One of the useful things about having a book on Smashwords is the way that the site acts as a distributor to other ebook retailers. The Roman and the Runaway has now been available through the Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo stores for a few months.

Today I noticed that the book is also appearing in the Diesel ebook store. Where there is one significant difference:

Where it is free on the other sites, with Diesel, the book is priced at $1.24. I went back to look at the Diesel announcement on the Smashwords blog and can’t see any mention of this price change for usually-free Smashwords books. I assume that none of that money will be coming my way.

I could choose to opt out of the Diesel distribution, but that seems fairly pointless. Perhaps giving the Diesel people $1.24 per sale for the privilege of being listed on their site is worthwhile? I don’t know. I do know that I wasn’t very happy to see a price tag on my book.