What's the price point for an ebook?

When I got my Kindle, I was all atwitter with excitement about the thousands of books I could read for very little money. Then I started shopping. Bestsellers, books from the Big Six publishers, were rarely under $9.99.

Color me appalled.

There is no paper involved in producing an ebook. There is nothing that has to be generated or re-generated. An ebook is an electronic file that is uploaded ONCE to the e-distributor (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, etc), where it is sold over and over AND OVER again.

I might not mind if the author was getting the lion's share, or at least an increasing revenue, of their creation, but (correct me if I'm wrong) I think most authors in the Big Six houses rarely see more than 25% royalty on their ebooks. That's about $2.50 per book. The publisher gets to keep the rest. Why?

According to them, they have to keep the rest in order to keep the lights on, employ their staff, and look for new authors. Really? Perhaps they should find other ways to bankroll their operations, instead of trying to convince authors that being poor is for their own good.

When I published What Would Erma Do, I initially set the ebook price at $2.99. This is my own personal breaking point, so I thought it seemed fair. Within the first month, I dropped it down to 99 cents, for two important reasons:

1. It was a new book from a new author (of that genre), so I wanted to entice a quantity of readers. Who could refuse a book for a dollar?

2. I knew that if I sold enough books, sooner or later it would start to creep up the Amazon rankings and more people could find it. At that point, I could raise the price back up to $2.99.

I did the same thing for Hit or Missus. But now, the more I think about it, the more I think I'll keep my books at 99 cents, at least until the market changes. If the lowest priced book becomes $1.99, I'll probably follow the market. When you're thinking of buying an ebook or  selling one, consider the following: not only is an ebook uploaded once and sold multiple times, it's often not even "sold".

Welcome to DRM, Digital Rights Management, a system for keeping consumers from transferring a song or book or movie from one device to another an infinite number of times. (Yes, I know it's a little more complicated than that, but I only want to focus on one aspect today. Bear with me.) I'm not arguing for or against DRM. It is part of the landscape. I'm just saying that, unless an author has opted out of DRM, when you "purchase" a book, you are only purchasing the right to store it on your Kindle/Nook/whatever.

A year or so ago, there was a big brouhaha at Amazon. It seems there was a question about whether Amazon had the rights to sell George Orwell's books on Kindle. While the matter was being settled, Amazon pulled Orwell's books from their Kindle store and from anyone's Kindle who had purchased one. Yes, read that sentence as many times as you like, it will still mean the same thing. One day I had 1984 on my Kindle and the next day, I didn't have 1984 no more.

Everything got corrected and the books went back to everyone's Kindles and all was well. But you see my point?

Do you want to pay $9.99 to rent a book?

One more thing to think about: technology grows at an astounding pace. How many of your favorite albums have you re-purchased as 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, MP3s? How many of your favorite books will you end up re-purchasing when the next generation reader comes along?

It's just something to consider. Thoughts? Ideas? Jokes?

Man, that torks me off.

I think I've always been a little unique in what attracts me in a man. When I was three or four, I became mesmorized watching Harry Belafonte on TV. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Belafonte was (and probably still is) a gorgeous man. He just wasn't the right 'color' of gorgeousness for my WASP (dare I say racist?) family. I tried to understand what they were talking about, and thought I had the rules, and then Chubby Checkers came along, who was just cute as a button (to me). So I suffered through another round of, "oh, hell no," from Mom.

When the Beatles appeared on the scene, I think I actually heard my mom sigh with relief. They may had have long hair, but at least they were white. But while my girlfriends were swooning over Paul, with George and John coming in at close second/thirds, I was in love with Ringo.

That's right, the weird-looking guy with the goofy sense of humor. Even with white guys, I wasn't attracted to the traditionally cute ones.

The Beatles faded away as I became a preteen and the Monkees flew into my radar. All of my friends had posters of Davey Jones on their walls. But not me. No, I fancied Peter Tork, the one with the goofy personae. (I'm beginning to see a goofy pattern here, but I digress.)

I read today that Peter Tork has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. They first discovered it as a growth on his tongue. According to his website, it's pretty curable, it hasn't spread, but he'll be going through surgery and radiation.

First of all, I can't imagine anything more painful than radiation in your tongue/mouth/throat area. 'Raw', 'burning', 'unable to eat' images come to mind. Second, it sounds like a particularly horrid thing to happen to a singer. I am just so sad about my former crush having to go through this, and wish him a speedy recovery. I'm also amazed that I can feel so intimately affected by someone I don't officially know. We've never met, and if we did, I'd probably channel my inner 13-year old and drift between insane gushing and dorky shyness.

So, my question of the day is, has a famous person's personal crisis ever affected you as if they were a close friend, or even family member? Go ahead and share. I won't tell anyone.

P.S. I wouldn't call my husband weird-looking, and he has a sense of humor, but it's not goofy. You will, however, notice a distinct trend in my attraction to him:

'Nuff said.

So how does a writer who has been raised in a box of 500 words pen a 60,000 word novel?
I actually read, in a writer's online group, a writer who said she had the main points of her novel written, and then she was going to go back and fill in the rest with fluff.
No. No. No. Words are not packing material. Every chapter has to go somewhere, has to mean something. If you are reading this and thinking, why, yes, I'll just put some verbal peanuts around my main points and voila - put down the pen, step away from the Word document, and take up some other hobby.
The smarty pants answer is that I wrote 500 words 120 times. Seriously, for my first novel, I had some scenes in my head, and I wrote aimless words to get me from one vignette to the next. It's not a technique that I'd recommend. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of the Beatles' movie, Magical Mystery Tour. They thought they'd put a bunch of odd characters on a bus and film it - naturally, hilarity would ensue.
Hilarity did not ensue. It may have threatened to sue, I don't know.
For my next novel, I put an outline together. I've read interviews with lots of famous authors who scoff at outlining and still produce works of art. Good for them. I was writing my very first murder mystery and I wanted to make sure I had all of my clues in a row. My outline was not particularly detailed, but I described each chapter and what I wanted to happen.
This doesn't mean that I followed each chapter to the letter. I do have a few "Soupy Sales" moments in my book. For those of you who weren't raised in the Jurassic Era, Soupy Sales was a guy with a kid's show. Every show, there'd be a knock on Soupy's door and you never knew who was on the other side. Sometimes it was a famous person, sometimes it was a film clip of an old cowboy and indian movie, once it was a naked lady (we didn't see her, but you shoulda seen the look on Soupy's face).
So I never planned for Peri to meet the apish man who works for the collection agency, or the mother of the number one suspect in Marnie's murder. But I had started the chapter with Peri in her office, and there's a knock at the door... who's there?
They actually worked in the book, but I would never rely on Soupy moments.
Mostly, I was able to stretch my writing to novel length because I was able to linger on descriptions more than I am able to do in my columns. I could fill the readers' senses with the sights and smells and noises. I could add dialogue and observances that, while not absolutely necessary, fleshed the scene out. Peri and her cohorts could, hopefully, become real people to my readers.
And no, I didn't write it in 500-word chunks.