Ninety-nine cent full-length book. eBook readers, have you come across one of these before? Have you bought one? Have you read one?
The price of these books is the root of many conversations on self-published forums. Should they? Shouldn’t they? Will it help to increase sales? And if it does, will the sizable drop in revenue make it worth lowering the price of the book to .99.
So those are the thoughts of authors attempting to get your attention by making their book attractive enough for you to try. But as a reader, can you be lured into buying an ebook at this price point? Would you buy a book by an unknown author–unpublished on the most part–for the price of .99? Or are you one of those readers who would give that book a gimlet eye in the belief that anything selling that cheap can’t possibly be good? What would move you to purchase a .99 book?
**You may select up to 2 answers
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I’ll gladly buy a .99 book if it’s on special from a reputable publisher, but I won’t buy a self-pubbed one unless I have inside information that the author paid for professional editing, and it’s getting good reviews and recommendations from trusted sources. I won’t even download free books if they’re self-pubbed. Life’s too short to spend time reading rough copy when there are so many books already in my TBR pile…
I’ve bought my fair share of $.99 books for my Kindle — some have been good, some not so good. But for $.99 I don’t worry too much about it. Just like the free reads that are offered up, with the $.99 books I’ve found a couple authors that I really like and have gone back to purchase other titles by the same author. But just because the book is cheap doesn’t mean they should skimp on oh, editing and proof reading!
I have purchased 99cent books. Quite happy to discover a new author that way.
I haven’t had an ebook reading for very long, but I would (and have.) Generally it’s a book I’ve heard something about or that’s momentarily on sale, but I would also buy something just because it sounded really good if it were only $.99.
I don’t read ebooks but yes, I certainly would buy one if it were only 99¢ and it sounded interesting. Why wouldn’t someone? I’d buy them if they were $3 too. That’s still half of what a new print mass market paperback would cost.
I recently bought a couple of 99 cent ebooks by unknown authors, just because of the price. I liked them and plan to read future books by both authors.
I don’t have an ereader either but I would have no problem trying out a new author and especially at that price.
Oh yes I have bought books for 99 cents and really enjoyed them. I liked them and will buy then again. Sometime you run into some really good books this way and new authors.
I’ve purchased several at $.99. I don’t balk at $2.99 either but any more than that it has to be an author whose books I like or has received great reviews.
I would gladly buy a book for the price of .99. I have never came across one yet, but would epecially buy it if the book sounded interesting and had great reviews.
When I see a book for $0.99 that sounds good from the blurb, the first thing I do is download a sample. If I like the sample and don’t see numerous editing errors, I will probably go ahead and purchase the book. After all, for $0.99, I’m not out much if I end up not liking it. I read 20-30 books a month so cheaper books have been a definite boon for my budget and occasionally I come across a really good book or author that makes it worth wading through the not-so-good ones.
It would be a maybe for me since just because book is .99 doesn’t mean I will like it.
I’m kind of gun shy of the 0.99 books, really any self published book because usually the quality of the book isn’t even worth that (at least in my opinion). I’m a bigger fan of a short story free read that ties into a series, then having the full length novels for up to 3.99…but, and this is important the free short story should be stellar…a great example of what the full length books will be like. So I guess I kind of agree with JenM who likes to download samples before buying…I guess I consider the short story free reads like a sample of the author’s work and base my buying on that…not necessarily on price alone…and it must appear to be professional.
I’m new to the Kindle and something I love is the sample download. I don’t care how much the books costs. I sample before I buy and if I like it enough to read more I don’t care about the cost (within reason). If it bores me I won’t buy it even if it’s .99.
Yes, i do want to buy the book ! nothing to lose if buy a book with that price 🙂
“I’d buy that for a dollar!” Remember that line from RoboCop? Well, yes, I’d buy an e-book for 99-cents even if it was a debut author….as long as there is some description about the book itself. Tell me why I should buy this book.
The other day, I got a link to a slew of free kindle books at Amazon. Of course I checked it out and while browsing through the books, I clicked on a title that sounded interesting but there was nothing from author/publisher, whatever giving a summary of the story. There where 2 reviews both at 1 star. The 2 people who had the book said it wasn’t any good and even though it was free, it wasn’t a bargain because the story sucked. If they had known that in advance, they wouldn’t have wasted their time. So, anyone who is considering self-publishing….go for it, but when listing the book, post a summary please! I won’t take a chance on something I know nothing about….even if it is free….same goes for the 99-center!
The least expensive ebook I’ve seen is for $2.99. I love to read new authors so if the story sounded interesting I would the definately buy if it was a genre I enjoy reading. I wouldn’t buy it if it wasn’t something that sounded interesting to me. I don’t think that the price is necessarily an indication of the skill of a writer but instead would just be an inducemnt to try an author you might not have been exposed to before and the low price point might be inducemnt needed to get you to give them a try!
I’ve actually boughten several cheapo books for my ereader, and most of the time its a cute story, but cute or not, they almost always seem to be lacking depth that I am used to in my books.