Yes. For a children's book, $49.95 is a lot. I am not going to pretend otherwise, and if anybody tells you fifty dollars is nothing for a picture book they are selling you something.
So let me do the arithmetic out loud, and you can decide.
What it would cost separately
If these were six products in six boxes, priced the way such things are usually priced:
- A hardback illustrated storybook, twenty-six stories, six painted pages each. Twenty to twenty-five dollars.
- A real fifty-four card deck with original artwork on every face. Twelve to fifteen.
- Twenty-six original songs. Even at album prices, ten.
- Twenty-six karaoke videos. Usually a subscription.
- A 168-page colouring book. Eight to twelve.
- Twenty-six browser games. Usually free with adverts, or a monthly fee without.
That is comfortably over sixty dollars if you bought the objects, and the songs and games are the sort of thing that normally arrives with a subscription attached, which is worse than expensive because it never stops.
The honest counter-argument
Here it is, put as well as I can put it against myself.
You could buy three good picture books for the same money, from three different authors, and get three different voices. That is a real argument and I am not going to knock it down. If your child reads a book a night and gets through them fast, three books may serve you better than one system.
The set is for a different situation: a household that wants one thing that lasts a school year, works at two different ages at once, and does not need topping up every fortnight.
What I did not do to the price
I did not put the colouring book behind a separate payment, though I was advised to. It unlocks with a word in the storybook and costs nothing more.
I did not put the games behind a sign-up. No email, no account, no advert. A child can open one on a borrowed phone.
I did not make the songs a subscription. Twenty-six songs, yours, forever, and when Volume Two comes it will not be an upgrade fee.
Every one of those decisions cost me money. I mention them not to be admired but because they are the actual answer to "why is it fifty dollars" (it is fifty dollars once instead of nine dollars a month for two years, which is the shape most of these things take now).
The part I would want to know
$49.95 is the launch price against a regular $59.95. The launch price ends, and when it does I will write it here rather than quietly changing a number on a page.
And if it is still too much
Then take the free part and lose nothing. Twenty-six colouring posters, one per letter, no charge. Same animals, same alphabet. If they end up on your fridge and your child asks for more, you will know whether the rest is worth it to you, and if they do not, you have spent nothing finding out.
That is a better way to decide than reading me arguing with myself.
The ecosystem is here, $49.95, shipping now.
Tomorrow, something more cheerful: ten things to do with the card deck that are not Go Fish.