"You have to have something to sell" - so true. One of my side projects, coffitivity.com, had millions of of users and was a Time Magazine top 50 website of 2013, but it wasn't until we made something to sell (our apps, which for a while we sold) that it clicked in our heads what this could mean: if we had things we could sell, even if they weren't the primary thing we were doing, we could make EVERYTHING we do better, because we'd have more time to spend on it.
We've moved to free to get our app downloads up in prep for an IAP model (which, so far, is very much on track), but having something to actually sell was a game changer for us. I know we're not writers, but niche website publishers have the same "have content people like but am not making money" problem, since ads blow and aren't particularly lucrative.
Now that I've bought his book for $5, i agree, he should raise the price of it :)
But I think the bigger thing is that price difference between the Paperback and the Kindle version. I see the Kindle at $5 and I think the value of the book is $5. And so to get it in print, I am paying $13 more for that. So the cost to print the paperback is $13. That's how I see it.
So i'd much rather see a smaller difference in price between the two. Show me the value of your book is actually $9, and the paperback is only, at most, $5 more.
I think a more important thing to consider is the huge price difference between the Kindle version and paperback. With the Kindle version so much cheaper there is no way I'd even consider the paperback. I think he'd do better overall if the Kindle version was $7-9 and the paperback was $12-15. (I have no data to back this up whatsoever). He'd be making more from the kindle version as you suggest but might also get more people who are willing to pay an extra few $ for the physical copy.
Looks like you said pretty much the same thing I did, while I was writing mine. A good point about people might go for the Paperback with a smaller price difference also.
Bought the book after having read the story on Priceonomics.
As many have pointed out, the current price for the paperback makes the kindle book a steal, and he might be leaving some money on the table.
We've moved to free to get our app downloads up in prep for an IAP model (which, so far, is very much on track), but having something to actually sell was a game changer for us. I know we're not writers, but niche website publishers have the same "have content people like but am not making money" problem, since ads blow and aren't particularly lucrative.