Publisher Price Watch

Publisher Price Watch periodically selects 20 popular books from each of the Big Five publishers and analyzes their prices on five formats sold at retail and to libraries. Read more about the methodology here.

2025 Summary

Since the first posting of Publisher Price Watch prices in May 2022:

  • HarperCollins library eBook prices have increased at an annualized rate of 12.9% per year

  • Macmillan library eAudio prices have increased at an annualized rate of 12.5% per year

  • The annualized rate of increase for all five publishers is 1.9% for library eBooks and 3.6% for library eAudiobooks.

  • By contrast, retail prices on print and eBooks remained flat and retail prices on eAudiobooks fell at an annualized rate of 4%.

Print at retail (Amazon)

Despite publishing industry complaints about the rising cost of materials, print prices on popular books have fallen at an annualized rate of 0.6% in the last three years.

Print sale prices are set by the distributor, not by the publisher so it is worth looking at the print list price, which is the "MSRP" the publisher sets. List prices on popular books have increased at an annualized rate of 1.3% in the last three years. The price that distributors pay is usually 50% of the list price, so this means that Amazon is paying more for these books, but keeping the sale price around $16.50, making less margin than they did three years ago.

eBooks at retail (Amazon)

Publishers, not distributors, set the prices on eBooks and eAudiobooks at retail, so Kindle prices show us that publishers are fairly set on a price around $14. The annualized price increase in the last three years is only 0.3%

eBooks for libraries (OverDrive)

The annualized price of an library eBook has increased 1.9% per year, which might not seem like much unless you compare it to the price increase on a Kindle eBook at 0.3%. Prices on library eBooks have increased more than 6 times more per year than their retail counterparts.

HarperCollins is the most aggressive of the publishers with annualized increases of 12.9% on their 26-checkout license. Hachette’s prices on their 24-month model have increased at 3% while the other three have remained relatively flat. We discuss here some library data suggesting that when prices increase, publishers may simply be cannibalizing their own authors.

The cost of a library eBook as a multiple of both the cost of a print book and a Kindle book continues to creep up.

eAudio at retail (Audible)

Publishers dropped retail eAudio prices dramatically between our price checks in May 2022 and December 2023. They averaged a 22.5% price decrease at that time. As of May 2025, prices have bounced back up somewhat, but the annualized cost of eAudio titles has still fallen an average of 4% per year in the last three years.

eAudio for libraries (OverDrive)

In contrast to the pricing on eAudio at retail, eAudio prices in libraries have increased at an annualized rate of 3.6%. Since library eAudio titles already cost libraries over three times more than prices charged at retail, the 3.6% increase will have generated significant revenue for the Big Five.

Macmillan has raised its eAudio prices at an annualized rate of 12.5% in the last three years. with Hachette and HarperCollins following. Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster prices have remained relatively flat.