I’m
not sure how you would define a short story but for me, 67 pages and nearly
18,000 words is not a short story. More
of a novella (according to a publisher definition this will be between
15,000-20,000 words). The book is aimed
at pre-teens and teens, and I’ve been told can be especially enjoyed by
reluctant readers. (I’ve previously had
stories published in collections for reluctant readers, and most of my novels
for teens are around 26,000 words). Other
reviewers have said they read Beware of
the Horse quickly and commented on the length so I have revised the
description to make it clear who it is aimed at and now describe it as a
novella. I don’t want my readers to be
disappointed or to feel cheated. But it got me thinking.
Do
readers value a book by its size? How
big it is, how thick the width, how heavy the weight, how many pages? Of course, with e-books you don’t have this
tangible aspect of book buying. (My
recent post Reading Bigger Books
refers to this). Pages aren’t numbered in e-books, so how can you tell how many
there are? If it’s 800 pages do you expect more than if was 200 pages? Quantity
equals quality? Would you expect a book priced higher to be better than a cheap
one? You get what you pay for? Or does that not apply to books?
It
is easy with e-books to have our expectations manipulated when there are so
many books for free or less than £1. Recently, the bestseller Life of Pi by Yann Martel was
on special promotion for 20p (now back to £2.84). The large publisher behind it could afford to
fund this but how can smaller publishers and indie authors compete? By lowering their prices even more? This kind of pricing strategy will eventually
devalue books completely and the wonderful opportunities offered to indie
writers by the digital revolution will turn round and bite us on the bum, so to
speak.
My
e-books are priced between £1.95 - £2.98. Many e-books cost just 99p. They could have taken 6 months or several
years of work to produce. What else can
you get for £1.95? Not even a
cappuccino.
So
what is my time worth? If no-one pays me,
is my time worthless? If my book is
available free, is it worthless? And how much does size really matter?
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