The bargain phenomenon

I think it\’s an interesting facet of the human condition that when one hasn\’t paid, or only paid very little, for something, one values it less. It\’s a known fact among fellow authors that when a book is given away for free, or discounted way below its value, as Daffodils has been lately, it is more likely to receive negative reviews. I suppose this is partly because people who wouldn\’t normally read it are drawn to do so. It is outside their comfort zone and they haven\’t invested in it. What is strange, is that they then feel entitled to criticise it freely, with impunity, from the anonymous and safe position of reader.
I had one 2 star rant recently, complaining about my British spelling (it is a book that is set in deepest England) who even had the cheek to get a refund on the 99 cents it had cost him/her. And another who complained that the book strayed from young adult to Edwardian language (Daffodils is about a young adult in Edwardian England).
People who paid the full price for the book have loved it. The good reviews far outnumber these two bad ones.
I took a risk with Daffodils in showing the minutia of village life before World War One shook it up. I took my time with this in the book deliberately to make the point about how devastating and sudden the change brought by the  war was. People who fail to understand this are impatient for the action to  begin. They miss the main point of the book.
It\’s a shame that they feel they have to bray their lack of perception to the whole world.