notes on SOUL OF SORCERY pricing

A few people asked why I set the price for SOUL OF SORCERY at $3.99, since the previous DEMONSOULED books were all $2.99. I thought about the pricing for a while, and decided on $3.99 for three reasons.

-First, SOUL OF SORCERY was a really long book. The final draft weighed in at 134,000 words, and Amazon calculated it at about 530 pages. By contrast, SOUL OF SERPENTS was about 120,000 words, and and SOUL OF DRAGONS about 110,000. SOUL OF SORCERY was long enough that I seriously considered splitting it into two books, but I decided to keep it as one.

-Second, Amazon weighs its algorithms in such a way that higher-priced books get a higher sales rank. So, if a $0.99 book and a $2.99 book sell the same amount of copies, the $2.99 book will get a higher sales rank. And people do look at sales rank when considering whether or not to buy a book. I think psychologists call this “preselection” – if we see someone else is enjoying something, we’re more likely to try it ourselves.

-Finally, I wanted to see what would happen if I did set the price at $3.99. One of the fun things about ebooks is that you can try things that you couldn’t with traditional publishing.

All that said, I do think very strongly that SOUL OF SORCERY is worth your $3.99. I am very grateful to the thousands of people (literally) who have read the DEMONSOULED books, and because of that, I take writing the best story that I can write very seriously.

And $3.99 is still cheaper than a gallon of gas in much of the United States (and certainly all of the UK), and an ebook will last much longer than a gallon of gas. Additionally, you don’t have to worry about an ebook accidentally making your car explode.

-JM