I was looking to purchase a song off of Amazon the other day and noticed the purchase price of $1.29.

It immediately struck me odd that at that moment, my novel, Beauty Rising, is selling for only $.99.

Is a song really worth more than a novel? What if it’s a terrible novel and a really good song? Perhaps.

Each artist puts a lot into their work whether it’s a four-minute song or a 250 page novel, and I really don’t know how much time the average musician takes to write and produce a four-minute song. But I have a hard time believing it’s more than a novel.

Where does value and worth come from? Ultimately the consumer who is willing to pay a certain price for a product they desire to have.

I remember back in the late 1980s when CDs had only recently come upon the scene, I would easy spend $12, $15, and sometimes even $18 for a new CD. Was I crazy? Wow, how pricing has changed!

Now, I hate spending more than $5 – $7 for a complete MP3 album. (I rarely buy an album when it first releases. I’ll wait until it reaches Amazon’s 100 albums for $5 list.)

I expect digital content to cost less – way less. Why? I guess because there is nothing to hold in my hand. So establishing the fact that I’m all right with cheap digital content, let’s go back to my original question.

Should a digital novel be priced cheaper than one song?

In a perfect world where I was making money off my writing, no.

But such is a the life of an unknown indie author.

The market is so thick with new content that the prices of e-books have drastically nose-dived.

Readers have a dizzying time trying to find quality content that they like. Some people never purchase books anymore and just feed their Kindles with free content.

What’s a fair price?  I like the $2.99 – $4.99 range for ebooks. Very affordable, but still gives the author significantly more than the pittance $.35 cents they earn with a sale of a $.99. I do NOT like what the big publishers have done with e-books, pricing them at a ridiculous range above $10. I really think it’s counterproductive to what they are trying to do. But what do I know?

But until enough people have read and trust my work, I’ll have to continue selling books below the cost of one song.

I would ask one thing of readers, however. If you read a good book – a truly great read – that was free or greatly discounted like $.99, please consider purchasing a copy of another of the author’s books. I think that hours of enjoyment that you receive reading should at least be worth $2.99 and it will help compensate the author for the hard work.

Your thoughts?