# Dean Wesley Smith on 2012 e-book pricing



## roy le coeur (Aug 17, 2010)

(prices per word count.)
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/
The only way is up?
What are your thoughts


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Dean has some good stuff, as usual, but I'm not entirely in agreement.

The meat of the article:



> And only my opinion.
> 
> *Michael: And what works for DEAN, of course.*
> 
> ...


I think those lower word counts are risking some hostile, price-complaining reviews. 6,000 words is only 25 pages. Nobody expects to pay 2.99 for a short story by an indie. Even big name authors get complaints. Lisa Gardner's new short story has some bad reviews from people who aren't complaining about the quality of the story, but that they're paying $1.99 for a short story. This is one of the biggest best selling authors out there..

Similarly, I don't think most of us would get traction on a 50,000 word book at $8.99. I know I wouldn't.

I do think he has some useful things to say about the trend of pricing. Ironically, I think Select helps with that. The bargain hunters gravitate toward free, which makes it pointless to hang out in the 99 cent ghetto. This is a good thing, and benefits both Select and non-Select authors.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

I just read this (another thing to avoid actual writing), and I agree somewhat. I do like that he's advocating an upwards trend, when a lot of people are saying we should go to .99 or even free. I think some of the ranges are off, at least for right now, but I expect it will level out sometime in the next few months.

Of course, that is my opinion, and I'm not usually very prophetic, so listen to me at your own risk. 

I'd been thinking about upping the price on my short stories to $1.49 for a while, just haven't gotten around to it. I've also been see-sawing on what I would price my novel at for _months_. Of course, I've got to get out of this slump and actually finish the darn thing first!


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## Glen Krisch (Dec 21, 2010)

I think those prices might work for an author with a traditional background who decides to give the indie route a try.  A new author with little or no reputation?  They'd be shooting themselves in the foot.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

I don't know.  I've raised prices on some of my titles to $4.99 and haven't seen much drop off.  And I know Bella Andre goes a couple of dollars higher on some of her and she sells tons.

I do know the .99 price point is still drawing people in on two titles.  

I suppose this means I should priced Duty, Honor, Country which comes in at 175,000 words a lot higher?

I look at it another way.  On a $5.99 mass market paperback I made .48 per sold.

On a $2.99 eBooks I make $2.08.  I'm pretty happy with that.

I view eBooks as the new mass market paperback, but a lot friendlier to authors.

Again, it goes back to everyone is in a different position.  An author who has fans anxiously awaiting their next title could price higher.  But for someone with not much fan base and not many titles, they could price themselves too high.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I like the $1.49 price point for my novelettes (7500-17,500) and it has done just fine for me. Not only do I get a few cents extra, but it leaves room at the bottom for 99 cent short stories.

I'm pricing novellas at $1.99 and everything else at $2.99. I tried $3.99 (110K words) and $4.99 (168K words), but those prices totally tanked my sales for two months.

This comment from Anthea Lawson makes sense to me.



> I also think genre plays a role in what readers expect to see, price-wise. Voracious romance readers, many of whom are used to the Harlequin series model (smaller books, sold at lower cover prices), seem to have less tolerance for high prices, and devour the more 'bargain-priced' books - meaning that the .99 to 4.99 range dominates the bestseller lists in romance (for example, right now only four of the top 20 historical romance bestsellers are priced over 4.99, and only three in the top 20 contemporary romance list - and that ratio pretty much extends through the entire top 100).
> 
> However, YA book buyers are happy to drop bigger amounts of cash on ebooks - In the top 20 YA ebooks (action/adventure) fifteen are priced *over* the 4.99 mark - mostly in the 8-10$ range. Only five titles are 4.99 and under, and 3 of them are on-sale Percy Jackson series books. Quite a demographic difference, methinks.
> 
> So I'd add - study your genre for what's selling and for how much, and tweak accordingly. But I agree with Dean - don't do yourself the disservice of selling your work so cheaply that readers undervalue it and you don't make a sustainable amount per copy sold.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

I'm not trying to be mean here. I recognize that Dean Wesley Smith says smart things from time to time.

But he has also said that he wouldn't be able to make a living if he relied solely on his indie works. Of the books that he has advertised on his site, none of them are in the top...100,000. 

He knows some things about traditional publishing, certainly.

But what evidence do we have that he knows the first thing about selling books as an indie? If you had to choose between pricing your books like J.A. Konrath or Dean Wesley Smith, why would any rational person choose Dean Wesley Smith?


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

Bob Mayer said:


> I don't know. I've raised prices on some of my titles to $4.99 and haven't seen much drop off. And I know Bella Andre goes a couple of dollars higher on some of her and she sells tons.
> 
> I do know the .99 price point is still drawing people in on two titles.
> 
> ...


Right. The correct answer is whatever works best for each writer, as in there is no one right answer or one right price. We've seen writers be very successful at $0.99, at $2.99, and at higher prices.

Personally, I don't like the idea of charging $7.99 for new novels. That seems high to me. I'd have to really want the book to pay that, which means it would have to be an author I've read before and really enjoyed. What I think that does is makes it harder for that kind of book to find new readers.

I actually think Dean's scale is confusing if he has books all over those price points. If I was looking at an Amazon page with his books listed and some were $1.49 and $1.99 and $3.49 and $4.99 and $7.99 it would confuse me. The last thing you want to do is introduce confusion in the mind of the buyer. (And I also disagree with $1.49 for, say, a 2000 word story.)


