Photo by Pesky Library and used here with Creative Commons license.
On last week’s list, seven titles with price tags higher than $10 contributed to pushing the average price of a best-selling e-book up to $7.74. That figure now jumps to $8.39, as more than a third of this week’s top 25 titles cost more than $10.
Three of the nine titles in that category are making first appearances on the best-seller list, among them Lena Dunham’s “Not That Kind of Girl,” debuting at $10.99. It remains to be seen what kind of staying power these titles might have, but in recent weeks pricier e-books have performed noticeably well.
On the other hand, Penelope Ward’s self-published “Stepbrother Dearest,” which debuted last week at No. 2, remains squarely within the top five and costs readers just $3.99.
Amazon has made cheaper e-books a centerpiece of its battle with Hachette, and even though the dispute is at least as much about profit margins as it is about pricing, those trends are something e-book publishers and retailers are keeping a close eye on.
E-book best-sellers from the week ending 10/11:
- “Gone Girl: A Novel,” Gillian Flynn, Penguin Random House, $6.38
- “The Heroes of Olympus (The Blood of Olympus Book 5),” Rick Riordan, Hachette, $8.99
- “The Best of Me,” Nicholas Sparks, Hachette, $5.99
- “Stepbrother Dearest,” Penelope Ward, self-published, $3.99
- “Deadline (Virgil Flowers Book 8),” John Sanford, Penguin Random House, $11.99
- “Burn (Michael Bennett Book 7),” James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, Hachette, $9.99
- “Outlander: A Novel,” Diana Gabaldon, Penguin Random House, $4.99
- “Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General,” Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, Macmillan, $9.99
- “The Maze Runner,” James Dashner, Penguin Random House, $5.72
- “Gray Mountain: A Novel,” John Grisham, Penguin Random House, $11.99
See the complete list of this week’s top 25 e-book bestsellers at Digital Book World.
Rich Bellis writes for Digital Book World, where this article originally appeared.