Who sells the cheapest ebooks? [Updated]
[Updated 23 November 2012]
To find out how the main ebook retailers compare we looked at how much it would cost to buy the 20 bestselling print titles, based on data from Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market for the year up to 17 November 2012.
We carried out a similar exercise in 2011 and wanted to see if there has been any major change and the results are interesting. We found that book prices across both print and ebooks have dropped in the last year and while the cheapest ebook retailer was still Amazon’s Kindle store, most ebooks are – with a few striking exceptions – quite similarly priced.
If you can’t use the Kindle store (for example you may have one of the many reader’s that supports ePub like the Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-350), it’s perhaps worth shopping around if only to avoid some rather major pitfalls. We found the Guinness World Records 2013 ebook for £6.23 at three ebook stores, while it was more than twice the price at Foyles – costing £15.
WHSmith has made big reductions in its prices, dropping its average price from £6.27 to £4.53 making it only 2p more than Amazon’s store. This also makes it the cheapest ePub ebook store available, although it’s still worth shopping around as some books are still more expensive than in other stores.
You can also get free ebooks, read our guide to how and where you can download free ebooks.
Ebooks vs. paper books
We also looked at the average print price, including high street and online sales, for the same top bestselling 20 books. The gap has narrowed since we last carried out our price check. The average print price was £7.18 in November 2011, £2.18 more than the average price on the Amazon Kindle store. The average print price now, in November 2012, is £6.34 – £1.83 more than the average Kindle price.
Missing ebooks
All of the ebook stores we looked at this time round had missing ebooks. Two of the top 20 bestsellers (Jamie’s 15-minute meals and The Ugly Truth: Diary of a Wimpy Kid) aren’t available in ebook format and Google’s ebook store was missing 7 of the top 20.
Verdict
Amazon’s Kindle store was the overall winner in our price research, but competitors are close behind, and with book prices in general dropping there seems to be less variation between stores. WHSmith also deserves an honourable mention for bringing its prices down and offering an ePub store that can match Amazon’s prices.
See also…
- Read full Which? reviews of over 30 ebook readers
- How easy is it to break a Kindle? – find out in our video
- Find out which ebook reader with a light is best
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JL
It is worth reminding readers that VAT is payable on ebooks but not on paper books. However, even so the price of ebooks can be ridiculous. This is especially the case when you find that a book, that is no longer in copyright and might be donloaded free, is priced at £4.
Ben Stevens
This is a matter that personally bugs me. From what I gather, HMRC is looking into amending this, but I’ll do a little more digging around.
Peter Lawley
A question regarding the capabilities of e-readers – if, for example, I were to buy a book about a musician, say Edward Elgar, is the e-reader and / or e-book capable of playing me music clips to illustrate the text as I read ? I would have thought such a facility would be extremely interesting and helpful.
Andy Vandervell
You can do this on iBooks on the iPad I believe, but not E Ink based readers at present. Most support audio playback, but not from within books. You’re right, though, it would be a neat feature.
zanderwed
I started as a small ebook publisher in 2000, and have suffered as pioneers do. But now we get a decent income from our ebooks without taking up garage space, or being vulnerable to bookshop bankruptcy (Border Books died owing me £2k). Our authors get better royalties on their ebooks too. We still love real books at Fledgling Press, but it’s not difficult to make the ebooks available at half price, a win-win-win bargain in tough times.
John Smith
My grandaughter nis getting a Kindle for Christmas,Can I physically buy a book or a token to be used on the kindle
Andy Vandervell
Unfortunately not. All books must be bought online via Amazon.co.uk, though you may be able to use vouchers to make purchases online.
SDS
Amazon vouchers can be used to purchase any Amazon items including ebooks for the Kindle
Ken Keeton
Very impressed after seeing a friends kindle and started research on which ebook reader to buy. Didn’t realize that could download ereader software and ebooks onto my PDA(Dell X51v) which has an excellent screen. Page turning works slightly different, either touch screen to page up/down or set to autoscroll Text size and scroll speed are user set. Originally only intended as an introduction to ebooks but now can’t see the need for a dedicated reader.
Alan
http://luzme.com is an American which searches USA, UK and Canada for the cheapest prices for ebooks.
Rachel
Just for the record, Luzme is based in the UK, rather than being American.
It currently targets all the major English-speaking countries (UK, USA, Canada, Australia and India). In 2013, I’ll be expanding it into the major non-English-language European countries.
Derek Wilson
I now have an iPad, and have downloaded free books from a number of sites, and then used the Kindle app (free), which works fine. Project Gutenberg was one of the first sites to have a large stock of free ebooks, and there are several other sites.
My local library will also start lending ebooks from next week. I will have to use a different reader as there is a problem for libraries with kindle, but there are pleny of other free readers. I won’t buy many ebooks until the price comes down considerably!
Brenda Smith
Can I buy and download audio books on a Kindle? If so do I need the more expensive Kindle? Where can I buy ebooks for a Sony ereader and can I buy audio books for a Sony ereader? Can the Kobo Vox ereader do the same as a Kindle?
gw0wtt
what i do not like about electronic books is that you do not actually own them,,,,so you cannot pass them on or do what you want with them……all you have is a licence to read them…..very expensive way reading,
jim
For readers of science fiction and fanasty you can’t beat Baen Ebooks for price and range, their ebooks come in a large range of formats to suit most ereaders. the prices are amazing and range of titles and authors is huge,their Free Library is great.
Joan Stanaway
HI
I have the Sony ereader PRS 505 but the battery became past it’s best. I therefore puchased a new one but my putting it in, I unfortunately broke the ereader. I now understand that I cannot transfer books from my 505 to a new reader ie the Kindle but can I transfer them from my computer to a new Sony reader?
Tim Gee
Hi,
You should be able to transfer them from your computer to a Sony ebook reader fairly easily, but it’s worth checking what format they are stored in. They are likely to be ePub ebooks, and if this is the case you will be able to transfer them to most ebook readers such as the Nook, Kobo and Sony’s models – just not Amazon’s Kindle readers.