I read. I read a lot. I read inside and outside my comfort zone. But here’s one thing I’ve noticed a lot lately. Prices.
My paperbacks are shop-priced at £9.99 each. That’s a fairly generous price because it gives suppliers and retailers a comfortable margin, and leaves me with enough from each sale to buy a hot chocolate.
My Kindle eBooks are priced at £1.99 which, again, leaves the platform providers and distributors a healthy whack and almost gives me enough to buy a hot chocolate.
Audiobooks… well, I have no idea how those prices are worked out. The amount that Apple Books, Spotify, Audible and all the rest charge seems to bear no relation to the costs to the consumer which my publisher and I worked out.
But lately I’ve seen paperbacks for sale at RRPs of £14, £15, and even £16. To me, as a consumer of paperbacks, that seems a lot. Similarly, Kindle eBooks have been algorithmically suggested for me with cover prices of £4.99 and even up to £8.99!
I’m only bitching about this from a consumer’s point of view. I consume *a lot* of books. In a typical year I’ll read around a hundred books and that’s not even counting audiobooks.
I don’t understand the logic of asking someone to pay £8.99 for a Kindle or £16 for a paperback. That just seems wrong. I know people have a living to make, but the consumer (which is where I’m firmly putting myself in this piece) has bills to pay and other authors to support.
So expensive books? That’s a no from me. I’ll pass and I’ll give my money to several other folk who are asking much more reasonable fees for their products.
