Charging what the market will bear, and then some

I watched Star Trek: Nemesis with my daughter last night. I had sworn never to watch it again because it killed off my favorite character, but my daughter is a completist, and insisted on seeing every last one of the Next Generation movies. So I gritted my teeth and watched it. It wasn't as terrible as I remembered (though it sure wasn't good, either). I'd read in Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek that Wesley Crusher (barely visible on the edges of the screen in the wedding reception scene) had a scene that was cut, so I thought maybe I'd buy the novelization and see if that scene had made it into the novel.

So today, I picked up my Kindle, went to the store, and looked up Star Trek: Nemesis. There it was, marked this price is set by the publisher. And the price set by the publisher for the Kindle edition? $14.99.

Guys. No. Just... no. This is a prime example of how the agency pricing model seems to be a little out of touch with economic reality in some cases. This isn't a current New York Times bestseller; it's a novelization of a rather bad movie from 2002. The paper editions of the book (which included a mass market paperback edition) are all out of print, which should probably be a clear indication to the publisher that no one is all that interested in it. Furthermore, there are some forty used copies available for sale on Amazon starting at one cent. I'm a Next Gen fan, and I do have a vague interest in reading it, but for $14.99? Seriously? Are you kidding me? Thanks, but no thanks.