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Readers can buy a digital copy of James Herbert’s new hardback bestseller for only 20p, despite a list price of £18.99.
Herbert's latest book Ash was released by Macmillan on August 30th and is currently at number two in the original fiction bestseller list at an average selling price of £9.96, having clocked up 18,599 copies through Nielsen BookScan. Yet it has already been included in a promotion run by Sony and matched by Amazon which is seeing certain e-books sold for 20p.
Orange Prize-winner Kate Grenville’s latest novel, Sarah Thornhill (Canongate), has also been added to the promotion.
Ash, Herbert’s first novel for six years, has now leapt to the top of Amazon’s paid-for Kindle title chart, overtaking Alice Peterson’s Monday to Friday Man (Quercus), also being sold at 20p. That title hit the headlines after being the first book to knock E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (Arrow) from the top of the chart.
When Sony began the offer in July, it said that the line-up of titles being offered in the deal would change frequently, and that it would not be time limited.
Other books included in the promotion have included titles from Man Booker Prize-winning author Alan Hollinghurst, and bestselling crime writer Peter James.
Another Herbert novel, Others, was previously sold at 20p, but has been returned to a price of £2.99.
Twitter users expressed shock at the low pricing and urged others to snap up the book before it was too late. User @Bitsnark said: “Crazy misprice alert! Ash (Kindle Version) is just 20p from Amazon.co.uk!” @RJones_ said: “Bought James Herbert’s new book Ash on Kindle for only 20p. Surely some mistake as it only came out 2 weeks ago”.
Amazon lists the digital list price of Ash as £10.74.