Why is "Living History" 40% off at Amazon?

First of all, I am a little bit torqued. Hillary was signing her book in KC today and I missed it. The TV news last night said nothing about it, and someone was hogging the paper at the library.
So I went to Amazon.com to find out who publishes it, so maybe I can drive 200 miles and catch her at her next stop. The publisher might have information on her tour schedule.

Amazon did not tell me the publisher's name, but I did notice that they are selling it at 40% off. Why? If you ask, why not? I had my own bookstore for seven years, and my wholesale price was generally 40% off from Ingram books. If I ordered 5 copies I got 41% off, and for ten copies I got 42% off. A case was supposed to be 48% off, but I never ordered that many copies of anything. I also bought direct from Random House for 44% off. Doubtless Amazon gets better deals than I did, but there is not alot of profit at 40% off - they are almost wholesaling it.

It is like they are deliberately cutting the price in order to boost sales, or do they do that for all of their best sellers?

They make up the difference in the shipping charges.

Of course, even when you add the shipping charge, it's often less than a bricks-and-mortar store would charge, especially if you buy several items at a time.

The real story is that her book is still being sold, discounted or not. Coulter's book is being given away, bought in bulk, anything you can think of that doesn't involve people who are actually interested in reading the sucker.

spend $25 or more...and you get free shipping.

If you look at their top 100, it appears that 30-40% is their standard discount on bestsellers. I'm sure they get huge discounts, so they probably make a profit where others would lose money.

In the top 25, there is at least one title that is discounted more than 40%.

BAMM.com, where I usually buy books. By the way, you can usually get free shipping on most of these sites; someone said they jack you on the shipping costs, but I haven't paid for shipping on books in two years or so, and I've bought more than I can count.

it says right on the site that any order over $25 gets free shipping.

When they don't need to man a retail outlet, everything's infinitely less expensive. They pass some of it on to the buyer.

It's not unlike the many bargains you find on eBay and elsewhere on the web. If they can eliminate the sales and retail expense, they save big time.

the last three books I bought from them were only 20% off, which is the same retail price I charged on my new books. I think it is kinda strange that they would sell a best-seller for less considering that it is a book many people are going to buy anyway.

Hell, even at Waldenbooks, new releases are 35% off for members.

Edited for stupid typo.

The Right will use that as incontrovertable evidence that nobody wants to buy Hillary's book and the sellers are desperate to get rid of them! ;)

The independent booksellers sued them...it ended in a tie. The discount for HUGE purchases appears to be near 48%. Costco for instance was selling Harry Potter books for less than our bookstore could buy them from the distributor OR the publisher and we were buying box loads of Harry Potter.

Amazon used to offer 40% off every thing on the NYTimes best seller list. Now it's 40% off most books on the list.

according to channel 9