One of my writers friends self-published a book.  She explored publishing it on amazon.  A bookstore owner persuaded her not to saying, you have to sell it for cheap on amazon (which is pretty much the truth). 

Now I have a self-published book that I went through createspace and amazon for.  I wanted to try it and it is a way to do it without any budget. Now a physical book is different, but I looked into what to price my ebook.  Amazon recommended .99 cents for the most sales and $1.99 for the most profit (or was it 2.99).

I tried all 3 prices.  It is a cheap price, but I was looking for exposure. Plus I realized that on Amazon, I had so much competition.  As an unknown, I wanted to make it enticing to take a chance on me.

I relate this to someone I know who is a hypnotist.  He said that he charges quite a bit more money for smoking cessation. The people have to feel the weight of stopping. They had to know (I think he told them) that they had to know they were getting something worthwhile.

Otherwise, their minds would quickly say- You are only out a little bit of money, what’s the big deal of going back to it.

Selling a book is related to this.  If it is cheap, the reader will think the author does not value it.  Then the reader will go with preconceived notions about the writing.  Because they are looking for reasons why it is just a cheap book.

The trouble is that nowadays, everybody wants free content.  They want to be entertained. However, writing a coherent story requires hours of work.  It requires sacrifice and takes talent, and takes a development of skills.

The price of a novel should reflect that it is something substantial. Reading the book is a worthwhile investment of time. 

You get what you pay for.