To my surprise and continuing warm feelings, people bought the book. I got some really nice emails. Some very nice Amazon reviews. I felt glad that people were digging it, and it was very validating to see the small payments I'd get from Amazon and Gumroad.
I also felt, after a decent amount of research, that I priced the book fairly at $8.99. It had taken up the better part of 2013 in terms of my writing; it was over 400 'real' pages in length (almost 130,000 words) and frankly... $8.99 ain't a lot. A month of Netflix or World of WarCraft. I was worth that, right? I knew I wasn't going to get rich, but I felt that if you picked up my book in a bookshop and saw $8.99 on the back, it wouldn't break the bank.
A year and a bit later, I'm changing my tune. Tomorrow (or whenever Amazon catches up) I'm dropping the price to $3.99. (The price is actually already changed on Gumroad - which sells the PDF version, if you hate Kindle - to $4. Yes, I know it's one-whole-cent more. I like round numbers where it makes sense.)
Why? The short answer is: the wacky pricing models on the Kindle store. Basically, there's no real market for 'higher priced' books. In a store where the slimmest of pamphlets (seriously - I'm talking about 15 page books here) can be priced at $2, a book at $8.99 in the land of the blind is king. Or something. In other words, I'm just too expensive. The casual buyer will just pass the book by and go look for something cheap to get their rocks off to. Why risk it, right?
So, there you go. It's cheaper. If you ever wondered "Should I buy it?" you're now able to get a full novel, packed full of the sexy disguises, kinky masks and the hot sex I love to write... for about the price of a decent latte.
(And yeah, I'm not going to $2.99. I have some standards, dammit. I'm worth the extra buck!)
To everyone who bought Practice to Deceive to this point: I want to say a sincere and honest thank you. You're all amazing people who made me believe that yes, people would pay to read my work, and I really, really appreciate it. Feel free to lord it over the latecomers.
If for some reason you've never heard of the book, or me, or are wondering "Why the hell is he going on about book pricing?" then feel free to read a few excerpts here, and then forgo that latte for one day, and buy my book instead.
