you idiots write an article that remains on topic with the headline? Books have nothing to do with music sales. Perhaps the reason why sales are down is because most new music released sucks. No one wants to spend money on CRAP!
No matter how many times they repeat this statement, I can never understand. If anyone does, could you please enlighten me? How is it possible that the model will help them make more money "on every digital sale" but not lead to greater profits?
More money per sale = more profits. If not, that means the higher prices hurt demand, and if that's the case, then it is just a dumb move and they would not do it, as no one would gain from it.
The publishers are looking at a book sale from all channels - hardcover, ebook, paperback, etc. The publishers want to keep the ebook price at about half the hardcover price. They think this balance yields optimal revenue. If not, they want the power to alter that balance. Furthermore, after the book has been in the market for awhile, they want to control when the price decreases; most publishers have said they're willing to take the ebook price down to $5.99. I've not seen anything about ebook pricing after the paperback version is published.
No big surprise. Raise prices, sell less. Lower prices, sell more. Songs are still $0.99 so more customers buy from Amazon. # of songs sold is effectively the same since supply and demand hasn't changed. Only impacts # of songs sold through iTunes.
Factors you ignored:
Amazon is US only
Some people shop on iTunes (due to its convenience) but not Amazon
Amazon also adopted variable pricing (but still have more $0.99 songs than iTunes), so some songs are $1.29 on both iTunes and Amazon
Conclusions changed:
# of songs sold is not effectively the same
Does not only impact # of songs sold through iTunes
Love it, people actually believe it was Apple that wanted to remove DRM. Irrespective of the fact other MP3 stores were selling DRM free MP3s before Apple, and EMI said at the time it was them that requested Apple get rid of the DRM.
Is it also really the music labels setting the prices for each track and not Apple. Kinda weird don't you think? Most shops set their own prices to ya know complete! And if its the music labels choosing that higher price, why is Amazon 20p cheaper on every track? They have an even more varied pricing but are always cheaper.
I sense a little bit of the usual Apple Marketing in the air. Blame the guy the public don't deal with and they'll all be on your side.
Comments
Besides that minor irritation, I guess journalists, or bloggers
Bronfman reportedly said, "It?s interesting that the book publishing industry, on the iPad, has much more flexibility than the music industry had."
It's not interesting Mr. Bronfman. It's common sense!
An entire book is more complex than a track of music idiot. Of course the pricing model should be equally more complex. these music executives keep finding new ways to prove their incompetence.
One could also make the argument that the book industry has done a better job of leveraging the value of their content creators - authors - as opposed to the machine of the music industry which has pretty much turned most recording artists into bland replicas of each other (but with different skin color and wardrobes).
Why is almost every single headline regarding this story saying "Slower" or "lower" sales when it it's lower growth? i.e. sales were still higher, but not as much higher as the previous period.
Besides that minor irritation, I guess journalists, or bloggers
I agree that headlines should be more clear, but a slowing in digital music sales growth is still not good news as they should probably be accelerating at this point, and sales would have been higher with $0.99 songs.
Your examples are albums, not individual songs as the article states. I randomly checked 3 of the albums you posted and none offer the 69¢ pricing. Some songs even had the $1.29 pricing.
Solipsism, still splitting hairs I see ... technically you are right, but I would suggest to you that if I found 7 or 8 individual songs by an artist I enjoyed ( @ 0.67 or less) on an album that costs 7.99 it's a great deal because as anyone who has ever bought an album will tell you ... most times there is at least one track that doesn't get radio play but turns out to be a great track ... at least that's been my experience. The Jazz example I mentioned is a perfect example. While I am not a HUGH Jazz fan, already I have heard 2 tracks I love and will no doubt hear more as I sample the whole album ... and at 0.05 per track it's not a large risk.
No matter how many times they repeat this statement, I can never understand. If anyone does, could you please enlighten me? How is it possible that the model will help them make more money "on every digital sale" but not lead to greater profits?
More money per sale = more profits. If not, that means the higher prices hurt demand, and if that's the case, then it is just a dumb move and they would not do it, as no one would gain from it.
