The $0.99 Philosophy

[LauraB]

but you sell the reader on the BOOK first.  What I see a lot of in these forums is people selling the PRICE.  It's only 99 cents! You can't go wrong!  Well, yes, you can.  If a restaurant I never heard of was selling 99 cent lunches, but not telling me what the lunch was, I would still go to my traditional lunch hangouts for my food even if it was several dollars more.

I understand what you are saying, and as a consumer I tend to shop that way. I don't write, only read, and my time is very important to me. I don't want to spend the hours reading a bad book, that bothers me more than spending the money. Which is why I tend to not buy a book, no matter the cost, if I think it may not be what I want to spend my time on. I went back through my Kindle and my accounts for books and, if I include the free book, my average price I've bought "purchased" for is $6.99.  After I read the forums here and Amazon my guess is that I'm not average as far as getting free/low cost books because I don't want something cluttering my Kindle. But I will buy .99 cents books, I did Archers and have started it, I'm reading it on Kindle and Les Miserable on paper, and I like them both (for different reasons   )
As a reader I feel my greatest need, meeting it will push me from browsing to purchasing, is to have a sense of the flavor of the book before I want to risk jumping in and risking the investment of my time 

[MariaESchneider]

Red, I'd have to agree.  I started reviewing books a couple of years ago for BSCreview...and boy, at first, I was like a kid in the candy store.  There were lists of books we could choose from EVERY MONTH!  Wow!  Of course, after getting in every book that sounded even minutely interesting...I had to READ them.  And review them.  That. Was. Hard.  Especially if I didn't like the book because I'm one that doesn't typically bother to read the book if I don't like it. But since I requested it, I had to review it...groan.

Pretty soon, I was only requesting the books that I was pretty sure I'd like.  There were still some that I didn't, but I got a lot smarter.  Excerpts weren't really my thing for figuring it out--mostly I went by book description, reviews of other books by the author, and that sort of thing.  I've never been a excerpt person, but I've found that I'm getting to be one--if the book is available in e-format.  If I can "test" it and get it RIGHT THEN, I don't mind reading the excerpt.  But I hate reading the excerpt and then having to wait for the book to arrive.  So I'm careful about reading the excerpt--only if it's in eformat....!