How Much is it Worth? Online Price Wars

So I've been thinking about the different costs for various kinds of electronic media.  A song can cost a dollar or two with artists giving some away free in an effort to entice listeners to purchase more. The New York Times has begun to charge online readers after a certain number of articles are viewed.  E-books can run anywhere from $1.50 to $200 depending on the content and how many competitor books are available.  The question now becomes, should I package The Brothers in such a way (or some of the other works I have going) that the first chapter or a segment is free, and then the person can buy the whole thing if they like it?  I'm not sure.  It's an interesting idea.  Of course, if a book is priced low enough, many people will buy it regardless simply because the price is not prohibitive. It is however, possible to price something too low, implying that a product is not valuable and therefore not worth the pittance it costs.

I'm going back and forth in my head what price I should put on my little book of fiction.  It is getting to be about that time to publish.  I'm pretty sure I will go through Book Baby and make the book available through the large distributors of e-books.  It seems to make the most sense, but I will have to check to see what the difference would be to go through each company myself.  Then I have to check on the copyright situation.  I really don't want anyone snagging my stuff, as seems to happen these days, just because I didn't do the legwork to make sure I kept all the rights to my work.  Yes, my days are full of these questions - these along with what clothes I won't be using next month and which shoes I can pack.  Decisions like these are both exciting and mind-numbingly tedious.  *Sigh*