Higher price means they will sell less, hence the lower profit.
According the way how Amazon can manage to subsidize Kindle Books sale with the Kindle hardware, I would say that the demand for ebook is pretty low. So low that the publishers doesn't think it make sense to cater to that market. So low that Amazon won't lose money from subsidizing eBook with the Kindle.
If the eBook sales is somewhat decent, they will be adopting the game console model, where software subsidize the hardware, not the other way around.
And I've yet to see ANY song at 69 cents. Even stuff from the 70's or 60's is full price. And god forbid some 70's song was just in a movie - price magically jumps to 1.29....
You make the assumption that any 70s song used in a movie soundtrack doesn't automatically require you to buy the whole soundtrack from iTunes if you want that one song.
That's been my experience with a disappointingly high number of songs so far, for which the version included with the soundtrack is either the only version available, or the popular mix of a given song. I won't do it, don't really want to "steal" it via P2P, and can't find a lot of them in the lackluster music stores I do have access to.
Music and books are quite different businesses. Music is a commodity, with zillions of units being traded. It also had a huge piracy problem. By comparison books are a niche market now, with units being sold to few readers (compared to music listeners). There was also very little piracy in the book market compared to music. Music vendors can easily make up in volume what they lose in unit price. Book sellers don't have as much margin to do that.
You can't really compare books and music.
Books, really can't be consumed through other means. Sure, you can go to the library or borrow the book. Maybe buy it used after several weeks to months after the initial release. But most people who buy books - buy books. Many keep them to be enjoyed again.
Music, on the other hand can be consumed on the radio for free. Satellite radio for a fee. It may be torrented or downloaded by other means, eschewing the exchange of money for a product. Further... the general lack of quality music these days in pop music -- means that music is disposable and not "timeless."
We all agree that books and music are very different, but my take is different from the above.
The typical intention behind buying one song is to listen to it repetitively. It is background entertainment; no unique information is gained from it; the value is in the mood it imparts to the listener.
The typical intention behind a book is either to gain knowledge which is unique to the reader or to experience entertainment which is unique to the reader. (Unique in that they haven't experienced that particular knowledge/entertainment before.)
The amount of time spend reading one book may or may not be less than the total amount of time spent listening to one song. But the unique gain derived from the book is completely incomparable to what is obtained from listening to a song over and over.
More significantly, a long non-fiction book might impart an enormous amount of information, while a novella imparts a little bit of entertainment. It is not at all surprising that they might have different costs.
By comparison, a short song and a long song still have (very roughly) the same value, since a repetitive listener can spend the same amount of time listening to either one.
The music industry doesn't get it. (And this isn't the first time that Bronfman in particular has said something that showed this to be painfully true, at least for the the label he represents.) People are only going to pay so much for a song, and to a certain extent, Apple has kind of "conditioned" us to believe that 99¢ per song is a reasonable price.
Back in the days of Napster when it was just a music downloading tool, I was on dial up and even at fifteen minutes per song, my downloading habits were pretty prolific. People may or may not believe it, but in my case, the exposure to all that music (and the frequently less than perfect rips to MP3) did a lot to foster my interest and create a desire to actually buy a copy of an artist's work on CD. I'd listened to the radio for years prior to that and still do today, but the effect wasn't the same. (And yes, I know that not everyone who downloaded music went on to purchase said music legally. But a lot of people--myself included--did!)
They called this theft, piracy and punished some of those who did it. At least in my case, it led to them making sales that they wouldn't have otherwise made!
If you graphed the number of CDs I'd purchased prior to Napster, and the number purchased after its downfall, you'd see a flat line and then a massive spike. There was a time I did not think I would fill a 25 disc CD changer. Then I didn't think I'd fill a 400 disc changer (and it's 90 *purchased* discs on the way so far).
Given time, I have a feeling that the home recording studio may also do a lot of damage to the big labels...as will some of this social networking stuff.
For whatever it's worth, there's my take. (Probably not much...hope you didn't pay much to see it.
