Once upon a time, buying a book was relatively straightforward.

You walked into a bookshop, picked one from the shelf, looked at the price, winced slightly and bought it anyway.

Today, a reader can find the same author's books on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, an author's website and goodness knows where else.

And the prices aren't necessarily the same.

Independent authors have very different ideas about pricing.

Some believe a higher price tells the reader, "This is a serious book."

Others prefer lower prices because they would rather have more people discovering their stories.

Neither approach is necessarily wrong.

Mine is simply the latter.

Historical fiction in particular isn't produced by pressing the large button marked MAKE IT 1942.

There are dates to check, places to research, military ranks to verify, trains that must leave from stations that actually existed and characters who must avoid using expressions nobody invented until 1973.

It takes time.

But once the book is finished, my aim isn't to make it expensive simply to demonstrate how much work went into it.

I want readers to read my books, not wonder what's inside the cover..

That's why books bought directly from my websites can be less expensive than the same, or similar, books offered through major retailers.

Not cheap. Never cheap. Cheap is a word for something disposable. Stories aren't disposable.

By selling directly, there are fewer layers between writer and reader. That gives me more control over the price and allows me to offer books at what I think is a reasonable amount.

"But I have a Kindle," I hear somebody muttering at the back.

Excellent. My first eReader was a kindle and I've had two more. In fact I read all the books I want to read using the kindle app on my smartphone.

Books bought from my websites are delivered using BookFunnel. Depending on your device, you can send your eBook to Kindle and other supported readers and apps, including Apple Books, Kobo and Nook. You can download it to a computer or even read it online.

In other words, buying from an author's bookstore doesn't mean changing how you read.

It changes where you buy.

You still get the spies, soldiers, villains, heroes, impossible decisions, occasional explosions and historical characters who insist on doing things differently from the plot I've carefully prepared for them.

Just at a lower price.

History may be expensive to make.

Fortunately, historical fiction doesn't have to be expensive to read.

Copyright © Tom Kane 2026