Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
You could.
But the big publishers' revenue expectations don't match readers' assessment of value.
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That can certainly be the case. For some books such as Musashi, which I recently bought I'd gladly pay €15. It's a 1200+ page book, and a classic inside and outside Japan. I got it for €5.99 (Kobo discount coupon), and I think that's tremendous value.
On the other hand, the "normal" price for a Forgotten Realms fantasy novel is also €5.99, and I wouldn't pay that amount for it, except for a rare few such. Many of those books are only 250 pages long (some are even shorter), and it's just "production writing". Nothing special, but fun to read. They're a bit like the "romance novels of fantasy"; there ar a gazillion of them, and apart from a few gems here and there, they're one-off reads.
They're almost written faster than I can read them. €6 is just too much for books like these. I think €3.50-4.50 is much better/fairer price.
I always get them at Amazon.com (€4.85), Feedbooks (€4.45), or if they'll sell them to me, Diesel (many are US only there, for some strange reason, but if I can buy them, they cost $4.39, or €3.23). Amazon.co.uk sells them for £3.05 / €3.65, but I can't get them there. Amazon seems to be very keen to prevent "country-hopping".
I'd never, ever read them through any subscription service, where they'd at least cost around €5 or so, *without* me owning the book.