SPECIAL ON LOSING DAVID

My vintage mystery, LOSING DAVID, is on a Kindle special deal. Today it's $1.99 and tomorrow it'll be a dollar more, and so on till it gets back to its regular price.

Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Losing-David-Cheryl-B-Dale-ebook/dp/B00KKQYIMK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404072631&sr=8-1&keywords=losing+david

It's about an attorney hiring an actor to impersonate a missing boy so that his murderer can be caught. This is the blurb:

When his father died in 1946, sixteen-year-old David Harmony should have inherited a fortune. Instead, he vanished at sea.

In 1962, an elderly attorney hires an actor to pretend to be David. He says the man in line to receive the Harmony estate killed David.

The actor suspects the attorney is scheming to claim the estate himself, but agrees to act as bait.

Then he falls for a woman who realizes he’s an imposter, and who may reveal his identity to the one person she shouldn’t.

David's murderer.

In an era of clacking typewriters and rotary phones, gentlemen tip hats and ladies wear gloves. But evil still hides beneath the most refined exteriors.

CHEAP BOOKS

I was looking at some books Amazon suggested I buy since I'd bought another one similar. I'm sure we all get these reminders from time to time, and I'm always willing to check them out. I did buy one for $1.99. I looked at a couple more, but they were $8.59 and $9.99 so I passed. After all, I could buy nine $1.99 books, with the money saved by not buying the higher priced ones. And I will.

Author David Gaughran had an interesting blog on this subject the other day in his post: Who's Afraid of Very Cheap Books? 

He gives the reasons that he isn't at all afraid of them, and I agree. Totally.

Before ereaders, we had used book stores where I bet most of us spent a lot of our book budgets. At least, I did. Those and libraries, along with occasional purchases at the grocery store or an actual bookstore, helped me get most of the books I wanted. If I'd had to rely on bookstores, I would have read maybe twelve books a year versus that many a month. I simply couldn't afford the high costs.

Today, I subscribe to several bargain/free ebooks sites where I get listings each day that I can scan. If a book catches my eye, I read a sample. If it's interesting (and appears to be edited!), I buy it. Prices range from free to at most $5.99. And the higher priced books tend to be by authors I know.

Strangely enough, I've found the self-pubbed/small press pubbed books have about the same ratio of good/bad reads as the "big" publishers put out. And the lower prices mean I can buy more of those authors' books.

So...I'm in favor of cheap books. Probably most readers are, too. I wonder about other authors.

I LOVE MY KINDLE BUT...

I love my Kindle. I really do. It's so easy to buy a book at night when there's nothing around to read. It's so easy to make the text large enough that I don't strain my eyes. It's so easy to carry scads of books on trips in one tiny container.

But today Amazon sent me a Best Books of the Month ad that showed the book covers over the hardback price and the Kindle price. And I was amazed that publishers still don't get it.

The Still Point of the Turning World - Hardback $14.41, Kindle 12.99
Benediction - Hardback 14.36, Kindle 12.99
Between Man and Beast - Hardback 15.66, Kindle 13.99
The Drunken Botanist - Hardback 11.97, Kindle 9.99

Went into the Mysteries category and the same thing:
Six Years (a Harlan Coben pre-order) - Hardback 15.98, Kindle 14.99
The Golden Egg (Donna Leon pre-order) - Hardback 14.43, Kindle 13.20
Murder Below Montparnassee (Cara Black pre-order) - Hardback 15.71, Kindle 12.99
The Accursed (Joyce Carol Oates pre-order) -Hardback 16.62, Kindle 12.74

And so on.

Why should I pay 9.99-14.99 for an eBook when for 1-4 dollars more I can get a printed copy? And then I can loan it to as many friends as I like, I can donate it to the used book sale for the library, or I can trade it in at the used bookstore for credit to buy more books.

The eBook, on the other hand...Well, I think Amazon allows us to loan it once. And that may depend on publisher permission; I'm not real clear on that. But anyway, if you loan it to your sister, then your mother and cousin want to read it...Too bad!

Not to mention Amazon can evidently take back any of your eBooks stored in the Cloud at any time. Not that they would, I'm sure, but still...

And I don't blame Amazon for the unreasonable prices. It's the publishers. I understand that they're trying to cover their overhead and make a profit. But lots of smaller ePublishers are putting out books for half these prices and less.

So bottom line: I really have to want to read an author before I'll buy their eBooks. And I'm sorry to say, there are lots of authors I enjoy reading, but there aren't that many I like well enough to shell out ten bucks plus for. So I'll wait till the used paperbacks come down to prices I can afford and buy them then. And I'll stick to trying new authors on my Kindle, or wait for old authors I like to go on sale.

So long as I have something to read, I'm okay with that. Publishers might want to get on board with  our reading habits and adjust their thinking. I suspect they could sell a lot more books if they do.

Okay. Rant over. It's safe to come out now.