Francis Hamit reports something rather odd is happening with The Shenandoah Spy e-book at Amazon Kindle: “Last night I reset the list price at $5.99 and they are still offering it at 99 cents and touting it at five dollars off. Well, we don’t control retail price, they do, but according to their own TOS they will owe me 70% OF $5.99 FOR EVERY COPY SOLD! So buy it while you can, please!”
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Amazon fixed this, once I called it to their attention. Now that the bargain sale is over sales of this e-book have screeched to a halt. Perhaps the additional exposure will eventually lead to more sales because the book has gotten additional five star reviews, but, for those of us on the publishing end, it has become all about how much we make, not how much we sell. Seriously, the additional promotional costs drowned the margins from the extra copies sold and created a net loss. So, in the future, expect to pay a higher price for e-books of that length. If all you want is cheap books, then you are going to miss a lot of good reading.
This is a business, not a hobby and we cannot afford to subsidize your desire to own a cool toy. Creators have to be able to make a living.