The Forecast is Uncertain

Few of you — if any — will have noticed the small, occasional fluctuations in the prices of the Armada Wars Kindle editions, but as it happens whenever I upload updated files to Kindle Direct I also take the time to check that the prices are fair across the different Kindle regions.

Using the $USD price as a starting point, I check the current exchange rates and nudge prices for other regions (Canada, Mexico, Japan etc) until they have more or less the same value. They tend to wander apart over time, you see, as exchange rates rise and fall.

With all the ongoing chaos of Brexit, and the founding of the Nation of Trumpmania, exchange rates have gone a bit mad. That has affected the bookshelf prices of all Kindle publishers.

They started off the same, but right now I would have to majorly hike UK prices to make British sales 'fair' on USA customers. And nobody wins there; UK customers would be paying more, and USA customers would not actually gain any benefit. I can't simply drop USA prices by the relevant amount because I would then not be able to stay in the Kindle Select programme. KS specifies allowable price ranges for each region, which bafflingly are not adjusted for exchange rates — they are treated as if the values of the different currencies are equivalent.

I'm not sure what to do about it at this point. I am open to suggestions.

I'm also aware that the King Trump intends to pull the USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Amazon has not yet advised publishers and authors whether or not they think this will impact on Kindle or CreateSpace sales in countries such as Japan, Australia, etc. In the event that problems do arise, I have started to sketch out a plan which would subsidise shipping for paperbacks to that region. But we'll see what happens.

The way things are going around the world, and particularly in Europe and the USA, I can't imagine stuff will suddenly get cheaper anywhere. I would expect rises, personally. So if you were thinking about getting into the Armada Wars series at some point in the near future, you should probably go make some swift purchases!