Wouldn't
you know, just as soon as I decide not to obsess about things like
sales and reviews, and only check in once a
month to record my downloads, Amazon does something unexpected, unexplained,
and unannounced. On March 9th it stopped discounting one of my books, The Bright Black
Sea so I discovered it listed at its full $3.99 price instead of free.
Unlike
Smashwords and the ebook stores it distributes to, I'm unable to list a
book on Amazon priced at "Free". It must be $.99 or more.
Amazon can, at its discretion, discount the price of a book
to match prices with other ebook stores, something they have very kindly done for all my books, once I call this to their attention. (At least in the US – world wide they
sell them at list price. Except when they don't. A Summer in
Amber is free on Amazon UK, though the other two books are not. I
have no idea how this all works.)
I don't know why they decided to stop price matching The Bright
Black Sea. My preferred price is free, for many reasons,
including my desire, as a new writer to reach a larger readership. But it is their right. They are in the business of selling books.
The
question now is what should I do? I could contact Amazon again and
point out that they're being undersold? Should I reduce my price
back to $.99, and see what they do next? Or I should let things ride for a
while and see what happens? Well, letting sleeping dogs lie is one of
my guiding principles, so I'm just going to leave
things as they are for now. When I see authors selling 50
page novellas for $4 or $5, I don't feel bad selling a 800+ page
novel for $3.99.
It is unfortunate that some people may end up paying for a book (even at a bargain price) that they could download for free elsewhere. However, I promise that all my royalties from The Bright Black Sea will go into a mason jar. When it's
full enough, I'll use that money to hire a professional proofreader.
There's over $10 in it right now. However, since the proofreading bill for
The Bright Black Sea would run between $6,500 and $9,800, it may take a while.
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