I don’t get it. It’s outrageous what traditional publishers charge for ebooks. I would never pay $14 or $15 for one. For a certain book I bought, the ebook cost was $11 but a used book cost $2. Even with shipping, it didn’t cost as much as the ebook. Granted the book is as heavy as a doorstop so I can’t take it on trips and can’t easily get the definition of words. I would have rather had the ebook. But still. We indie authors are in a trap. We believe no one will pay even $10.00 for our ebooks so we price them accordingly. We pay big sums of money for advertising our giveaways let me repeat that–we pay for advertising to give away our craft for free. We have $0.99 sales to spur readers to buy our babies. But traditional publishers and best selling authors are balking at $9.99 for an ebook? They claim that although it appears that there is no cost to produce an ebook there are costs, such as editing, cover design, advertising. Do these publishers think the public is stupid? Those costs are sunk costs. There is a hardcover and a soft cover version of which an ebook is an easy conversion copy. I make my paperbacks into ebooks by myself quickly and easily. Anyone can do it. I think Amazon is right to start this fight. I wish Bezos would also say that no ebook can be sold for less than that. I’m not pleased to sell my books at such low prices but if I sell, say, 100 million copies, I would be okay with the royalties from that. And I will never give away a book again. My first novel was placed with KDP Select at first and I had 2000 downloads. No platform created, no rush of reviews. My second book had much less in my giveaway but then I picked up a nasty troll who didn’t read it and trashed it–but the reader was a verified purchaser. So never, never, never will I give away a novel except on a blog review tour. Even that can be risky when reviewers who are not enamored with the work trash it and get personal about it. Those are the risks of the indie author who doesn’t have 2500 5-star reviews right off the bat that appear for traditionally published works. Ever wonder how that happens?
So even though I’m not a fan of selling my work cheap, I’m about to do it again on Monday for a week. A writer needs to be read and so I do whatever I can to get readers to wander over and maybe buy my book and maybe some of them will really enjoy it and write a good review. It’s happened before and one can only hope.
