Tonight I’m left thinking that my publisher, The Friday Project, is wise and a bit clever.
The decision was made that their eBooks would sell for no more than £2.99, which is substantially less than most standard Amazon eBooks. I like their pricing. And today Mr Pack emailed me to tell me that my eBooks are officially out and that I’m cheap. (I love that I’m cheap!)
In Search of Adam (eBook) is available for £1.05 from Waterstone’s online.
Black Boxes (eBook) is available for £1.05 from Waterstone’s online.
I’m a book girl, I love books, I love the feel and the smell of books, I collect books, I carry at least 2 books around with me wherever I go (otherwise I panic). But clearly I’m behind with these modern times and new fangled devices and I’ve been thinking about this long and hard. The way I see it is…
… People with these new fangled devices are looking for competitively priced reading material. I’m an unknown but my books cost £1.05 each and that really isn’t much money. And with my novels costing so little, people may just take a punt and buy one of them. This will then lift me up Waterstone’s eBook chart and thus raise my profile as a writer and possibly make more people buy one of my books. (See, it really is rather clever.)
Of course I’m asking for your help (again), but if you can spread the word, tell everyone you know in the whole wide world or even possibly (please) spare £1.05 and buy a copy, then I’d really and truly appreciate it (and probably be your best friend forever).
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll spread the word on my lazy Sunday post.
Twitter: @DJKirkbyI am new to e-books. Can you read them on your pc or do you need a proper e-reader device?
Twitter: @juxtabookYou can read them on PCs. You may need to download some software to do that but Waterstone’s and other sites provide the gear I believe. Reading a whole book on a PC is a bit of a pain though, which is why eReaders are becoming so popular.
Twitter: @meandmybigmouthI have not yet explored the e-book route for my own novel, but it has to be on my ‘to do’ list for 2010. One concern I have - and excuse my ignorance - but can someone please tell me how, once an e-book is on someone’s PC, it cannot be freely - and I mean FREELY - emailed to all and sundry? How is it protected?
Twitter: @MiriamWakerlyHmmm, epub format only.
Make sure you can use that before you click people.
And, have you seen the ebook Caroline? Has it retained all the text formatting?
Twitter: @mrkchmbrs@Miriam
most ebooks are DRM protected files - especially those you buy from places such as Waterstones and Amazon. You either need special software or hardware to read the ebook and therefore it is difficult, although not entirely impossible, to freely fling the ebook about as you would if you had bought a paper copy. The software ensures this. You are not just downloading a Word or .pdf image of the book.
Wikipedia is your friend if you want to know more - good terms to look out are:
ebook
DRM (digital rights management), and,
epub
epub is a bit flaky at handling graphics and rigid/fancy text formatting though, which is why I asked Caroline about In search of Adam
Twitter: @mrkchmbrsThe books are available on the Kindle although the Amazon site hasn’t updated the price yet:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Boxes-ebook/dp/B002RI9Q1C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1262862123&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/In-Search-of-Adam-ebook/dp/B002TZ3D08/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1262862123&sr=1-2
Twitter: @meandmybigmouthThis price is cheap in the context of ebooks but sensible overall, I think. The consumer perspective on traditional books isn’t that the majority of the sale price goes towards the process that create the finished book but the material of the book itself; they think they’re buying an object. Charging the same amount for a non-object like an ebook leads to a sense that it’s overpriced in comparison.
Twitter: @ian_hockingHello Lovely Caroline!
What a lovely post! Especially since a lot of ebooks are so expensive! I can’t get over how expensive some of them are (in one instance, the ebook was more than the paperback). I can’t get over how much some publishers are charging for ebooks, something that is supposed to draw more readers in!
Good on TFP for going with a cheaper price. And in this case (having read both your books countless times now) I know that cheaper is not an indication of lower quality. In fact, it makes me want to buy the ebooks so that I can read them on my new ereader…when I get around to buying one. LOL
Woohoo for you!
Jamieson
Twitter: @jamiesonwolfWell done, TFP. Very savvy, in my opinion.
Have purchased a copy of Black Boxes for my shiny new Sony Pocket Reader (which I won-I still can’t quite stomach the cost of eReaders!). Now, I must get used to the digital pages and lack of lovely paper smell…but I can’t wait to read another Caroline story!
You may be cheap Caroline but lovely with it. Fraid I shan’t be buying your e-books tho’ as I have to hold the real thing in my woolly hooves, nothing else will do. Hope it helps your sales tho’ and am waiting with baited breath for new book. Sincerely hope that all goes well for you and family this year.
I like your thinking. I will spread the word. I too like the feel of new books but am getting tempted by the e-reader because I am losing so much space to books.
Twitter: @lilysheehanDJ Kirkby - thank you!
Juxtabook - please see Mr Pack’s response
Mr Pack - thank you!
Miriam Wakerly - please see Mark’s response above
Mark - The formatting has been retained pretty well. The fonts aren’t as varied but you do get the look and feel of the originals.
Mark - thank you!
Reply
Ian Hocking - very sensible, I feel. I’ve had mixed responses on twitter, some may even link price to worth, but for me it’s about getting my name out there and I asked for them to be cheaper than the highest TFP price.
Jamieson Wolf - I hope that when you get your ereader, then you’ll have my books on there
Angie - thanks so much! Yay!
sheepish - oooh, not long to wait now. May 27th!
LilyS - thank you, all spreading of the word is very much welcomed.
xxx