Recently I attended a poetry reading during which a poet with whom I am unfamiliar read their work. After the reading I requested that they send me a link to their book, which they duly did.

On clicking on the link I was surprised and somewhat annoyed to see that the Kindle edition retails at £6.2  whilst the paperback costs only £3.2. The book in question is traditionally published so I strongly suspect that the author has had no influence as regards the respective prices, and I in no way wish to criticise the poet, hence I am not naming them or the work in question. I do, however think that the fact that the Kindle is £3.2 more expensive than the paperback edition raises an issue worthy of discussion, namely how can a publisher justify pricing it’s Kindle books at a higher price than their print counterparts?

Many of my own books are available in both Kindle and paperback as I want to give my readers the opportunity to read my work in a format of their choice. On average the Kindle cost of one of my books is £2.99 whilst the print versions retail at between £5 and £5.25 which does, I believe take into account the extra cost of producing the print edition. I, personally would feel it wrong to charge more for the Kindle version of one of my books than it’s print counterpart.

Pricing Kindle titles higher than their print equivalents also has the unintended consequence of meaning that those who are unable to read print and rely on the text to speech facility on their Kindle app or Kindle reader to read books have to pay more for certain books than those who can read print. I am one such reader as I am registered blind and unable to read print.

I’ve come across this short video on Youtube which deals with this issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl9elMax1hM.

As always I’d be interested in the views of my readers.