[neilmarr]

Thanks, Sue. I see your point.

But, I think you'll find that when a sample is offered by a pro house (no insult intended to our excellent independent authors who often have a little more flexibility when it comes to quick re-pricing), a cover price has already been set for paperback and ebook versions.

This has certainly been the case with my own small house over the past decade. We've published about 150 exclusive novels in paper and covering digital and, on average, I guess free samples have been offered at about fifty on line distribution points per title -- maybe many more. So that's at least 7,500 different places where you can download anything between a chapter or two or as much as 30% of a book. We also offer samples and other details in our own website's book store section (link below).

If you like what you see in a partial, I'm happy that it means you're willing to pay a little more for the full book than you might if you were to buy blind. But -- certainy in our case -- the price of an ebook ($5.99, any title, any format) is pre-established. Usually it represents about a third of paperback price, which is individually calculated on page count and print cost.

If anything, Sue, I think we'd reduce cover price according to high demand garnered from satisfied samplers rather than increase it because folks are excited by what they've seen and are willing to pay. Some costs, you see, are static and the more sales that are made, the more basic overheads can be spread out on a per-item basis.

This is why most publishing houses structure author royalties, for instance, according to certain fixed sales levels. Royalty tends to increase as sales rise and initial investment in professional time and money is covered and/or can be more thinly spread. The same principle could (but seldom does) apply to cover price.

Thanks for such a bright post. Best wishes. Neil