What Is An E-Book Worth?

Jan. 19, 2011 - PRLog -- With a trade paperback or hard cover book, prices are relative to what you feel in your hands. Simple logic in this regard is that the heavier the book, the more expensive it is. So everyone has been pretty happy with this formula for centuries and have happily shelled out far more for a 500 page hard cover book than a 140 page ‘airport express’ paperback.

With an e-book though, this formula goes straight out the window. An e-book is an e-book is an e-book. So no matter what the quantity of words, is there a perceived price ceiling for a book that is in fact only a small data file? My guess is that the upper price limit is around $6.00. Or in e-book speak, $5.99. At the other end of the e-book price scale is the newly invented book price. Absolutely free.

In doing a little research, I came across something I hadn’t really considered before. Comparing the estimated word count of e-books with their price. What I found was that this has no relevance to the price whatsoever. Short fiction novels of around 35,000 words were priced about the same as those of 100,000 or more words.

So do authors now need to write very short e-books and very long real books? Or perhaps cut a long book into three or four volumes for e-book distribution and call it a trilogy.

Logical?

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Derek Haines is an author of fiction, historical fiction, essays and poetry. Born in Australia, but now living in Switzerland, his stories cross a wide geographical range but often draw from his life and experiences in the two countries he calls home.