The Digital Book World E-Book Best-Seller list tracks e-book sales ranking and price data across six major e-book retailers with the goal of providing the most accurate picture of which e-books are most often purchased by consumers and at what price point. The full methodology is available here.
If you’re a reader looking at bestseller lists for your next good book, what should you expect to pay for what you eventually decide on buying?
Lately, the answer is “about $6.00.” Taking a look at the e-book bestseller list week after week, the $3.00 to $8.00 price range has become extremely dominant. In this week’s top 10 bestsellers, only one is outside of that range — and it’s priced below $3.00.
The quality and variety of titles at this price range is perhaps unprecedented in publishing — except perhaps for library patrons who are happy not reading the current front-list hits.
Only two titles in the top 25 on the list this week are priced above $10.00; but there is only one title priced below $3.00.
As a result the average price of a bestselling e-book this week is $6.64, up slightly from $6.39 last week.
While the average price of a bestselling e-book has fluctuated greatly throughout the fall, the past several weeks demonstrate that retailers and publishers are no longer afraid to discount even the most popular, most recent titles as deeply as possible.
E-book best-sellers from the week ending 11/17:
1. “Sycamore Row”, John Grisham, Penguin Random House, $6.59
2. “The Book Thief”, Markus Zusak, Penguin Random House, $2.90
3. “Allegiant”, Veronica Roth, HarperCollins, $6.99
4. “Divergent”, Veronica Roth, HarperCollins, $3.99
5. “The Goldfinch”, Donna Tartt, Hachette, $7.64
6. “Dark Witch: Book One of the Cousins O’Dwyer Triology”, Nora Roberts, Penguin Random House, $4.79
7. “Ender’s Game: 1 (The Ender Quintet)”, Orson Scott Card, Macmillan, $3.99
8. “The Husband’s Secret”, Liane Moriarty, Penguin Random House, $5.99
9. “Silent Echo”, J.R. Rain, Amazon, $4.99
10. “The Longest Ride”, Nicholas Sparks, Hachette, $6.62
See the complete list of this week’s top 25 ebook bestsellers at Digital Book World.
Jeremy Greenfield is responsible for managing all editorial content on DigitalBookWorld.com, including the DBW Expert Publishing Blog, the Digital Book Wire and editorial email and social media communications. Prior to joining Digital Book World in October 2011, Jeremy spent three years as a careers editor at FINS.com. Jeremy lives and works in New York City and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.