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

As a Web consultant, I avoid pricing by hour. It's a bad trap to get into that sets expectations of the client that I don't like giving. You end up working as a slave to the client instead of as a valued partner.

So I'm not sure pricing by word makes much sense either. It really comes down to what the customer is willing to pay, and frankly, I don't think the reader has the slightest clue, or even cares, how many words are in a book.


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## Guest (Feb 26, 2012)

If I charged those prices I'd probably never see another sale.


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## K. A. Jordan (Aug 5, 2010)

Both Courtney and Bob have their points.

If you agree with the adage '$.99 means unedited' AND you're an Indie who carefully edits their work - then the higher prices make more sense. 

As high as DWS suggests? Maybe not for everyone. But I would think that DWS and KKR have the trade experience to know where to price their own work.

KKR's books appear to sell well - and I'm sure she's pricing in the same ball park.

Courtney - both of them have so many books and short works they don't need to hit a best-seller's list to make enough money to live on. Sheer volume of work appears to be enough for them.


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## Wren Emerson (Jan 15, 2011)

Dean has what? Like 100 novels and who knows how many short stories? He can price whatever he wants and still make a living by selling across that many titles. For the rest of us? Probably not a good idea. But I do agree that a novel should be priced higher than $.99.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

K. A. Jordan said:


> Courtney - both of them have so many books and short works they don't need to hit a best-seller's list to make enough money to live on. Sheer volume of work appears to be enough for them.


Perhaps, but that doesn't mean his advice is good to follow. Like Courtney said we have an example of another writer pricing in a different way who is quite a bit more successful.

I also don't think that Dean has more experience with self-publishing ebooks than the rest of us. It's still new and everyone's still learning and there are likely many paths to success. And success itself means different things for different writers.


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## Kay Bratt (Dec 28, 2011)

I feel like I've found the perfect price point for my novella (or short story..whatever you want to call it).

_*The Bridge*_ is 17,000 words and priced at $1.99. Honestly, I never expected this little story to do so well. Numbers are way down from last month but so far for Feb I've sold 539 copies. For a story that was cut by the editors from my memoir, and basically languishing on my hard drive, I'll term that successful any day! I've also had 49 borrows on it this month.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Bob Mayer said:


> I don't know. I've raised prices on some of my titles to $4.99 and haven't seen much drop off. And I know Bella Andre goes a couple of dollars higher on some of her and she sells tons.
> 
> I do know the .99 price point is still drawing people in on two titles.
> 
> ...


I think Dean's prices are too high for an unknown author and I generally have no problem with higher prices for a good book. The unknown author would have a tough sell using those price guidelines.

I don't think an unknown author can go wrong at 2.99.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> I think Dean's prices are too high for an unknown author and I generally have no problem with higher prices for a good book. The unknown author would have a tough sell using those price guidelines.
> 
> I don't think an unknown author can go wrong at 2.99.


Here's the thing: the reason why Konrath-level pricing makes sense is that most authors are unknown to most readers, regardless of their background. I have a fanbase that is willing to pay $5.99 and up for my books, but that group of people is not large--maybe 500 to 1000 people. Which is great, but I want to make more than 500 to 100 sales. So I that for most readers, I am an unknown author.

It's true that Dean has a lot of books out, and maybe he can make a living off his indie books (although I seem to recall him saying he'd be broke if he had to rely on his indie income), but that doesn't prove that his pricing makes sense or that it's worthy of emulation.

Konrath has more than 40 books out there. If he priced his books at $7.99 and sold 20 copies of each a month, he could eke out a semi-respectable middle class income of 4000 or so bucks a month. I'm not trying to knock 4000 bucks a month. (And I actually suspect Konrath would sell more copies than 20 a month--but I'm fairly certain that DWS sells fewer.)

Instead, Konrath is pricing lower and making 10 to 25 times that.

And so I have to ask again: what is the justification for this level of pricing? Is there any evidence, aside from Dean's say-so, that this is a revenue maximizing price point? Because if not, we have to take Dean's advice and think for ourselves, and personally, I think that this sounds like blather without a shred of evidence in support.


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## sbaum4853 (May 3, 2010)

The sad truth is that the long-term pricing trend is down, regardless of word count. Supply is growing faster than demand. Even with all the new eReaders being sold, the nature of eBooks is such that such that supply will continue to grow. When the primary means of delivery was the bookstore, supply was limited by shelf space. Now that the Internet is the only bookstore that matters, supply grows and grows to infinity.

And it's not just Amazon. The bit torrent sites are there too, and if your audience is young or tech saavy you have to acknowledge that they might go there. If I get priced too high, I push a chunk of my readers into the murky underworld and I get nothing.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

The short story pricing seems a bit high to me, but the novels, not as much. Of course, pricing works differently for each author, and I think it takes knowing your market, genre, etc. to figure out what works best for you. Of course, higher or lower pricing gives an author a different audience. I'll click "buy" much more quickly on a $.99 book, but that doesn't mean I'll ever get around to reading it, but if I pay say $4.99 or more for a book, then you can count on me reading it. Other people are different, of course.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Courtney Milan said:


> Here's the thing: the reason why Konrath-level pricing makes sense *is that most authors are unknown to most readers, *regardless of their background. I have a fanbase that is willing to pay $5.99 and up for my books, but that group of people is not large--maybe 500 to 1000 people. Which is great, but I want to make more than 500 to 100 sales. So I that for most readers, I am an unknown author.
> 
> And so I have to ask again: what is the justification for this level of pricing? Is there any evidence, aside from Dean's say-so, that this is a revenue maximizing price point? Because if not, we have to take Dean's advice and think for ourselves, and personally, I think that this sounds like blather without a shred of evidence in support.


