As a first time novelist, it’s been enjoyable to see how the big two – Amazon and Barnes & Noble – have played games with the pricing my novel – the paperback version. Amazon has exclusive rights to the digital version, but the paperback is available from a variety of on-line merchants.

I set the retail price of it at $9.99.  Within a week of release on Amazon, Barnes & Noble started selling it at a 36% discount of only $6.37. Amazon held firmly at $9.99.  But about five weeks later, Amazon finally matched the price and lowered theirs to $6.37. That was good for me because my royalties wouldn’t change but now readers could buy it for a more reasonable price.

Well, about two days ago, Barnes & Noble noticed that Amazon had matched their price and then raised it up to $9.68 – almost full retail price. Yesterday, Amazon followed suit and set their price back at $9.68.

So the window of opportunity to buy it cheap, unfortunately, has passed.

I’m glad their are having fun with the price of my book. I’m having fun watching.