[HamsterRage]

This is one of the strange phenomena of the Internet world. It used to be that the publishers and the book stores set the price of the books. Now authors themselves get to say how much they want.

So expect some strange things, because people that have a big part of themselves invested in something are likely to over-value it and at least some quantity of those people aren't going to have the detachment to try to be reasonable.

Personally, I see samples as putting ebooks on an even footing with pbooks. In a bookstore I can flip through and get a feel for how the writer's style works and whether or not I can get into it. Usually I can make a fairly accurate call within a few seconds and just a couple of paragraphs. I'm not particularly methodical about it, but I think I usually flip to some dialogue to see how natural it feels, and then look for a couple of more descriptive paragraphs to make sure that stuff isn't too boring and whether the "voice" of the narrative appeals to me.

Sometimes I can tell if I'll like an author within a few words. Roger Zelazny was like that for me, I was hooked before I'd finished the first paragraph of "Guns of Avalon". On the other hand, the first 4 words of "The Da Vinci Code" was all I needed to know it wasn't going to be a literary masterpiece (but I persevered because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about).

The idea that a sample might be big enough that a reader would become hooked from reading the sample alone, and therefore willing to pay more to see how the book comes out is interesting. But it seems to me a tactic that's more likely to be successful if the writing is outstanding and the story especially compelling - qualities that by themselves would make the book worth a premium price even without the big sample gimmick.