Exactly. Until they do have a rep and a reader base charging 5.99 will result in far fewer sales. Even someone with a small rep/base will do better at a lower price point like 3.99. He is giving poor free advice. BS.

It would be very rare for me to spend 5.99 on an unknown author unless I had learned something great about their book after checking it out. And if it didn't measure up I would get a refund, most just would not buy.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

cheriereich said:


> The short story pricing seems a bit high to me, but the novels, not as much. Of course, pricing works differently for each author, and I think it takes knowing your market, genre, etc. to figure out what works best for you. Of course, higher or lower pricing gives an author a different audience. I'll click "buy" much more quickly on a $.99 book, but that doesn't mean I'll ever get around to reading it, but if I pay say $4.99 or more for a book, then you can count on me reading it. Other people are different, of course.


$7.99 seems awfully high for an unknown writer, and as Courtney said, we're all essentially unknown. I'm sure there are plenty of readers used to $7.99 and wouldn't think twice about hitting the buy button, but I also know that a lot of ebook readers expect ebooks to be cheaper than paper books. $7.99 isn't.

I don't see how Dean is justifying that price, either. I don't think he has a single indie novel out -- all of his indie stuff is short stories from what I can see. So Dean isn't basing that price on personal experience. He's just pulling it out of the air.

But to each his own. I do think that if you hang around here on KB you get the benefit of many writers of all different levels of success sharing their anecdotal experiences. I find more value sifting through those comments than I do in listening to a single source like Dean's blog.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

It's an interesting idea anyway.  I would hesitate to price my stories at the upper end of what he's suggesting (more than $5.99 and the paperback starts to look a lot more tempting.)  However, for shorter (but not overly short) fiction, it's tempting to raise prices so that you find yourself in the 70% royalty band.  I have a story that will probably be 8-9,000 words when I've finished the edits & I was planning to price it at $1.99 - which means 70 cents on a sale.  Raising the price to $2.99 (as per his banding) would give $2.09 on a sale, roughly twice as much.  By charging $1 more it would make $1.39 more in royalties.

The question is, would it sell twice as much at $2.99 compared to $1.99?  Or rather, would it sell half as much at the lower price?

I don't know the answer - but I'll certainly be checking out the market closer to when I publish, to see what seems to be acceptable to readers. I want to charge a fair price but I'm not looking to price overly cheaply.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

I agree with those who are hesitant about adopting the prices that Dean Wesley Smith recommends. It smacks of a "one size fits all" approach that overlooks the different contexts in which authors find themselves and/or position their work.

Now, let me hasten to say that I truly admire and respect Dean -- as I do Bob Mayer, Joe Konrath, and Robin Sullivan, all of whom have studied publishing (trad and indie) to death, and whose vast experience and wisdom I have drawn upon repeatedly as I try to navigate these strange and ever-roiling waters. But his overarching advice to "Think Like a Publisher" is not quite the same thing as "thinking like a customer." And that is a very different proposition.

Dean's is what might be called a volume-based approach to writing and publishing. He cranks out an amazing volume of work, slaps an inexpensive cover on each story, uploads it fast, then pretty much forgets about it, doing little or no promotion. He reasons that a few sales per month per product, across multiple sales outlets, can add up to a tidy overall income...IF you have scores of products on sale. Thus, though the sales rankings may be modest or even quite low on any given title, this is offset by having so many titles selling in so many places. Switching metaphors, then, Dean is "thinking like an investor": spreading his financial risks across numerous literary "investments," so that if any one of them tanks, the others can pick up the slack and still support him.

Let me stress that there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach -- _if that is the kind of writing you want to do_. Obviously, though, his approach is not going to work well, as a significant income-producer, for any author who writes more slowly, perhaps because he is striving to craft something that may be unusually long or ambitious, or highly complex, or uniquely innovative, or timelessly memorable...or simply because he isn't a fast writer. That kind of writing, which takes longer to produce, means that a body of work won't accumulate quickly. And a handful of sales per month of just a few titles is not going to sustain such a writer -- or encourage him to continue. Instead, that kind of writer must adopt marketing and pricing strategies more befitting his own products and output, especially if he does not yet have a significant following or name recognition.

I think it is more useful to try to "think like a customer." And doing that, I don't think a relatively unknown indie author can afford to price his work very high, not until he acquires a reputation and loyal audience.

HOWEVER, I do think that 99-cent pricing or even $1.99 for anything except short stories is TOO LOW, because it simply screams out "SELF-PUBLISHED." And there is a justifiable stigma against self-published work, because many readers have grown tired of low-priced or freebie "bargains" that turn out to be excruciatingly bad and total wastes of their time. If you think that competition is leading to a "race to the bottom" in pricing, where everything will be free, think again: Readers are getting the message that "You get what you pay for." And you STILL find big-name authors hitting and dominating the bestseller lists with ebooks priced at $9.99 or more, sometimes considerably more. There is no lack of customers for a well-written story by an author with a reliable reputation, even at high prices.

But an unknown indie is not Lee Child or Suzanne Collins. Lacking their reputations, he can't expect to price his book like theirs and command significant sales.