Solipsism, still splitting hairs I see ... technically you are right, but I would suggest to you that if I found 7 or 8 individual songs by an artist I enjoyed ( @ 0.67 or less) on an album that costs 7.99 it's a great deal because as anyone who has ever bought an album will tell you ... most times there is at least one track that doesn't get radio play but turns out to be a great track ... at least that's been my experience. The Jazz example I mentioned is a perfect example. While I am not a HUGH Jazz fan, already I have heard 2 tracks I love and will no doubt hear more as I sample the whole album ... and at 0.05 per track it's not a large risk.
It's not splitting hairs. The price range reported when iTunes switched from fixed pricing to variable pricing was for individual songs. Under the old fixed pricing scheme, purchasing an album also meant that each individual song cost less than $0.99 even though the cost of an individual song was fixed at $0.99.
Solipsism, still splitting hairs I see ... technically you are right, but I would suggest to you that if I found 7 or 8 individual songs by an artist I enjoyed ( @ 0.67 or less) on an album that costs 7.99 it's a great deal because as anyone who has ever bought an album will tell you ... most times there is at least one track that doesn't get radio play but turns out to be a great track ... at least that's been my experience. The Jazz example I mentioned is a perfect example. While I am not a HUGH Jazz fan, already I have heard 2 tracks I love and will no doubt hear more as I sample the whole album ... and at 0.05 per track it's not a large risk.
Calling you out for proclaiming a poster stupid for not reading despite the article specifically stating individual songs is splitting hairs? You're the one trying to split hairs by saying you can get lower prices by buying albums despite that being the case since day off the iTMS.
The individual song price change gave a 30¢ rise and drop alternative making 69¢, 99¢, and $1.29 options for individual songs. The poster pointed out that they have seen the higher price but never the lower priced option.
Your examples are for 05¢ to 67¢ song prices in albums has absolutely NOTHING to do with this thread or the poster you called stupid for not reading. You don't call that splitting hairs?
So the article begins about music sales, and then turns to Amazon, Books, the Kindle, and Apple's ridiculous iPad. Can you idiots write an article that remains on topic with the headline? Books have nothing to do with music sales. Perhaps the reason why sales are down is because most new music released sucks. No one wants to spend money on CRAP!
Go suck on an ice cube you miserable old git
With variable pricing, every track is a buying decision - is it worth $xx? Oh, they're charging me more for this one.
I unconsciously have been buying less because each buying decision acts as a little speed bump on the way to the BUY button.
No matter how many times they repeat this statement, I can never understand. If anyone does, could you please enlighten me? How is it possible that the model will help them make more money "on every digital sale" but not lead to greater profits?
More money per sale = more profits. If not, that means the higher prices hurt demand, and if that's the case, then it is just a dumb move and they would not do it, as no one would gain from it.
The publishers are looking at a book sale from all channels - hardcover, ebook, paperback, etc. The publishers want to keep the ebook price at about half the hardcover price. They think this balance yields optimal revenue. If not, they want the power to alter that balance. Furthermore, after the book has been in the market for awhile, they want to control when the price decreases; most publishers have said they're willing to take the ebook price down to $5.99. I've not seen anything about ebook pricing after the paperback version is published.
No big surprise. Raise prices, sell less. Lower prices, sell more. Songs are still $0.99 so more customers buy from Amazon. # of songs sold is effectively the same since supply and demand hasn't changed. Only impacts # of songs sold through iTunes.
Factors you ignored:
Amazon is US only
Some people shop on iTunes (due to its convenience) but not Amazon
Amazon also adopted variable pricing (but still have more $0.99 songs than iTunes), so some songs are $1.29 on both iTunes and Amazon
Conclusions changed:
# of songs sold is not effectively the same
Does not only impact # of songs sold through iTunes
Is it also really the music labels setting the prices for each track and not Apple. Kinda weird don't you think? Most shops set their own prices to ya know complete! And if its the music labels choosing that higher price, why is Amazon 20p cheaper on every track? They have an even more varied pricing but are always cheaper.
I sense a little bit of the usual Apple Marketing in the air. Blame the guy the public don't deal with and they'll all be on your side.