I’m of an age where paperback books were generally pretty affordable. In truth, many still are, but prices have indeed gone up. For me, the “normal” price of a paperback book was in the area of six to eight dollars. When I think of the cost of an “average” paperback, my brain just spits out $7.99.

However, sadly, those days have slipped into the past. These days, a more normal price for a paperback (if there is such a thing as a normal price) is around $9.99. At least, that seems true for many of the books I buy, aside from the larger volumes, such as epic fantasies.

When I first released Frostwalker, I wanted to keep the paperback edition pricing low. In part, this was due to nostalgia over those older prices. There’s a part of me that still feels like paying more than $7.99 for a book of that size is maybe a bit much. Another factor was simply the fact that I am an unknown author to most of my potential readers. Having a lower price, combined with the good reviews the book has been getting, might be just the incentive for a reader to take a chance on my work.

But, in order to reach a broader audience, I need to be able to break into more distribution channels. These channels have a higher overhead cost, which means that the author’s portion of the sales is significantly smaller. In order to even be eligible for those channels the price has to be increased above a certain threshold just to cover the cost of distribution.

So, beginning February 1st, I will be increasing the price of the paperback edition of Frostwalker to $9.99. The ebook editions (Kindle and others) will remain at $2.99. The upside is that, with time, the book will be available for bookstores to purchase, as well as libraries.

If you intend to pick up a paperback copy of Frostwalker, but haven’t done so yet, now would be a good time to grab yours!