So, thinking like a customer, I believe that an indie author, first, should take great pains to make his work look and read as if it were traditionally published. Second, continuing to think like a customer, my gut tells me that very few readers will risk more than $5 on an author, even a traditionally published one, who has no prior reputation for quality storytelling. My gut tells me that the pricing "sweet spot" for decent, novel-length genre fiction by an unknown author is between $3.99 and $4.99. That range does not automatically shout out "SELF-PUBLISHED," yet it is low enough not to pose an impediment for most readers to an impulse purchase...IF the book sample is compelling, well-edited and -formatted, IF the cover is first-rate, and IF the early reviews and endorsement blurbs are good.

What about $2.99 for a novel? Once again, I think that from most customers' standpoint, the difference in a purchase decision between $2.99 and $3.99 has to be almost negligible: If they think a story is good enough to buy at the lower price, then most will spend an additional buck...which is a dollar that will go into an indie's pocket.

So, thinking like a customer, I've priced _HUNTER_ at $3.99 from the outset last June 21. It sold 4,000 copies at that price even before Amazon editors gave it their big boost in late November. And after the one-week sale price of $1.99 ended, it's since sold tens of thousands more at $3.99 -- even though it's my debut novel and I'm a relative unknown.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> He is giving poor free advice.


When DWS posts his "thoughts" or "suggestions" (not advice) they have to be taken into consideration with all of the other aspects that he has written about in regards to e-publishing. He has a couple hundred titles out so if he sells *5-10 per month* of each title (which is meaningless to someone with 10-15 titles out) at the prices that he has mentioned then he's making decent money. He doesn't shoot for bestseller lists and doesn't advocate short-term things like buying advertising or "going free". To him, this is a trek across America, not a 40 yard dash. He prices his books as a "real" publisher would price theirs, not as a "bargain bin" publisher, and as he says over and over "You must decide what kind of publisher you want to be".

There are also other things to consider. Fans of certain genres are used to or willing to pay more (or less) for those certain genres. His pricing is general.

I agree with his pricing, however, with only 8 titles or so out, I'm not in any position to apply his suggestions yet.


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## iluvsnoopy (Jan 1, 2012)

As a reader, I won't buy books at Dean Wesley Smith's prices.  I live in the US.  The cost of gas is going up, food is going up at the grocery stores, taxes are going up, my utilities are going up....  

I have less spending power than I did a year ago.  Why am I going to pay more for a book when I can find others that are more reasonable (to me)?  I'll pay up to $4.99 for a full-length novel, but unless the author is someone who I absolutely have to read (and I only have two of those on my list right now), I won't buy a book if it's more than $4.99.  

It's not about devaluing the price of an author's work.  It's about what I can afford once I pay my bills.


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## lisamaliga (Oct 28, 2010)

I take a bit of a more modified approach to pricing. I only charge 0.99 for a novelette [9100 words]. But for my 100,000 word novel I feel it's reasonably priced at $3.99.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

"Unknown Author" 

I see this term thrown around a lot. What does it mean? Where is the line between an "Unknown Author" and a "Known Author"?


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

A "known author" would be someone with high name-recognition -- either generally in the wider culture, or more narrowly within the genre of book he or she is writing. Name recognition alone will move a certain number of books. But for authors without broad name-recognition in society, having a good reputation for prior writing within his genre will also move books.

Obviously, then, "known" and "unknown" are contextual. But the most important context is: your target readership. Each writer must decide HOW "well-known" he or she is to his target audience, and how good is his or her reputation, when making pricing decisions.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

The only thing I'm going to say about this is play around and find the best price for your book. That might be $7.99. Or it might be $2.99. Or you might see a lot more sales and thus earn more per month at $.99.

There is no "one right price." I've seen too much to subscribe to this theory.


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## AnitaBartholomew (Jun 27, 2011)

The blog post offers an opinion based on a limited analysis, mostly relying on what traditional publishing is charging. But what traditional publishing is charging is opening up opportunities for indies, because many people with a new e-reader won't take a chance on the indie until they get Big Six sticker shock. Then, they figure, "What the hell. I need books for my Kindle and this book is just 1, 2, 3, 4 bucks."

But if you're pricing your books as if they were Big Six titles, you'd better have the kind of promotion that can make people want the book, no matter the price. If not, welcome to the high 6 figure sales rank... not the same as Big Six mega hit rank.

Anita


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## -alex- (Jul 12, 2011)

Regarding the $0.99 and $2.99 (going with those examples as they seem to be popular), how does that fair in the UK? From the authors point of view, I mean.

Is the exchange rate taken in to consideration with ebooks? Or is a $2.99 book in the US priced £2.99 in the UK?


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

I think he's right about ebook prices trending upwards. It certainly feels like I'm seeing more indies pricing at $3.99-5.99 and doing very well for themselves. It seems like there are fewer $0.99 novels, too. It could be that indies are growing increasingly sophisticated, and have found additional ways to promote their books besides rock-bottom prices.

So I don't think his premise is flawed. But his execution doesn't feel right to me. In part, it's because he's got too many pricing categories, particularly at the shortest lengths. He's got eight different length brackets, three of which cover stories of < 9K words. Come on.

I think he'd do better off with 5-6 categories--something closer to how the SFWA categorizes length--while reducing his prices at each level by about 25-33%. You'd still be an upscale indie, well above the dreaded $0.99-2.99 price for novels, without coming so close to looking like a traditional publisher at mildly discounted rates.


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## acellis (Oct 10, 2011)

I follow Smith closely. He generally knows what he is talking about.

