I received an email from an indie author whose book I reviewed, questioning a remark I made about the book's fairly high (for an indie book) sticker price. She was curious, polite, and wanted further feedback. She explained that she had based the book's price on what she felt a book in a store would go for, because she figured that since Smashwords let her offer a substantial portion of it for free sampling, the reader could decide: either they would get partway through it and not buy it at all, or they would be enjoying it enough to want to finish, in which case, why not charge the higher price at that point and let them decide for themselves?
I admit, I had not thought of this argument before. It had not occurred to me that the availability of a sample should have an impact on the price of the book. Before I write back to her, I would love to get some further feedback. I am not interested in debating other factors that may go into pricing a book here
But I would like to know specifically about this sample issue. Should the availability of a sample have any bearing at all on the price a book is offered for?