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I don't think that price excludes contemporary books. I think the issue is that people have a tendency to nominate the "study classics" as well as mystery series. I would like to see more books nominated that are outside these categories. I want to be exposed to "new-to-me" books. I'm glad that gmw nominated the Chiang book because it's exactly what I'm looking for in the nomination process to discover new books. It's something I would not have found on my own and is outside of my usual comfort genres.
The top 5 books ranged from $7.99-11.99. I don't think it's fair to single out the Chiang book for its price.
Hemingway is not public domain for many countries. It's also $9.99 in the US. It looked like the McCullers book was going to win for awhile, and it's $9.99 too. The other book in 4th place was $7.99. The 5th place book was $11.99.
Price does not influence my votes. Availability is a greater factor to me when I vote. I had to put my name on the library wait list for Hemingway because it's so popular. The Chiang and McCullers book are available with no waits.
Truth be told, I voted out of strategy. When I voted it looked like Chiang or McCullers was going to win. I wanted to read the Chiang book the most. I've read the McCullers book, and I intensely didn't want to read it again. That's just my opinion. I do think however that it was a totally worthy nomination. I almost didn't vote for Hemingway because the Literary Club already read his works. Although the literary club only read short stories so it would be nice to read a novel. The deciding factor to get my vote was it could be a hedge in case it came from behind and could overtake McCullers.
While I want to read more contemporary books, I also voted for Frankenstein. Not because it was public domain and free. I voted for it because I haven't read it and thought it would be fun because it's the 200th anniversary and it's getting lots of talk in the news.
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