When the government abolished a “reading tax” on ebooks earlier this year, Amazon hailed the move as an important step towards making reading more accessible to a greater number of people.
There is little evidence, though, that its customers are saving money. As part of its economic response to the pandemic, the Treasury fast-tracked plans to remove VAT charged at 20% on ebooks, introducing the tax cut on May 1.
But the average price of the 100 bestselling Amazon Kindle books on April 30 has actually risen, from £2.30 to £3.06, or 33%. Of the 100 titles, 45 titles have increased in price and 33 have stayed the same. Just 22 have dropped.
The price of Blue Moon, last year’s instalment in the successful