Register Log in  Ministry of Innovation / Business of Technology
Op-ed: Why my first novel will only cost you $0.99  Take it from
the founder of Rhapsody—letting piracy corner a content market
is death.  Rob Reid (@rob_reid) is a novelist, entrepreneur, and
music industry expert. He's also a xenobiologist with a
specialty in interstellar copyright. His 2012 science fiction
novel, Year Zero, is available from Random House at $0.99 in the
US for a limited time.   So hats off to Random House for testing
out pricing tactics that some would view as kamikaze lunacy.
They released the paperback edition of my novel Year Zero just
six month ago. And for at least a few days, the e-book will
undersell it by 93 percent (as Amazon conveniently calculates on
its Kindle page). Random House wasn't counting on my paperback
sales to make its quarter, but it has been experimenting
relentlessly with pricing for at least a year now—and not just
with small fries like me.   I had a front-row seat to that
horror show back when we w