The
pricing of books is a vexed and complicated subject - emotions meets economics
head on with often bruising results.
There are variables on all sides of this equation.
From the author’s side: Is the book being published by
the author or by a traditional publisher? If the latter then the author has no
say in the pricing. If the author is self-publishing, are they depending on the
income to pay their bills? Are they trying to build an audience? Are they
simply wanting to be read and don’t need, or perhaps care about, the money at
all?
From the reader’s side: Is the cost of a single book a
significant burden on their finances? Do they read so many books that it is the
cumulative cost that weighs heavy on their bank balance?
Are they borrowing free from a library?
Are they sufficiently well off that they don’t care
about the price at all? Are they sufficiently well off but still care
because they convince themselves they’re being scammed by rich
authors/publishers and hate being taken advantage of?
As I said, many moving parts. It’s also a minefield
when it comes to discussing it as there are writers and readers of all stripes
lined up to take offence at essentially every suggestion. For each writer who
thinks 99 cent books are a race to the bottom where Amazon take 70% of that 99
cents and the reader stacks it on their kindle where it will often never be
read … there are writers who think that’s an elitist position and consider the
free or almost free book their only route to an audience.
Both sides can be correct. Selling books involves
diving into an ugly feeding frenzy and doing whatever you can think of to stay
afloat. The great majority will make very little money, tens of dollars if they’re
lucky. On a vanishingly small pinnacle will be a handful of authors making
millions.
I’m on the foothills, making a living but short of buying a five-million-dollar private jet by almost five million dollars.
The prices of my traditionally published books vary wildly and often jarringly. I would not have it so, but it's not my call. When the price of a $10 ebook plummets to $0.99, not only do I feel $0.99 is too little for most (not all … NOT ALL) readers to value it, I also feel that it could be seen as a slap in the face for the readers who paid the higher price – readers to whom I am eternally grateful.
So that’s why, once I’ve set a price that feels
reasonable to me for my short stories or short story collections – a price where
I feel that I have a hope of generating an income that justifies the weeks
spent on them – I leave it there. It’s an entirely personal decision, not a
slight on anyone else’s choice. If Returns was worth $3.50 yesterday then it’s
worth $3.50 tomorrow. I cut myself off from using the price as a marketing tool
– but similarly, readers know that someone else won’t be getting a better deal tomorrow
and that there’s no point sitting on it.
I do, of course, reserve the right to change my mind.
But it’s been 14 years and I’ve never once lowered (or raised) the price of any book/story
whose price I control. Similarly, I’ve never set the price to be more than I
feel necessary to justify investing the time on short fiction when I could be
writing books.