But I'm not changing my prices any time soon. My novels will be $2.99 and my short stories $.99 for the foreseeable future.


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## Greer (Sep 24, 2011)

Zelah Meyer said:


> It's an interesting idea anyway. I would hesitate to price my stories at the upper end of what he's suggesting (more than $5.99 and the paperback starts to look a lot more tempting.) However, for shorter (but not overly short) fiction, it's tempting to raise prices so that you find yourself in the 70% royalty band. I have a story that will probably be 8-9,000 words when I've finished the edits & I was planning to price it at $1.99 - which means 70 cents on a sale. Raising the price to $2.99 (as per his banding) would give $2.09 on a sale, roughly twice as much. By charging $1 more it would make $1.39 more in royalties.


What about submitting your novelettes and novellas to Kindle Singles? They only accept stories with word counts between 5,000 and 30,000, but from what I understand, if you're accepted, they offer the 70% royalty on stories priced between $0.99 to $4.99.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

ShayneHellerman said:


> What about submitting your novelettes and novellas to Kindle Singles? They only accept stories with word counts between 5,000 and 30,000, but from what I understand, if you're accepted, they offer the 70% royalty on stories priced between $0.99 to $4.99.


Hmm, that's a good idea! I know they don't accept that many, so I might start with $2.99 and then reduce it if they accept me on to Kindle Singles. Thanks.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> I agree with those who are hesitant about adopting the prices that Dean Wesley Smith recommends. It smacks of a "one size fits all" approach that overlooks the different contexts in which authors find themselves and/or position their work.
> 
> Now, let me hasten to say that I truly admire and respect Dean -- as I do Bob Mayer, Joe Konrath, and Robin Sullivan, all of whom have studied publishing (trad and indie) to death, and whose vast experience and wisdom I have drawn upon repeatedly as I try to navigate these strange and ever-roiling waters. But his overarching advice to "Think Like a Publisher" is not quite the same thing as "thinking like a customer." And that is a very different proposition.
> 
> ...


Great point!

I like Dean and often read his blog but those prices are too high for newly published authors and like another poster said further up the thread, it isn't about not valuing the author's work (although I think prices that are too low devalue the work) but it's about what I can afford after I pay my bills.


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## ToniD (May 3, 2011)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> What about $2.99 for a novel? Once again, I think that from most customers' standpoint, the difference in a purchase decision between $2.99 and $3.99 has to be almost negligible: If they think a story is good enough to buy at the lower price, then most will spend an additional buck...which is a dollar that will go into an indie's pocket.


This hits home for me. I've gone with the $2.99 price point since I first pubbed Badwater last June (leaving aside putting it on sale for .99) and I'm now thinking 3.99 is worth a shot. I've just raised Badwater to $3.99 and will likely do so with Volcano Watch. I'm gambling that a customer who'd spend 2.99 for my book wouldn't draw the line at another dollar.

As for the DWS model...not for me. I'm too slow a writer to do that.


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## Nathalie Hamidi (Jul 9, 2011)

I am pricing my autism books on the high end, because they are valuable knowledge, mostly here in France where autism is still thought to be a psychological disorder that is caused by the mother. I compete with tons of other books, most of them who are completely insane and inaccurate. My books are the result of hard work, experience, and years of studying. In the little niche of autism, I have seen that if you provide excellent advice and if you are clear and to the point, readers do not shy away from "high" prices. I feel that all the work I've done to be that knowledgeable on that subject is worth $9.99.

The archives of our website, who are free on the Internet, are priced less, because it is mostly for people who want a copy for themselves but don't want to spend a lot of time compiling the useful posts. I priced those less because I published them mostly to use the money of their sales to pay for my hosting.

I don't fear pricing higher than other e-books. We provide year-long free posts on our website, we serve the community by giving live advice and guidance. For those who want to know more... Every knowledge has a price. My time has a price too.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I would happily pay $5 for a book I'll enjoy.  

So, why do I download a whole bunch of free books that I only read the first couple chapters of?

My best guess is it's a great way to learn about openings.  I analyse the books to figure out why I'm not being hooked.

My point is that my behaviour as a book consumer is VASTLY different now that I'm an author.  I can't base my prices on what I would pay.

The best any of us can do is sell at one price for a while, get a baseline for statistics, then try moving it up or down.  You never really know, and I also have a theory that things have a way of balancing out.


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## AnitaBartholomew (Jun 27, 2011)

Can't find who wrote it initially, but the difference between $2.99 and $3.99 is negligible, I suspect, for buyers. Certainly, it would be, for me.

I started at $2.99 but when my rank improved and I had plenty of reviews, I upped the price to $3.99. No discernible difference in sales or rank.

The questions I ask to decide price: Which books are most like yours, what are their prices, and how will your price be perceived when compared to theirs?

In reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, readers compare THE MIDGET'S HOUSE to WATER FOR ELEPHANTS. Right now, Amazon has WATER priced at $4.99. In my view, that means that $3.99 is a good price for my book. Less is too low and higher is too high.

If you have a genre book, it's easier: what price point is selling best in your genre? Are indies at higher prices breaking out, or are only traditionally published books able to sell at more?

Check that out, and you have your ballpark.

Anita


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

> The best any of us can do is sell at one price for a while, get a baseline for statistics, then try moving it up or down. You never really know, and I also have a theory that things have a way of balancing out.


