Huffington Post…. Thanks?
I don’t think the Huffington Post will either see this or care but I’m voicing my grievances anyway. I was scrolling through a writers’ group and saw a post titled “Why 99-Cent e-Books Are a Bad Deal — For Authors” ( http://www.huffingtonpost.
The article was quite insightful and it was interesting that a topic such as this made it on the news. I hadn’t considered that it was such an issue. To me, an author’s price was an author’s business.
Then the article ended with this “Or put another way, if authors don’t value their work, will readers?”
A stronger kick in the proverbial nuts I’ve never sustained.
Wow.
An author pricing their work low means the author doesn’t value it?
The article talks from a very author-positive perspective. What it didn’t show was a reader’s point of view. Let’s be honest: there are a lot of bad books out there. Not only bad books but just…BOOKS. There are SO many books. So many that it’s inconceivable that they are either A. all good, or B. all read in our lifetime.
With that in mind, some authors price low so in an effort to lower the burden and risk put on the reader. Beyond that, reading books can be a very costly pleasure. Some authors consider this as well. And there are the vast majority who simply do not write for the money. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to make money. It just means that it’s not their main focus when they toil over a manuscript for months–years–decades and then publish.
So I’d like to give the Huffington Post some free advice: just because it’s inexpensive doesn’t mean it’s without value.
- An author pricing their books low doesn’t mean they have no value. Making that book took a lot blood, sweat, and tears.
- The hard work (near slave labor) put into making the inexpensive clothes and shoes we wear, that has value.
- And the inexpensive food we eat? Just because we don’t spend a lot on it, doesn’t devalue the workers who make, package, and serve it. It has value.
Saying an author pricing their own work at lower price means it has no value, is the same as saying a woman who has an active dating life is a slut (without value).
An author’s price is up to the author and it would be nice not to have such judgement passed in such a cavalier fashion. It’s no one’s business but the author’s.
There is absolutely no danger to high-priced authors. If a fan likes an author, they WILL pay any price to get that book.
I’m not good with mature responses but I’ll take a stab at it now–go to hell.