Ebooks and their price

Shortly after The Helios Conspiracy was published, I started receiving emails and other correspondence from readers complaining that the price of the ebook version was too high. They compared it to the hardcover, saying that the price was similar, but the cost to produce them wasn’t.

Actually, putting a book into hardcover doesn’t add as much to the cost as you’d think. It depends on the book, of course, but the general figure that’s thrown around is that a hardcover book costs $3.50 per unit, from printing to shipping. Most of the cost of any version of a book comes from the publisher’s overhead – the editors and others that are necessary to make books books. (Authors get about ten percent of the cover price, depending on whether it’s a hard cover or soft cover, how many have sold already, etc.)

But this isn’t about defending publishers and price points.

I don’t control the cost of most of my books, including Helios. I have no say about what the publisher charges on that book or any of them. Nor can I argue with their pricing or costs – it does cost quite a bit to run a publishing company.

But I did take to heart the complaints. And I am trying to do something about them.

Starting this week, I’ve lowered the price on the few ebooks that I do control. You can get two of early techno-thrillers, Brother’s Keeper and Havana Strike for $2.99 at Amazon.com. Both books are set in the 1990s, at the very end of the Cold War, and deal with themes that I think are still of interest today.

I appreciate feedback and support from my readers. I also understand that it’s thanks to you that I can put food on the table.

Hopefully, together we can continue to make that happen.