Since 2012 I have read books on an Amazon Kindle and, except in unique situations, have stuck to the electronic medium. Often, there is some friction between me and my "book purist" friends who are dead set on the idea of only reading from physical books. While some arguments such as "it does not feel the same" is very valid, for my use case, the benefits of Kindle books outweigh any cons. Portability and accessibility are two meaningful reasons to use a Kindle, but cost savings is why I am dead set on using my Kindle to read books. By utilizing a rigid method of tracking Kindle book prices, I spend, on average, just $4.69 on a book, less than a cup of Starbucks, even on New York Times bestsellers.
The Numbers
Here is a table of my 2020 Kindle Book purchased so far, along with the hardcover/softcover book's present cost via Prime (whichever is cheaper).
A few notes on the methodology here: I took the total price I paid with tax included, but I did not have the tax for the physical book, which swings the numbers in favor of physical books slightly.
In total, I spent $252.74 on books so far this year, but I saved $526.57. With forty-seven books on the list, which means I spent, on average, $5.38 on each book. If I had not splurged on books over $10, this number would easily be just $4.69.
| Date | Book | Kindle Cost | Physical Book Price | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1 | Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World | $3.19 | $16.00 | $12.81 |
| Jan 18 | The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats | $15.50 | $17.99 | $2.49 |
| Jan 19 | Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis | $5.32 | $17.87 | $12.55 |
| Feb 2 | Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood | $4.25 | $12.49 | $8.24 |
| Mar 9 | The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency | $6.39 | $13.79 | $7.40 |
| Apr 6 | George F. Kennan: An American Life | $9.59 | $24.48 | $14.89 |
| Apr 11 | The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries | $5.99 | $12.30 | $6.31 |
| Apr 11 | Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 | $2.99 | $15.99 | $13.00 |
| Apr 16 | Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | $4.99 | $13.42 | $8.43 |
| Apr 16 | Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow | $4.99 | $17.49 | $12.50 |
| Apr 25 | The Conservative Sensibility | $5.32 | $19.99 | $14.67 |
| Apr 27 | The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush | $2.39 | $9.39 | $7.00 |
| Apr 28 | The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force | $5.32 | $10.28 | $4.96 |
| May 1 | The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined | $2.13 | $21.87 | $19.74 |
| May 1 | The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present | $3.19 | $12.99 | $9.80 |
| May 4 | Hitler: A Global Biography | $5.33 | $27.94 | $22.61 |
| May 4 | The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age | $6.40 | $17.00 | $10.59 |
| May 4 | The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy | $7.13 | $12.18 | $5.05 |
| May 8 | Slanted: How an Asian American Troublemaker Took on the Supreme Court | $8.52 | $14.71 | $6.19 |
| May 9 | Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President | $2.12 | $10.59 | $8.47 |
| May 18 | Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War | $3.20 | $13.69 | $10.49 |
| May 18 | 21 Lessons for the 21st Century | $3.20 | $14.99 | $11.79 |
| May 25 | Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution** | $14.99 | $15.20 | $0.21 |
| May 20 | The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America | $2.71 | 17.29 | $14.58 |
| Jun 1 | Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage | $5.32 | $10.89 | $5.57 |
| Jun 5 | The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy | $5.32 | $20.33 | $15.01 |
| Jun 11 | Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas | $14.04 | $15.79 | $1.75 |
| Jun 29 | Dawn of the Code War: America's Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat | $4.25 | $18.99 | $14.74 |
| July 4 | The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History | $2.12 | $16.89 | $14.77 |
| Jul 12 | These Truths: A History of the United States | $8.90 | $13.79 | $4.89 |
| Jul 14 | In the Dark of War: A CIA Officer’s Inside Account of the U.S. Evacuation from Libya** | $10.65 | $20.49 | $9.84 |
| Jul 19 | Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War | $5.32 | $15.69 | $10.37 |
| Jul 19 | The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation | $5.32 | $17.39 | $12.07 |
| Jul 20 | The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal | $6.39 | $16.34 | $9.95 |
| Jul 24 | Churchill: Walking with Destiny | $2.12 | $21.99 | $19.87 |
| Jul 25 | 1776 | $4.25 | $11.80 | $7.55 |
| Jul 26 | Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century | $5.32 | $16.56 | $11.24 |
| Jul 27 | The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare | $4.24 | $18.69 | $14.45 |
| Sept 1 | Capitalism in America: An Economic History of the United States | $2.12 | $37.00 | $34.88 |
| Sept 1 | The Master and Margarita | $3.20 | $15.99 | $12.79 |
| Sept 3 | Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept | $10.65 | $18.29 | $7.64 |
| Sept 20 | Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World | $3.19 | $15.60 | $12.41 |
| Sept 21 | John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit | $3.19 | $9.99 | $6.80 |
| Sept 27 | The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power | $4.25 | $15.37 | $11.12 |
| Sept 28 | To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth | $3.19 | $15.19 | $12.00 |
| Sept 30 | Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War | $2.12 | $16.81 | $14.69 |
| Oct 1 | Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital | $2.12 | $19.51 | 17.39 |
*I needed this book for a project, so I did not have time to track the price and wait for a drop
**After hearing a few interviews with the author in podcasts, I decided to support him by providing him a pre-order to help boost his ranking in the store
Background
This strategy came to me accidentally in 2018 when I added The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam to my Amazon wish list. When I looked at my wish list a few days later, I was surprised to find the New York Times bestseller for under $5. There was a temptation to purchase the book, but in my mind, this was an error that would be corrected promptly and potentially lead to my Amazon account being penalized for exploiting this glitch. I watched the price remain unchanged in the coming weeks, but before I mustered the courage to "exploit" this price drop, it reverted to costing above $10. Peculiar.
