Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
I think that one of the issues here is that the content is typically unknown until you download it, so it's difficult to value.
One idea to get a fairer price for the author would be this:
- set the price at $X
- allow download of a significant first chunk for free
- as part of that download, let the customer know that if they read that, and like it, they can have the whole book for whatever they think fair
- set the price to <what the customer will pay> (for that customer only)
Of course, people could cheat - hoarders who just want to gather books would still pay 0 - but readers would, I'm guessing, follow the rules of the game as intended. They would either decide against the book and stay away, or come back with a different view of fair value. My guess is that most of them would pay $X because you've already set that guide price.
Just a martketing idea, but it would be interesting to try it out if someone has a book that they would be putting up at <what the customer will pay> in any case.
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Well, Smashwords does have a preview function, which the author can set to whatever they like (15%, 50%, whatever). Of course, that doesn't really work with a sliding scale price, because you can just read the whole thing for free. It would be interesting to try setting a price range, say $0.99 to $4.99, then people would actually use the preview function.
I also posted a comment to ask them to put up information on downloads. It is almost certain that letting the user set their own price increases downloads, but I would like to know by how much (and if 85% of them are for free, whether the number of people who actually pay increases at all).
Also, now that I think of it, it would be interesting to see if any of the people who get the book for free later come back and buy it, to give some money back to the author. Hmmm...
