Songs vs. Novels; a 99 Cent Debate
I recently read an interview with e-publishing phenom Amanda Hocking, in which she talked about setting the price for some of her novels at 99 cents because she (and her generation) are used to buying songs for 99 cents.
My initial thought was, sure that makes sense. And then I thought about it some more.
A few questions came to mind. Is it really fair to compare a song to a novel? Can’t the end user listen to a song in three minutes, whereas a reader can take weeks, even months to read a novel? And doesn’t a novel take a lot longer to write than a song? Shouldn’t that be reflected in the price?
Let’s start with the time spent enjoying the product. For illustrative purposes, let’s imagine a man, slightly chubby, fond of tube socks and Eighties music. He buys Olivia Newton John’s song “Let’s Get Physical” for 99 cents. He listens to it in the car on the way to his job as a mattress tester. He listens to it while he works out at the YMCA in pink shorts that are way too tight. And he listens to it when he gets romantic with his life-size love doll. Because he’s a fan of routine – maybe he listens to the song three times a day, five days a week, for two months before he gets sick of it. By my math, that’s approximately 42 hours (9 min/day x 5 days x 8 weeks = 360 minutes divided by 60 min/hr = 6 hours).
Now, let’s imagine a reader. She’s a woman who favors Uggs, sweatshirts and Totino’s pizza rolls. She also has recurring fantasies about cowboys. Shirtless cowboys, usually, with big pecs, slim waists and a penchant for passionate, but highly considerate lovemaking. Our reader buys the latest Cowboy Romance book for 99 cents. Because she’s home alone, not counting her three cats, she reads the book over the course of a long weekend, taking breaks only to buy some Busch beer, and fire up the toaster oven. She reads the book for three hours on Friday night. Two hours on Saturday. And needs one hour on Sunday to finish. That’s 6 hours.
Okay, it is possible, considering the above scenarios, for a song and a novel to ultimately have the same amount of end-user utilization.
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