This fascinated me, so I continued to visit my Amazon wish list daily and started to notice other New York Times bestsellers were dipping below $5 for their Kindle editions. It became apparent this was some sort of marketing strategy, so I started buying up titles that I had wanted to read but did not want to shell out the premium price to acquire.
The Strategy
Whenever I find a book I want to read, I put the Kindle version on my book wish list and patiently wait for it to come on sale. Done. It is just that simple.
How often do you need to read that book now? In my two years of using this method, there have only been a handful of instances where I decided the pros outweighed the cons, and I pulled the trigger on a book over $10. Fear of missing out can be a powerful motivator, but if you are honest with yourself, you start to realize reasons to splurge are far and few between.
The beauty of using an Amazon wish list to track my books is the "Bottom Line Up Front" perspective it takes to display the price. I start every morning opening my book wish list. I skim the top to bottom, hunting for the elusive bold text: "Priced dropped x% (was $xx.xx when added to List)." Most times, the price drops are only for one or two dollars, reflecting that the book was not as "hot" when it was first published.
Set a number in your head for what you feel comfortable paying for a particular book. Remember, the lower the price you are willing the pay, the longer you may have to wait. Setting a target allows you to focus on an objective and prevents you from making any impulse buys when the price drops, but not by much. I have often set the price I am willing to spend at $4.99, only to purchase the book and find it for $2.99 a few months later. Oh well. You will not always win this "game," but that does not mean you should try.
This is a lengthy process, and there is no way for me to sugar coat it. The best advice I can give you today is to start your Amazon Wish List with Amazon Kindle books you may read. Keep a low threshold for what books you put into the wish list - you cannot predict how your interests change in the time needed for this process. There have been many times when I started tracking a book's price, and when it hits the magical $1.99 mark, I realize I do not even want to spend that much on it.
I must also be fully transparent - I do not read every book that I purchase. Sometimes, I simply do not have the time to read or my interest is not as great as I first believed it to be. That is fine. I love buying a Kindle book for $1.99 because of the lack of dread I feel when not touching a book I purchased. In the past, many trips to Barnes and Noble led me to spend $70 on books that sit dusty on my shelf to this very day. Compared to that degree of loss, $1.99 here or there is nothing. The opportunity cost is just too great sometimes not to take up a Kindle Book offer. The Wages of Destruction is a book I have no plans on opening in the next year, but purchasing a critically claimed book about the economic logic of Germany in World War II for $5.32 is just too tempting not to take up.
Paying less for a book also gives me less regret when I put the book down after realizing how much I despise it. We were all taught to read the back of the book and the first chapter before deciding on a book, but that may not always lead to a good outcome. Sapiens is a book I felt highly engaged in when I purchased it. Still, the idea of getting past page 242, where I have been stuck on for over six months, is not something I wish to do. In the past, I may have felt forced to consume the book like cough syrup when I was younger, gagging, and feeling resentment, but no regret is had walking away from my $4.99 mistake.
Why This Works
This is all speculation, but publishers may reduce their Kindle books' prices to boost the book's popularity and sales. Sapiens has sold over one million copies since the English version was released in 2012. No matter how popular a book is with the one million is sold, there is still a more significant market of people who have not read it. By peddling a book for a fraction of the price, it can create an incentive for people to purchase a book they had been on the fence about before. As the copies fly digitally to Kindles across the world, so does its visibility on the Amazon marketplace, generating free advertising to a degree. With no tangible cost to manufacture a physical book, then ship it to a store, the overhead costs may be negligible, enabling this to be a viable strategy for the publisher. This is also why I keep a vigilant eye on my wish list - a book that is 90% off right now will likely be the full price in a matter of hours.
Downsides
A lot of this blog post has been focused on saving money and convincing you from spending any excess on Kindle Books, but I do not think this is for everyone. This method works well for me with a small budget for books and a lack of need for most readers. If you are not constrained financially, or you need a book for your research, this method will not be a good fit.
There are also no guarantees that a book you want will be discounted. I have had Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy on my wish list since 2016, and the price has yet to dip below $10. I do not feel as though I am "denying" myself the opportunity to read this book as I have countless other books I would prefer to read. Purchasing a book for me is a pure economic act between cost versus benefit with constrained financial resources. I could buy Diplomacy for the full $15, but I can find a book for $5 I would much instead read.
While you can find amazing deals on secondhand books, the benefits are outweighed by the cons in my use case. My experience with used books has been mixed, to say the least. Many times, I have purchased a book for class used on Amazon. The issues begin, waiting for the seller to send the book, which takes over a week. Receiving the book, you can then find yourself disappointed that "Used-Good" had an entirely different meaning to them. Notes, stains, and odors are part of the secondhand market, which drives me away from this avenue. You can visit a bookstore and par-ooze their used books, but the inability to know in most cases what is in stock detracts from this option. The beauty in ebooks is that they will also be "new" to me and free of these defects.
Conclusion
By just creating a book list through Amazon and checking in daily, you can save hundreds on books annually. Sitting and waiting may not be the best solution for everyone, but if you are on a budget and not in a rush to get an eBook, it is the best way to get the most bang-for-your-buck.