Exactly. Learn to "listen" to the market. The market will "tell" you what price you should sell at. I just perused my own books within their Kindle categories. Two currently are on several Kindle paid bestseller lists. At $4.99, they're moving nicely. The vast majority of their competition are priced at $3.99 and $2.99, with the exception of the big-name authors, whose books are generally listed at $12.99 and $9.99. I started out at $2.99, then raised the price a buck to $3.99, then, again, to the current $4.99. The market, I feel, is telling me to stay put. I wouldn't dare go above $4.99 at this point. As someone else in this thread said, "there's no one size fits all."


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

-alex- said:


> Regarding the $0.99 and $2.99 (going with those examples as they seem to be popular), how does that fair in the UK? From the authors point of view, I mean.
> 
> Is the exchange rate taken in to consideration with ebooks? Or is a $2.99 book in the US priced £2.99 in the UK?


It takes into consideration the exchange rate. At the moment, a $2.99 book in the US is £1.98 in the UK.

Edit: I'm pretty convinced that at the moment DWS's pricing structure would not work for me, and to be honest, that's the only consideration I'm going to give it. It may or may not work for other people.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

For my serious stuff, yes his pricing would work for me. For my fluffy comedy? No (but not too far off).


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## GUTMAN (Dec 22, 2011)

But, here's the thing.

Just like Kindle Select, nothing is forever.

I'm not willing to buy into everything Joe K says, or what Dean says, strictly on faith. And they'd be the first to agree with me.

_Try it. Experiment. _ If it doesn't work for you, change your prices again.

None of us knows anything. Saying Dean said so, or Joe said so, makes no sense to me until we do our own market research by _attempting something._

Best,

G


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

By the way, this wouldn't work in non-fiction in my niche of business/marketing. I've found that the higher you price, the more books you sell. It's not like fiction stuff. People pay for that information differently.


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## phil1861 (Dec 22, 2011)

Bob Mayer said:


> I don't know. I've raised prices on some of my titles to $4.99 and haven't seen much drop off. And I know Bella Andre goes a couple of dollars higher on some of her and she sells tons.
> 
> I do know the .99 price point is still drawing people in on two titles.
> 
> ...


I did just that, started high based on faulty research of other historical fiction titles and had very slow going. After doing a two day free promo and hitting a top ten list I'm doing well at 3.99. 
I tried playing with my pricing, doing 4.99 down to 1.99 and sold more at 1.99 but never enough activity to gain momentum. 
There does seem to be a little consensus that historical fiction is priced a bit more than some of the other categories, though not a hard and fast rule. 2.99 to 5.99 seems to be the golden range for civil war/military historical fiction.


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## Gregory Lynn (Aug 9, 2011)

I have two comments to make.

Those who are saying this strikes them as too much of a one size fits all solution are missing the points where he says all writers are different and all publishers are different. He has a big backlist and name recognition for more than one name.

It seems obvious to me that someone who is still trying to break in shouldn't have the same pricing structure.

The other thing that gets overlooked is the fact that he is marketing to the average reader. He's not marketing to the rabid readers who go through a book a week and he's not marketing to the people who are exceptionally price conscious. He's marketing to a group of people that is probably a heck of a lot larger who read a lot fewer books per year.

Some people seem to think that he's saying you're wrong for not doing it his way and he's not.

If your novel isn't going to be read by anyone unless they love the genre, you can't market it to the average book reader. You have to market it to genre readers and that most likely means a different pricing schedule.


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## BlakeCrouch (Apr 18, 2010)

I agree that not all prices fit everyone. I've experimented at $4.99, $3.99, and $2.99 for novels. I really like the $3.99 pricepoint. I don't see a big different from that and $2.99 in terms of sales volume. $4.99 tends to really show a drop in sales. $2.99 works really well if I want to really try and kick a book into the stratosphere. I find these pricing suggestions from DWS to be pretty out of touch with what customers are willing to pay. Most writers don't have 50-100 titles to play with. Whoever said, think like a customer, not a publisher, was right on.


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## D.L. Shutter (Jul 9, 2011)

With the greatest respect for DWS, who was first published around the time I was playing with weeble-wobbles (yes, that long ago), I honestly don't think some of his advertised best practices are applicable for the first timer or the relatively unknown. He imparts a tremendous amount of valuable experience and know-how in his advice but, being purely objective here, I would place a higher value on marketing and "biz" advice from writers routinely in the top hundred or thousand for their genre. Selling in the 100k's, honestly, doesn't separate one from the masses who (it can be argued) are in that region due to perceived quality issues. I'm with Blake in that different genre's, lengths and an individual authors standing all call for variations (and experimentation) in pricing.

Growing a substantial body of work should be every writers goal but I think that rabidly producing and uploading (as I think many indie writers are doing) at the cost of quality is self defeating. Speaking purely as a reader here; there have been _many_ top sellers in some genre's whose work I felt was so bad that I'll likely never try another of their titles at any price.


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

My debut novel sells pretty well at $7.99.

December 2011: 976 sold
January 2012: 945 sold
February 2012: 150 sold so far

I ran free promotions in December and January via KDP select, which boosted my paid sales after they came off free. But even in February, without a free promotion, my book is selling more than 5 per day. Back in November 2011, when it was priced at $4.97, my book was selling about one copy per day. So I'm selling at least 5 times as well at $7.99 as I was at $4.97.

