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As a guy who has written a couple traditionally published novels, I'm hopeful about the moment. Back in the day, the cover price of my book was $20 and I got $1.70 after everybody took their cut. I was never that happy to be asking my friends to buy my book at $20, which is maybe not a king's ransom but a bit much to ask of people — especially those who probably don't share my taste in fiction in the first place.
But at $2.99 or $3.99 — most of my friends blow that on a cup of coffee every day. It's cheaper than a beer in a bar. And if they don't want to get even that heavily invested, they can fake it by downloading the sample and reading a few pages of that.
As for little Billy, above, I feel some concern that he won't be able to tech-up sufficiently to have the equipment to download the $2.99 e-novel. But given how far the price has dropped for a Kindle, how long will it be before they give them away in a box of cracker-jacks, just so you can pay for the content? I'm more concerned that in the landslide of available novels, no one will be able to navigate to the things that would truly interest them, if only they knew.
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