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I believe it is a writer's job to use every word that is needed to tell the story, and not one word more or one word less. Some stories and genres work better long than short, others work better short. I don't want to pay a penny for wasted words.
When it comes to book pricing I don't necessarily think a longer book is worth more, but I do think a much shorter book is worth less. Let me explain:
A novel is anywhere from 60,000 words on up - with most modern novels running between 80-100,000 words. Some novels that double as doorstops can run up to 250,000 words, but if you get too much longer it becomes difficult to bind.
I figure any novel above about 70,000 words is worth $6-9 in paperback. However, something like a Star Trek Corps of Engineers book which is really a novella of around 20,000 words is worth less.
So long as you make what I consider "entry-level" for a novel my only concern about price is absolute, not based on cost per-page. I don't care if a novel is 250-300 pages or 600-800 pages, it's a novel and it's worth $6-9 or so in paperback. The question here is whether the story looks interesting enough to hold me from page one to page last. However, if the book's only 100-150 pages then I do start considering price more.
It's really hard to write a good novel that's that short-- you can write a good novella, but I read too fast to want to spend much money on novellas.
There's my take.
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