New B&N Spotlight Program Offers eBooks for 99 Cents

Barnes and Noble introduced a new promotion today that spotlights a breakout series by a bestselling author each month where they offer the first title in the series for 99 cents.

This is a great idea by B&N because it allows you to try out new authors and books without having to shell out a lot of cash. And the 99 cent price-point is a big win that has worked out well for other types of digital media.

This month’s spotlight is New York Times bestselling author Faye Kellerman, with The Ritual Bath, the first book in her Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series. It has 4.5 stars on both B&N and Amazon, with plenty of reviews. Here’s the description:

Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.

The crime was called in by Rina Lazarus, and Decker is relieved to discover that she is a calm and intelligent witness. She is also the only one in the sheltered community willing to speak of this unspeakable violation. As Rina tries to steer Decker through the maze of religious laws the two grow closer. But before they get to the bottom of this horrendous crime, revelations come to light that are so shocking that they threaten to come between the hard-nosed cop and the deeply religious woman with whom he has become irrevocably linked.

Incidentally, because of agency pricing (or fixed pricing in other words) when B&N offers a sale on an ebook, then other ebook retailers have the right to sell it for the same price. This applies only with certain publishers, of course. But it appears to hold true because this same ebook is selling for 99 cents from Amazon, Kobo, and other sites.