Price$ to be paid

The printer/distributer of my science fiction novel, Trinity on Tylos, has raised the price by another three dollars per copy at Amazon. That makes the “drive out price” $21.94. Yep, for a trade paperback. The industry average price for one of these is twelve bucks. Since my last royalty check didn’t reflect a single sale of a paperback, it doesn’t really matter much to me, but I wouldn’t pay it. Anyone who wants a copy would be better off buying via my website, where I offer autographed copies sent media mail for sixteen dollars. I have decided to call it a “sale” and see if I get any customers.

I was sitting in a hospital waiting room this week and heard an elderly woman comment that gas prices are on the rise, “And there is no reason for it, none at all.” I do believe that the finite supply of dead dinosaurs might be a factor, but that doesn’t explain why my book has gotten a whole lot more expensive. Or does it? Maybe the printing plant is miles and miles from the nearest Post Office. That’s a thought.

As for high prices, I took a technology class last week as well, and the teacher shared this fact:

The ink in your computer printer is among the world's most expensive liquids, with a price per ounce outpacing Dom Perignon Champagne and dwarfing household products like milk. See how it stacks up, in price per ounce:

Printer ink: $60.88
Dom Perignon: $4.53
Milk: 3 cents

Update: I bought a Mac compatible Brother laser printer a few days after this post. It was $109 for a network printer, with toner, from amazon.com, and I got free shipping. That is about forty bucks more than one set of cartridges for the HP inkjet.

In good company, but sold out?

Like many authors these days, I have a “google alert.” This is a nifty service which sends me an email when someone does a search for either Pamela J. Dodd or Trinity on Tylos, and lets me know what that person clicked on after doing the search. My latest alert apprised me that Trinity is now available from The Dungeon Bookstore. Okay, I admit, my first thought was, “Say what? There’s not any BDSM in Trinity!” I touched on that in The Gift Horse, but not in Trinity. However, a visit to the site states: Science Fiction, fantasy, horror, and witch craft/magic books are our main categories, we've also begun to add science fiction dvd's and comic graphic novels.

Some of The Dungeon Bookstore’s other offerings are books I like quite a lot, including the series by Elizabeth Vaughan which begins with Warprize. Indeed, they have titles from Tor, Baen, and Eos, which is top notch content, and I am really glad to be included. Another great aspect of this site is that they offer free shipping, without up-pricing the books. The printer, Pawprints, sells it via Amazon, and they raised the price a dollar, which along with Amazon’s standard shipping price of 3.49 yields a purchase price of $18.48. Ouch.

Unfortunately, the product page lists the book as being sold out. I clicked on a couple of my fellow Whiskey Creek Press author’s titles, they were “sold out” as well. I asked over at the WCP author group, and the webmaster replied that this page just links to the WCP site, and customers are supposed to buy there. That's too bad, huh? I guess I'll always be "sold out" in the Dungeon.