Why is Spare and The Light We Carry at half price?

[yellowmoosefever]

I'm not here to debate about Prince Harry. I'm trying to understand why bookstores slash the price from the start - is it a strategy? Surely it's not because they don't think it will sell at list price? Anybody from the publishing world who can help explain this?

List price was something like £16 for the spare, definitely going to sell more than twice as many at £8 and everyone thinks they've got a bargain.

List price is £28 and it's on at £14 at WH Smith.

It's £8 at the supermarkets and I suspect £8 at Amazon. Both are probably happy to sell it at cost because you might buy some other stuff at the same time.

I’ve yet to buy a hard back for its List price.

Selling strategy, same with any book, particularly cook books.