Book Pricing

Where to begin? I’m from the old generation.  The generation before self-publishing began to lead the way in book content and pricing.  I also consider myself slower to adapt than my fellow Plotmonkeys, but I’m there now.  Better late than never.  This means that I’m working in two worlds.  I’m publishing my Serendipity novels with Berkley and my backlist on my own as eBooks, and I’m halfway through a story I began writing “just for me.”  If I’m happy with the end result, I plan to put this story up too.  This brings me to pricing.

Back before this self publishing era, we had one price – the mass market and the eBook price – were the same.  Of course, this didn’t make sense to many people who felt it shouldn’t cost the publisher the same amount of money to print an eBook, hence the price should be less.  This didn’t take into account overhead.  As eBook sales rose and mass market sales grew flat, publishers still had the same overhead – heat/AC/electric, rent, salaries, promotion, co-op, etc.  Publishers felt and many still feel perfectly justified charging the same $7.99 for a mass market as the eBook. 

Bring on the self publishing revolution/evolution.  Authors put up their own books from as little as .99.  Heck, some are put up free.  Amazon KDP changed the game.  And now some publishers are recognizing that in order to find new readers, they need to change their pricing plan.  I’ve seen it.  You’ve seen it.  A book comes out in 7.99 mass market and you can buy it for less in eBook.  But there are some publishers who insist on sticking to the same price across the board. 

So I’m asking readers – how important is price to you when trying a new author? A tried and true author, I’m hoping you’ll spend the money because you know what you’re getting.  But if a reader who has never read Carly Phillips can only get her for 7.99 – will they try? Or will they say, I can get two books for that price on Amazon?

Just food for thought.  And I’d like your opinion!