We’ve been having lots of conversations over the past year about direct selling, e-book and audiobook pricing, and bundling physical and digital formats. We want to experiment with all of these things, and the links below will take you to the Beta/first stage. As you can see, we are offering direct sale of our first book, WHO IS MARK TWAIN?, at 20 percent off with free shipping. We’re also offering the e-book (DRM-free, in all formats) for free to anyone who buys the hardcover, directly from us or elsewhere. The e-book is available for $9.99 on its own. The audio (read beautifully by actor John Lithgow) is available on its own for $14.99, or directly from us at 20 percent off. And finally, for anyone who buys both the hardcover and the audio directly, the “bundle” price is $24.99, with 20 percent off and free shipping of the hardcover.
It turned out to be pretty complicated to combine physical and digital shopping carts to make these offers, since there are very few places (online or otherwise) set up to handle combined transactions. Even for the bundles sold from our website, we’ve had to advertise the discount codes separately from the purchase page. (For anyone reading this, here’s your code for 20 percent off and free shipping: 20H09C.)
We’re in the early stages, clearly, and we’re looking forward to feedback on this first attempt. We also hope that it won’t be long before both online and bricks and mortar booksellers start offering a range of combinations of physical and digital formats.
So, enjoy the book–however and wherever you read it–and let us know what you think!