Book prices

It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

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Every writer eventually arrives at a momentous decision: how to price their books. I buy lots of books, both digital and paper, new and used, so I have an opinion on book prices.

I have a Kindle reader, so I do most of my book shopping on Amazon. I have to admit that I never buy any new-to-me author’s books in paper format. They are often too expensive. Below is my book-buying policy, expressed as a bullet list.

I’m not familiar with the author, but I want to read their book (because someone recommended it, for instance). First, I try to find it at the library. If our library doesn’t carry the title or the author, I would try a kindle book. Usually, especially if they are self-published, they come cheap: from $0.99 to about $8. Even if I don’t like the book, I’m not out a great deal of money.I know and like the author. When they publish a new book, I again first check the library. If the library doesn’t have it, I would buy it as an ebook first, for almost any price. Most of them are still not too expensive: usually below $10. If I like it exceptionally well and re-read it at least once, I might splurge on the paper book.One of my favorite authors published a new book. I know her other books. I’ve read them all and re-read them occasionally. In this case, I go straight to Amazon and buy the paper book (if available).

But there are unwelcome exceptions. One of them is the author Liz Williams. Someone recommended her novel Comet Weather to me, and I liked the description. I’ve never read her before and wanted to try her first. Unfortunately, she is not in our library system. The Amazon prices on her books, both digital and paper, are ridiculous. At least they are in Canada. I think $17 for a kindle book is excessive, especially when I’m not sure I want it. So, no Liz Williams for me, at least for now, and there are other writers like that. Don’t they want to attract new readers? Pricing their digital books too high is not the way to achieve that goal.  

On the other hand, Mary Lancaster is another new-to-me writer. I discovered her only last year. Her historical romance books are priced reasonably low. The first book of a series is always less than $2. The others go up a bit – from $3 to $6. And guess what: I regularly buy her books. I’ve completed several of her series by now, and I’m going to read more of her. She is a prolific writer, and her stories make me happy. But I don’t think I’ll re-read any of her books, so I’m not going to buy any of them in paper format.

I do want to buy paper books by some other writers, but sometimes, they make it hard. For example, I love T. Kingfisher’s PALADIN series. I own all the books in the series in e-format and I’ve re-read them all. But when I logged in to Amazon to check her paper book prices, I was disappointed. She wants about $40 for each book. I guess I’ll keep to the kindle for now.

What about you? Do you buy ebooks priced over $10? What if you don’t know the author’s other works? How do you price your own books/ebooks?