Quote:
Originally Posted by DixieGal
If most of my books are free, then why blink at paying $10 for when I buy one? Frankly, the constant complaining about the price of ebooks is becoming boring. The solution is simple: Don't buy it if you can't afford it.
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DixieGal, I think it doesn't matter whether most of my ebooks are free. I'll still blink at a $10 price from an unknown, self-published author. Granted that sampling can sometimes tell me whether a book is even worth 99 cents, but I have found that I cannot devote my life to reading samples and for unknown authors, I will blink at even $5.
It is not a question of whether I can afford it. My book-buying budget runs close to $5,000 every year, sometimes more. I recently paid $350 for a 2-volume bookset. But I am careful about my spending. eBooks make it much too easy to spend a lot of money on dreck. I think in the ebook era, authors are obligated to demonstrate and prove that they are worth $5. In the pre-ebook era, we often relied on the gatekeepers to establish an author's credentials; now gatekeeping has disappeared.
I think it is erroneous to assume that those of us who complain about pricing are complaining because we cannot afford to buy. It is as likely that we are complaining because of the lack of gatekeeping and the ability to be easily ripped off in ebookville.