Interesting new way to figure price at Amazon

As I was checking out one of my paperback books at Amazon today, I noticed the above pricing information for the Kindle edition of one of my titles. The book is available in e-book and print format.

The end result, I believe, is Amazon's way of highlighting the fact that the customer is saving almost $7.00 by purchasing the e-book, rather than the paperback book. As well as noting that if the customer has a Prime membership, they can borrow the book for free.

It was a bit surprising only because the list price is $2.99, so saving almost $7.00 made me stop and do the math for a second.

This is new. I haven't seen this form of reporting a savings before. I find it a bit misleading. At first glance it appears that the customer is saving almost $7.00 on the e-book price, which is not accurate.

Maybe I just never noticed it before. Hmm...

thothguard51 said:

This has been around for a while now.

The seven dollars saved is based on Amazons stated maximum price of $9.99. Of course many of the books are never priced at $9.99 originally so this is no more than a gimmick in my opinion.

You only save $7 if the book was originally priced at $9.99...

Click to expand...

After reading your post again and reviewing the screen shot, I see that they are using the list price of the print book, not a stated maximum price. E-books can be listed at any price; however, the 70% royalty only comes from selling an e-book between $2.99 and $9.99.