Shelves, eBook Pricing, and Cheekbones

I rearranged my book shelves and I gotta say, they're looking better than ever. Last night I noticed I'd lost my copy of Night Myst, the first Indigo Court book, so I bought the ebook on Kobo because I wanted to reread. It cost me fucking ten dollars. FOR AN EBOOK.

I mean, it's traditionally published, but still. It's makes me mad that publishers expect readers to dole out ten dollars or more for a digital file they consume in less than two days.

I will never charge more then five dollars for an ebook, and that's God's honest damn truth. (Fun fact: Divinity is on sale for 99¢ right now!) I mean if I'm ever working with a publisher, they'll be in control of that, but still, all my self-published ebooks have been and will be under five dollars.

Look, for ten dollars I could buy three paperbacks on Amazon or at a used bookstore. For ten bucks I can get a to-go combo of the best Chinese food in the city. I can buy new headphones and a fancy candle or body lotion. I don't need to spend ten dollars on a fucking ebook I'm gonna blow through in two or three sittings. I'm telling people fun stories with romance and action and swords and explosions - I don't think it's fair to charge an arm and a leg for a story.

I mean, there are exceptions, sure. If it's a box set or a super long book. Like, as an author, if I'm writing a book and it turns out to be this 200,000 word epic, yeah, I expect to get paid fairly for that. But even then, at least to me, for how fast I write, yeah, that's still only gonna be an eight dollar book, you know?

Maybe it's me - maybe I'm cheap and skeptic because I grew up poor and even now, ten or twenty bucks that I get to spend on myself instead of essentials is a rare treat that I want to squeeze every penny out of, because it's rare, but most of that money goes to books. And I think it's kind of unfair to charge a reader that much.

But I'm off on a tangent; the point is, I'm rereading Night Myst so I can devour this whole series. The covers are beautiful and the story, from what I recall, is so much fun. Definitely worth a read.

Meanwhile I'm drafting Atrocity (gah!) and making plans for a bunch of other fun stuff I can't wait to share.

I'm also working on an anthology set in the menagerie world (Shadows of Ourselves, Maelstrom, et-cet) and it's so much fun. It's called City Magik, and I'll probably be fairly hush on it until the day it comes out, but it's great and the cover is a beauty.

In the meantime I'm listening to a lot of Tinashe and mainlining coffee. And watching Eye Candy, which I never saw and should not have been cancelled. I can't get over how good this show is.

Also, I really wish I could pull off the same angles as Victoria Justice. Damn, those cheekbones. Color me jealous.