Don't be afraid to experiment with higher prices. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

David


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

D.L. Shutter said:


> With the greatest respect for DWS, who was first published around the time I was playing with weeble-wobbles (yes, that long ago), I honestly don't think some of his advertised best practices are applicable for the first timer or the relatively unknown. He imparts a tremendous amount of valuable experience and know-how in his advice but, being purely objective here, I would place a higher value on marketing and "biz" advice from writers routinely in the top hundred or thousand for their genre. Selling in the 100k's, honestly, doesn't separate one from the masses who (it can be argued) are in that region due to perceived quality issues. I'm with Blake in that different genre's, lengths and an individual authors standing all call for variations (and experimentation) in pricing.
> 
> Growing a substantial body of work should be every writers goal but I think that rabidly producing and uploading (as I think many indie writers are doing) at the cost of quality is self defeating. Speaking purely as a reader here; there have been _many_ top sellers in some genre's whose work I felt was so bad that I'll likely never try another of their titles at any price.


Only his backlist of stories (in the hundreds) have all be previously published in some of the biggest named anthologies and magazines of his field.  I believe he and his wife have said they have a large filing cabinet filled with stories that have been sold before and are just sitting in the cabinet, collecting dust...

As for selling in the 100,000s, sigh. This might come as a shock to you, but plenty of us sell a lot more off of Amazon. Julie Ann Dawson sells a lot, just not on Amazon. I sell a bit everywhere. I've sold my short fiction in at least 18 different countries (that's when I can tell I've sold my work there), and almost none of that is on Amazon. Amazon is sticking around my 3rd highest income source for DIY fiction, but it looks like it's going to edge out Smashwords in 2012 (or, if not, a close one) for my non-fiction.

As for advice, I'd personally rather take advice from someone who has been doing this for a long time, then someone who's hit it big fast and has less publishing experience overall than myself. Since I'm in this for the long-haul, I'd rather take information from people who have actually been in this for the long haul. Someone like me who's been publishing for 3 years (4? I forget) is nothing compared to someone who has been doing it for 30+ years and is still changing and adapting as times change. I'd like to listen to a person like that.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

This is pure speculation on my part—wonder if the genre influences price. I'm happy at the $2.99 price point for my YA series. But I have a longer adult historical and am thinking of starting at a higher price point. I've heard people pay more, and expect to, for historicals. I've heard that 6.99 is considered a "sale" price, so I was thinking of putting it at 9.99 for a day, then lowering it to 6.99 as a strategy.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Smith is using commodity based pricing where words are sold like bushels of corn or barrels of oil. Bundle them into a contract and attach fixed price from Schedule-A. This system would see a price change in every book as price per word varies over time.

It works just fine for fungible goods like bushels of corn or barrels of oil because the commodity has to meet certain specifications. Each bushel is like all others. A barrel of Brent crude is just like every other barrel of Brent. We price all kinds of things like this. Consumers don't care which bushel they get. They don't care which specific barrel of Brent they get.

Unfortunately, consumers place different values on the words of different authors. Because of this, different authors will maximize revenue at different price points. One author may max at $2. Another may max at $3 for the same number of words. 

Using a standard price schedule results one group of authors taking less than the available maximum revenue while some other group maximizes its revenue.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> This is pure speculation on my part-wonder if the genre influences price. I'm happy at the $2.99 price point for my YA series. But I have a longer adult historical and am thinking of starting at a higher price point. I've heard people pay more, and expect to, for historicals. I've heard that 6.99 is considered a "sale" price, so I was thinking of putting it at 9.99 for a day, then lowering it to 6.99 as a strategy.


I really, really distrust cheap historical fiction. There. I said it. I picked up JR Tomlin's epic when it first came out because she had it free on Smashwords while she was working out the issues with it. Normally, I'd never do that but I knew her and she let people know it was OK to pick it up while she was working out the issues she was having with...whatever it was.

I won't even look at cheap historical non-fiction unless it's just sample stuff. I've happily paid $5 for 20 pages of fashion slides because that $5 saved me 2-3 hours of research and I cost a lot more than $5/hr.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

lisamaliga said:


> I take a bit of a more modified approach to pricing. I only charge 0.99 for a novelette [9100 words]. But for my 100,000 word novel I feel it's reasonably priced at $3.99.


I feel the same to some extent. The first book in my series is 92,000 words and I have it priced at $2.99. However, I have sold it at 99 cents and did well with it, but that was last summer and it had come off being free. Before that, sales were starting to stall at 99 cents and I was going to go back to $2.99, (original price) but it went free before I could. After that, sales were so fantastic at 99 cents, I wasn't about to mess with it. In September, I raised it back to $2.99. I felt that was fair and it remains that price now (except for a few weeks on sale around Thanksgiving that didn't do much to increase sales).

My second book is about 87,000 words and the sequel to the first book. I priced that initially at $2.99, but raised it to $3.99 when Select came about. I thought it would help increase borrows, but strangely, my first book has about 4x as many borrows. My sales of the second book have remained at about the same pace as they were at $2.99, so I'm going to leave it there and when the third book comes out in a few weeks, I'll price that at $3.99 as well. It is also around 87k.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2012)

Courtney Milan said:


> I'm not trying to be mean here. I recognize that Dean Wesley Smith says smart things from time to time.
> 
> But he has also said that he wouldn't be able to make a living if he relied solely on his indie works. Of the books that he has advertised on his site, none of them are in the top...100,000.


Dean also is not dependent on Amazon alone. His ebooks are on a lot of other sites. He doesn't price his books for the Amazon Kindle market. He prices his books for a wider market and lets people buy where they want. It is a different marketing mentality than the Amazon-only crowd, which IS very price sensitive.

