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Originally Posted by EcanusPublishing
Historically the price of an e-book has been far lower than the equivalent printed version. Some would say rightly so, but the quality and competition has increased dramatically, the expectations of readers who are purchasing e-books are increasing.
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While many readers would be happy to pay more for higher-quality ebooks, the fact is
we can't--there is no way to know "this book has a plausible and interesting story, which was edited, proofred, and well-formatted as an ebook" before purchase.
Small/indie publishers don't talk about their editing skills. Mainstream publishers, who are better at it (or maybe they just refuse submissions that need extensive editing, except for late in a popular series), don't talk about their proofing and formatting. Buyers have no way of knowing the quality of a book before purchase--so there's no reason to spend more.
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Does the price have the greatest impact on why you decide to buy an e-book or is it the overall specifics of a book ie the cover, the blurb, the reviews? Would you view an e-book with a low book price as being of low quality?
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I have a strict $6 cap for fiction ebooks. (When inflation pushes Baen's prices up, I'll reconsider that.) Within that range ($0-6), I have discovered quality is entirely random; other than knowing an author or, sometimes, having developed trust in a publisher, I can't tell whether the story will be "good enough."
I haven't decided on a specific cap for short stories, but one of my reasons for avoiding DRM is that I can't tell if a $5 book is 80,000 words or 8,000. Sites that use DRM don't list word counts; they list filesize, as if that were an indicator of how much "book" is involved.
I try to ignore the cover, other than noting that if it's got a cover designed for print that doesn't reduce well, I'm probably not the target audience for the book. (I don't read novels in print anymore.) Since, unlike a paper book, I probably won't ever see the cover after I start reading, I don't care what it looks like; it's just an indication of how much resources the publisher is putting towards marketing. That said, a *good* cover can get me to click on the book's info page, and I'm much more likely to buy it.
Typos or grammar mistakes in the blurb = Do Not Buy. If the publisher can't be bothered to make a one-paragraph advertisement read smoothly, I don't trust their editorial process. If they can't write an intriguing blurb--which, admittedly, has nothing to do with story quality--I can't tell whether the book would appeal to me. I'll buy books by authors I know and like without reading the blurb; when I'm browsing, the blurb is competing with thousands of other possible purchases--including some by authors I know and like.
Having been burned by a couple of bad choices, I'm unwilling to waste money and reading time on books that haven't fully caught my interest. My "give it a try, maybe I'll like it" approach is limited to freebies--and not too many of those. I have plenty to read; authors and publishers who want money from me will need to find a way to convince me I will enjoy reading their works more than my existing TBR list.
Darren
Ecanus Publishing[/QUOTE]