The problem is that the BPHs are relying on their top X authors to make all their profits, and if their sales are a bit low, the BPHs seem to think that raising the prices will make up for it. It's true that authors are not entirely fungible, someone who only reads Nora Roberts is probably not going to switch to James Patterson, or Stephen King, or vice-versa, but if a reader's books are priced out of the reader's price range, they'll just wait for the price to drop or buy used. I already have a lifetime's worth of a TBR list, (well, everyone does if they're willing to read a lot of free PD ebooks), so I'm very often willing to wait for a sale on authors I like. Thank goodness for all the ebook sales emails and forums like this.
|