A day after her publisher reached a settlement with the Department of Justice that is expected to cut the price of bestselling ebooks in the US to $9.99, JK Rowling announced that the electronic edition of her next novel would be priced at twice that sum.
The author of seven Harry Potter books that sold 450m copies, yesterday said her first novel for adults would be called The Casual Vacancy. Little Brown, an imprint of Hachette with worldwide English-language rights to the book, will publish it on September 27.
Ms Rowling was a late convert to ebooks, making the Harry Potter titles available online only last month, 15 years after the first title was published in print. With strong demand expected for her first full-length novel in five years, her pricing strategy could be a test of a confused new market for ebooks following the DoJ’s lawsuit.