When I first published Fancy – Vol 1, my historical fiction about a young girl orphaned by the Civil War, I anguished over the price of the e-books. I wanted to make it low enough to be competitive in the marketplace, but Amazon makes that difficult for an author to do because of its pay setup.

If you’ve published any e-books, you know that Amazon cuts the author’s share of the price in half if that price is less than $2.99. Not wanting to give Amazon free gifts, I decided to price it at $2.99. As I published each of the other six volumes, I followed that same logic and priced each at $2.99.

Since all the books in the Fancy series are novellas and, as such, about one-third to one-half the length of a typical novel, I worried that my price was too close to that of many novels in the e-market. I kept wanting to reduce the price, but I just couldn’t see rewarding Amazon for forcing me into giving up part of my royalties.

Just recently, I discovered that Smashwords didn’t punish authors like Amazon does. It pays roughly the same percentage of $.99 book as it does of a $2.99 book. On discovering that, I decided to cut the prices of all my books on Smashwords.

I’m happy to announce that if you buy one of the books in my Fancy series on Smashwords, volume 1 will be $.99. Volumes 2-6 will be $1.99, and volume 7, which is longer than the others, will be $2.29. As you probably know, you can order e-books from Smashwords for your Kindle or Nook either one, as well as other formats.

They’re still priced at $2.99 on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s websites—but why pay that price when you can get the same product from Smashwords cheaper? I hope other authors will join me in establishing separate prices for Smashwords. Maybe we can get Amazon’s attention and lead them to quit cutting our royalties.

Meanwhile, to order any book in the Fancy series in electronic form, click here.

What do you think about a two-tiered system rewarding Smashwords with cheaper prices since they don’t penalize authors for low prices?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.