'Your books ain't junk, don't treat 'em as such'

Rae-Ann Teague, she of the almost impossibly curvy body and big hair, brought a pitcher of sweet iced tea to the small balcony and set it down carefully.
"It's sun tea," she said as she poured two glasses. "You don't boil the water to make it, you just put your tea bags in the pitcher and set it outside to let the sun do the work."
I tasted it.
Good.
Really good.
"I think sun tea has a more subtle flavor than tea you make from the kettle," Rae-Ann said. "That's why, even though it takes longer to make, I think it's worth the effort."
I agreed.
"So, about effort..." she said.
Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes.
I'd accepted her invitation to come to Nashville's Rolling Mill Hill neighborhood to see her new three-bedroom apartment knowing that, at some point, she was going to harangue me about something. Rae-Ann is sugar and spice: A proper Southern Belle with a master's degree in some esoteric branch of finance and accounting, she has a very sharp mind. In my mystery "Murder in the Rainy Season," she manages the business affairs of Nashville's hottest songwriter.
"What about effort?" I asked.
She leaned forward slightly.
"Just this," she said. "You spent pretty near two years workin' on 'Murder in the Rainy Season' and yet you're sellin' it for 99 cents."
She leaned back and frowned.
"What in the hell is the matter with you?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"Nothing that I know of," I said a little defensively. "It's a marketing thing. People who buy eBooks seem to think that they shouldn't pay full price for them the way they would for a paperback or a hardback. I don't know why that is, but I do know that it's a fact."
I sipped some more tea.
"Besides," I said, "I think my books should be affordable. A lot of my readers are older; they're on fixed incomes. They can't afford to spend a lot of money on books. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to buy them."
She looked to the north, gazing at Nashville's downtown skyline for a few minutes.
"Authors," she muttered and shook her head. "Y'all are gonna be the death of me, I swear."
She drank some iced tea then set her glass down.
"You writers, y'all don't have any real idea about business or marketing, do you?" she asked.
I didn't answer.
It was a rhetorical question.
Besides, for most of us, it's true.
"Affordability is one thing but short-changin' yourself is another," Rae-Ann said. "You put a lot of work into 'Murder in the Rainy Season' and all your other books. You should be chargin' a reasonable price for them, not tryin' to unload them in some kind of literary fire sale."
"But..." I said.
"But nothin'," she said, interrupting me.
"Let's look at it this way: You dropped the prices of all seven of your books to 99 cents in February. Right?"
I nodded.
"Be honest now; have your sales gone up appreciably since then?" she asked.
I shook my head. In point of fact they had remained pretty steady despite the lower price.
She smiled.
"That's what I'm tryin' to tell you," she said. "Can you just get it through that thick Yankee skull of yours that lower prices don't guarantee higher sales figures when it comes to books?"
"But the discount stores..." I said.
She waved a hand at me impatiently.
"Look, people shop for things like microwave ovens and lawn mowers with an eye toward price because it makes a certain amount of sense to do that. I mean, why buy a chain saw for $140 when you can go to some discount place and get it for $80?" she asked.
"But books, that's a whole other thing," she said.
"How so?" I asked.
"Well, for one thing they don't cost $140 apiece," she said. "You're talking about the difference between 99 cents and, maybe $5 or even $10 at most. The savings are minimal in that instance."
"Well, a penny saved..." I said.
"Is a penny earned," she said. "But we're talkin' about pennies here, not handfuls of dollars. If you think readers aren't gonna buy your books because they cost $4.99 instead of 99 cents then you're just foolin' yourself."
She stood up and walked to the railing, leaned against it and jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
"Your books have a whole lotta 5-star and 4-star reviews so readers seem to think they're not bad, maybe even pretty good," she said.
"And when you read those reviews you see that readers also think you have somethin' to say," she added.
"What I'm sayin' is that you shouldn't be giving them away because, truth to tell, when you do you're kinda tellin' potential readers that they ain't worth nothin' more'n spit," she said.
"Well..." I said then stopped. I hadn't really thought about that.
"Look," Rae-Ann said, "when it comes to sellin' books you can't go around treatin' 'em like refrigerators or cars or things like that. Books are different. People don't buy them for the same reasons that they buy a new stove. They buy them to be entertained, to be enlightened, to take a walk with the author into a whole new place."
She sighed.
"You gotta think of books as somethin' people buy because they want to, not because they need to have a place to keep their beer cold or somethin' aimed at keepin' their food hot. When it comes to sellin' books the rules for sellin' t.v. sets don't apply," she said.
"Besides, the world is full of people who want somethin' for nothin' and because they do they wind up with a bunch of junk. Your books ain't junk so don't treat 'em as such."
I wasn't convinced but I had to admit that she'd started me thinking.
"Okay," I said. "How about this? I'll keep my books at 99 cents until mid-May. If my sales go up in a big way, I'll stay at 99 cents. If they don't, well, I'll raise the prices on them to something reasonable."
Rae-Ann smiled.
"You're on," she said. "But you gotta promise that you'll let me set the prices. I'll make 'em fair."
I nodded.
"Can we go get something to eat now?" I asked. "I've been dying for some good barbecue."
Rae-Ann laughed.
"Just like a man," she said and walked into her apartment.
"I know just the place," she said as I followed her inside.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E06JTHA