Why my book is free – and why it costs money
I published my ‘work in progress’ book Music in the Digital Age yesterday and had a bit of a play around with the recommended price. The minimum, however, was zero from the outset and I was quite keen that this be the case.
On average, about a third of the people checking the book out have paid money for it. Most of them have paid $5 as suggested, though a few have paid $10 and a couple only $1. Everyone else has downloaded it for free and they’re more than welcome to. The fact that people have paid me money to make this – any amount of money at all – and have devoted their attention to the words that I’ve written so far – is incredible motivation for me to complete it, and to do whatever I can to make it as good as it can be.
I ended up having conversations about price yesterday. One centred around psychological theories about why $5 seemed to be the right ‘suggested price’ point. Nobody paid anything when the suggested price was $7.99 – but many did when it was lowered to a round number – even though at both times, you could simply type in whatever number you thought was fair and appropriate. Other conversations varied between ‘why would you give something like this away for free?’ to ‘how can you justify charging money for something you haven’t finished?’.
It’s been an interesting process and it’s challenged my own thinking about online commerce and the pricing of digital creative works. But this morning I received an email from someone who more or less encapsulated for me exactly the reasons why I wanted my book to be available for nothing – and (with permission, and anonymised) I want to share some of that email with you.
