Couple more sales and a really nice email is spurring me on to thoughts of a sequel

My decision to put the price of my novel Smugglers At Whistling Sands back up to £1.71 seems if anything to have increased sales. I've had a flurry of three over the last couple of days and an email from my latest buyer very pleased with the book.

Interestingly, she actually thought it was too cheap at £1.71. I don't agree - I don't intend to increase the price on my Amazon ebook any further. £1.71 (£1.49 plus VAT) is the lowest I can charge to qualify for the 70% royalty. At its previous price of 86p I only got a 35% royalty which equated to 26p profit per sale. But at £1.71 I get 99p and I think, for an ebook that is a perfectly reasonable cut. I do not understand why it is that major publishers feel the need to charge almost as much for an ebook as they do for the paper and ink version.

That said, and maybe not everyone knows this, hard copies of books do not attract VAT - but ebooks do and Amazon - as the seller - must therefore apply 20% VAT to the £1.49 cost of my book, hence the VAT inclusive price of £1.71. But I still find it hard to stomach that an ebook, even of world-famous authors, should cost £6 or more. For me, £1.71 is just fine. A smallish sum for the buyer but a reasonable return for the author. Above all - and this is the key reason for dropping the 86p price tag - it is because it puts off more buyers than it attracts.

The sort of person keen to buy a children's novel like this, either as a nostalgic read for themselves or for their kids, aren't likely to need to be corralled into a purchase with an ultra-cheap price.

Anyway, it was great to have a few words of appreciation for the book because like most writers I am inherently insecure and love praise. And I am now seriously turning my mind to a possible sequel to Smugglers. I said I would start one for definite if I could reach a total of 50 sales by the end of September. I am 15 sales adrift so that might be pushing it - but when that milestone is reached, particularly if it's fairly soon, I will definitely consider it.