A third of bestsellers pried higher e-books than as hardbacks

In a survey of bestselling fiction and non-fiction on Amazon, e-books were priced higher than the same title in hardback in more than a third of cases, despite the cost savings of digital distribution, The Telegraph reports.

JK Rowling's new novel, The Casual Vacancy, costs £11.99 as an e-book, while the hardcover version is available for £9 due to an Amazon discount of £11 on the original list price.

The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, a book which accompanies the ITV series, is sold for £12.99 for Kindle but the hardback version costs £2 less after an Amazon discount of £10.

Tom Tivnan, from industry expert The Bookseller, said: “A price of £2-£3 off the average selling price, including discounts, would be a fair price that the public would be more willing to pay for e-books,” said . “If you can get The Casual Vacancy for £10 in hardback, publishers should try to price the e-book around £7-£8.”

Amazon revealed in August that it was selling 114 e-books to every 100 printed books in the UK. Although e-book sales figures have surpassed those for printed books for several years in the US, digital books have only recently begun to outsell the traditional variety in the UK.