ON MY SOAP BOX ... IN FAVOR OF ARTISTIC VALUE ... I have a problem with consumers who advocate setting any particular (cheap or free) price for e-books simply because they are purchased electronically. Are they automatically less quality than others that are priced a few dollars more? For those who spout claims such as: I would never pay more than $2.99 for an e-book. Whats your basis for making that statement? Do you know: how months or years the author worked to write it? what his/her cost of cover art was? if he/she paid for actual copyright registry? how much he/she paid for editor(s)? formatting? marketing? So, assuming $2.99 would be the highest rate paid for a book, it would have to be by a well-known NY Times Best Seller. If thats true, then it stands to reason that 99 cents would be fair market for an e-book that was highly promoted on Facebook by a first-time author who didnt think editing was necessary. A two dollar variable. Really? Thats as bad as a previous argument that ran the gamut online claiming that number of pages contained in a book should be an important criteria for pricing it. Personally, I value a piece of writing because of the quality contained in the work. I base that opinion on reviews, book excerpts, recommendations from friends, and samples provided on Amazon. Its the same principle for my in-store purchases at Barnes & Noble. From my recent experience, the only people who think books (or other artistic goods, including art and music) should be cheap or free are those who dont value them for what they are. Those same people likely think its more important to have bragging rights about purchasing an item cheap, than to own a quality item and not worry about competing for who paid less. Has the Walmart mentality tainted our view of all purchases? Is paying less better every time for every item strictly based on the premise that you saved money? In my opinion, the value of an e-book should be dictated by a lot of variables - definitely not a random number tossed out by a consumer who wants to purchase quality for cheap. Good authors shouldnt have to devalue their work by pricing it to meet the expectations of narrow-minded individuals who lump e-books into one big pile of electronic freebies.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 01:12:59 +0000
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