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Celine Keating's avatar

Excellent article as always, Brooke. It got me thinking how publishers of technical and text books seem to have no fear of raising prices, but I guess that's possible because students have no choice but to buy what they must for class.

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Lenny Cavallaro's avatar

I agree with you to some extent about the prices on paperback and hardcover, although the argument would be stronger if we had some hard data. For example, how much do sales actually diminish for each added dollar of list price?

As for digital books, I am less convinced, in part because I had the reciprocal problem as an author working through a digital publisher. I edited and revised an unfinished novel by my late mother, and an early (digital-only) version enjoyed remarkable success during a promotional weekend in late 2012. Under Amazon’s broad category of “Music/Biographies” (which included historical fiction as well), Charlie Brown’s book on Wiz Khalifa finished #3, and Andrew Morris’ volume on Justin Bieber took the #2 slot. Topping the list was this Paganini novel! How often does a 19th century classical violinist finish ahead of a rap artist and a pop icon?

One might have assumed things would get better from there, but while the book had sold consistently in the $2.99 to $4.99 range, the publisher got greedy and hiked the price up to $9.99. Sales virtually screeched to a halt, eventually necessitating a “buy out.” Suffice it to say that we had a rather unpleasant parting of the ways.

*Paganini Agitato* has recently been released by Fomite Press in both digital and paperback formats. With fresh revisions and new scenes interpolated, the new title lists at $4.99 on Kindle, and I am perfectly happy to see it priced there (and reduced for promotionals as the publisher sees fit).

That said, I agree that Amazon should not slash royalties above $9.99. Moreover, I remain perplexed when I see authors list their e-books at $11.99, at which lofty price they give up a large number of sales to garner ten cents more than they would at $4.99.

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