Prices

Just out of curiosity I looked at a book of fiction promoted in Shameless.
It is of 178 pages and it costs £9.22 (ex VAT) that would make it cost £11.16 (inc VAT). In my view rather a lot for black & white paperback of only 178 pages which do not actually get to a story until page 9.
But not only that, it seems to have 2" margins all around in a 15.24cm wide x 22.86cm tall book, so as you can imagine there are not many words per page. (None of which are Justified. It also has page numbers on every page and First Line Indent is huge).
What I am hinting at here is one surely has to give value for money? Even books of fiction have to compete on price. Even more so if one is not famous!
Take a look at these sample prices >> https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=lp_266239_nr_n_8?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A266239%2Cn%3A%211025612%2Cn%3A72&bbn=1025612&ie=UTF8&qid=1488473704&rnid=1025612
Granted few if any are using expensive POD, but that only means that when using POD one cannot add a high royalty or the price just looks really out of place amongst the above examples. What you set as royalty may not look much to you, and no doubt those sample books may even be making more for the publishers, but due to POD being expensive to start with you cannot expect to make the same profit as mass-printed books, and actually sell many or any.
Comments
I hear what you are saying but the issue is pretty complicated. Someone selling an ebook at $0.99 is happy to make $0.35 but psychologically getting paid $0.35 for a print book is not very palatable. It probably has something to do with book buyers happily paying $ 9.99, or more, for a print book but not being prepared to part with more than $ 0.99 for an ebook.
You could argue that the average POD author will not sell very many copies anyway so why not set a price that you feel will give you some reasonable return. Each author has to ask himself if he would prefer to sell half a dozen books that give him $ 2 each in royalties or 6 books that gives him $0.50 each in royalties.
I publish print books on another platform and looking at my sales figures I find that it is not necessarily the cheapest books that sell best. In fact, it is almost the opposite. It would appear therefore, that price is not always the sole consideration when people buy books.
As for people sabotaging their chances of selling books because of poor formatting and perceived lack of value for money...it is a dog eat dog world out there. If someone creates a book that no one wants to buy it might just give some competitive edge to someone else.
I will concede that while I will happily pay $0.99 for any old book on Kindle - and most of what I read these days is by self-published authors - I would want something pretty decent if I had to pay the price of the average print book.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas
Who knew? Instead of selling about 80 print books a month, as I am currently doing, I could be selling thousands simply by lowering the price.
Why not try it then? But 100s more, not 1000s
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas
And if you set a negative royalty, paying the author to read the book, you could "sell" millions!
Though one wonders if you need that many counters... because it would be very ... counter-productive...
My Books:
https://voidwheretaxed.wixsite.com/rockandfirepress/about
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas
I have no idea why I get arguments here about pricing. It's no mystery. It's not something I have made up.
Here's an example of what I often say here >> https://www.millcitypress.net/author-learning-center/setting-retail-price
Here's another >> https://www.dogearpublishing.net/ak-pricing-your-book.php
of 129,000,000 search results on the subject saying the same things.
I bet you don't read even those two, though ...
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas
A pun on "counterproductive" which does not mean "Producing counters" (as one might assume) but actually means "Counter to (or adverse to) productivity."
Thus if one has enough counters already, one would not wish to be counter-productive.
My Books:
https://voidwheretaxed.wixsite.com/rockandfirepress/about
I have often wondered why Americans even call the worktops in kitchens counters. Counters are only to be found in shops, for old obvious reasons.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas
It's simple, really: When one is discussing counters, "worktops" don't count.
My Books:
https://voidwheretaxed.wixsite.com/rockandfirepress/about
Don't people also count on worktops?
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas
You can't count on worktops, but you can always count on your fingers.
My Books:
https://voidwheretaxed.wixsite.com/rockandfirepress/about
And toes.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kevinlomas