Amazon appears to have slashed the prices of its books, thanks to an Overstock.com promo in which it priced all of its books at least 10 per cent below Amazon. The aggressive pricing strategy has been enough to see Bezos and co cut the prices of hardcover book by between 50 per cent and 65 per cent compared to the usual cover price.
Those kinds of discounts have never been seen on Amazon before; typically, it knocks around 40 to 50 per cent off as a maximum.
Those discounts actually mean it’s now cheaper to buy the new hardcover than it is to buy the equivalent ebook in many cases. As an example, the hardcover of Dan Brown’s Inferno, which is supposed to retail at $US30, costs $US11.65 on Amazon right now — or $US12.99 on Kindle. Fortunately, though, there are other authors available in the fire sale. [GigaOm]