, I should say at this point that you’re right to qstueion my idea of writing as a career vs. hobby. I agree with you that to be successful, writers need to start thinking of their book as a product, which means doing things well, producing high quality books, and investing enough time and money to get things right. It *should* be more like a career. But at the same time, for about 99% of indie authors, it *is* a hobby. We all have real jobs, and writing is something we do in our free time, and if we’re lucky, we can make a little bit of money from it. I also think 99% of us aren’t in it for the money we produce books so that people will read and enjoy them. For many indie authors, writing a book that’s good enough that strangers will like it and buy it, and earning $500 extra a year, is still a big success. It’s much better than writing a book that everybody hates.(In fact if I wanted to focus more on the business of writing to make money, I would stop focusing on quality, and simply produce more cheap, mediocre books).For the other qstueion: originally I did price my services very cheaply. I was inundated with orders. There is far too much demand. Editing, formatting, book cover design, are necessities to even begin selling a book. Authors pay for what they can afford before they sell any books anyway the pricing is not really related. Ideally they can recoup the costs of publishing eventually. I charge based on what other people are willing to pay for the quality of my work; which is just how I think indie authors should price their books according to what others are willing to pay. (Likewise, as I get more reviews and a bigger platform, my prices will continue to go up).I’m sorry to have hijacked your article with this long comment. I don’t feel that we’re really in disagreement, simply exploring subtleties of pricing strategy. I’m not saying an author should always stick with low prices or giveaways. But for an unknown author, low pricing is so much easier and faster, and it doesn’t appear to have any negative effects on the perceived value of their work (it can actually enhance it, if readers feel that they got a good deal’.) Giving a book away or cheaply and having a range of other books at higher price points has also proven to be a successful strategy. After an author has an audience (demand for their work) they can charge whatever they’d like. My guess is that your books are very good and worth the money, but lower quality books at .99 are still outselling yours and getting more readers.