I have been virtually grilled relentlessly about epublishing this past week by 2 different people. They want information and I look like a central repository of knowledge. Disclaimer: I know less than some, more than others. It's interesting to me how these people are approaching it--cautious enthusiasm. Is it a gamble or is it a blessing? Both. Everything is both.
What will the Kindle Tab do to the marketplace? What will Christmas bring? We still need that under $100 reader. The No-Frills reader could be free if books were more expensive. How much does a comic book cost? Shouldn't a novel cost as much as a comic book? What's should got to do with it. Readers should respect books more but they don't. Some don't. Some do.
Music. Books. They seem like the same thing but they're not. Music on the internet became something without price. If you can go to youtube and hear just about anything, why pay for it. Just hit replay again and again until you're sick of it and then move on. But musicians, theoretically, like to perform and people will pay to see them perform. No one will pay to see an author read a book. That's dumb, we all know it's dumb. So it seems that the only way to get away from the 99 cent price point is if almost everyone moves away from it. That's not going to happen.
I'd be good with the first month free or 99 cents. And then go up to $1.99. I know that's less than the sweet price at Amazon. But $2.99 when people see prices on everything rise--food, gas, heat, electricity--seems mean. Netflix raised their prices and a million people left and I was one of them. What does the entertainment budget for people look like now? I wonder. The days of people having a couple hundred books in their TBR library may be over.
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