If Amazon is your only market, then you have to play the price game because Amazon readers won't find you otherwise. But if you are marketing "offsite" to the wider reading universe, you don't need to play the price game as much.

I also suspect Dean's idea of "making a living" is a bit higher than most folks. Heck, I have a friend whose idea of "making a living" wouldn't cover my monthly mortgage, let alone all of my living expenses. So context matters.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2012)

When I see an author who has, say 7 books, with 7 different prices, then I'm reminded of a story about retail stores.

The manager of the men's department in a large store noticed that he was displaying a lot of great neckties, but no one was buying. He noticed several men would go through the ties, shrug their shoulders and walk off.

Finally the manager noticed the price tags. There were 10 different prices.

He displayed the ties on three racks, setting one price for ho-hum ties, a higher price for good looking ties, and the top price for the designer ties.

The ties started selling again.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Dean also is not dependent on Amazon alone. His ebooks are on a lot of other sites. He doesn't price his books for the Amazon Kindle market. He prices his books for a wider market and lets people buy where they want. It is a different marketing mentality than the Amazon-only crowd, which IS very price sensitive.
> 
> If Amazon is your only market, then you have to play the price game because Amazon readers won't find you otherwise. But if you are marketing "offsite" to the wider reading universe, you don't need to play the price game as much.
> 
> I also suspect Dean's idea of "making a living" is a bit higher than most folks. Heck, I have a friend whose idea of "making a living" wouldn't cover my monthly mortgage, let alone all of my living expenses. So context matters.


Dean's provided enough info to make a sort of ballpark guess. About 50% of his sales are Amazon. He's got about 100 titles under the DWS name and public pseudonyms. He says he averages about 5 copies of each a month of each product across ALL platforms. About 20-25% of those titles are in the $2.99-4.99 range with the remainder being short fiction at 99 cents. When you mathify all that you get in the range of 1500 bucks a month or so on the DWS self-pub brand and that could be on the high side given he tends to talk about his and Kris's work combined and a lot of the better rankings occur under her name. That sort of jives with his comment that he'd be "going broke" if he depended on his self-pub brand alone.

Another interesting note is he doesn't appear to be revising his prices to account for his own new "best practices" post. I expect we'll see him just continue to move forward and price new material based on his new decision.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

He says in the comments not for people to go back and reprice things, but rather ponder going forward.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

David Wisehart said:


> My debut novel sells pretty well at $7.99.
> 
> December 2011: 976 sold
> January 2012: 945 sold
> ...


David Wisehart is probably the best illustration as to why DWS is correct on this issue. I follow David and Dean's blog and neither one are approaching their pricing strategies with breaking into the top 100 as an end goal. They're looking to sell at a consistant rate at a higher price range which leads to less fluctuation. I commend David for being brave enough to test his pricing strategy publically, as I'd be willing to pay 100 to 1 that a lot of well-intentioned authors encoraged him to lower his price. I'm glad that he didn't and I'm glad that worked for him.

Watching David's results has proven to me that you don't have to price your work in the basement to make sales and to make money. If I had a choice between selling 100 downloads of a book per day at 99 cents and 10 copies per day at $7.99, I'd choose to sell 10 copies a day at $7.99 because I'd be making at least $50 per day as opposed to $35 after 100 sales per day.

Thanks Dave!


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

For me, it isn't so much the $ but rather the loyalty. Bargain hunters aren't known, as a group, as being loyal.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> For me, it isn't so much the $ but rather the loyalty. Bargain hunters aren't known, as a group, as being loyal.


I never looked at it that way, but now that you mentioned it, this is very much true. I'd even be willing to wager that the majority of the people who purchased a John Locke book didn't read it right away and didn't make a repeat purchase, even when accounting his loyal readers. And its not because of the "quality" of his books either --I enjoy John Locke's work and believe that he sells himself too cheaply, but then again, he's not in it for the money.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Now, I'm talking generalizations and not specifics. I have some very loyal readers who are in dire economic straits. Choosing my books is choosing to not have bread for their kids. I send them a free copy. In exchange, they review, tweet, and promote for me (assuming they like it). Those aren't bargain hunters because they love a bargain; those are folks who can't afford to feed their kids.

However, I'm talking about the average bargain hunter. The person who can afford it but don't want to. There are plenty of retail studies on bargain shoppers. They generally are only loyal to the cheapest price. There is a great market for them. Lots of people have made lots of money from them.

I am not that person. I don't understand those kinds of people, I don't understand how to offer a product for them. So, I focus on the group that I understand and can relate to.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Under what price does bargain hunting start?
Over what price does loyalty begin to rise?

B.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> Under what price does bargain hunting start?
> Over what price does loyalty begin to rise?
> 
> B.


From my retail days, it was a couple of things.

First, there is the crowd that only buy sale items, so we had to make sure there were always "sale" items...even if these were never actually on sale. It was their regular price - always with a sale sign.

Second, there is a crowd that will not buy anything over $5 that exists cheaper somewhere else. They will drive halfways across a city to save a dollar.

Third, there is a crowd that will not buy anything over $1 if it's available at the dollar store.

I remember in the sales course from when i did cell phone support that there are also bargain impulse buyers. They'll buy anything under $5 if you put it on sale or in a bundle or a combo package.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Now, I'm talking generalizations and not specifics. I have some very loyal readers who are in dire economic straits. Choosing my books is choosing to not have bread for their kids. I send them a free copy. In exchange, they review, tweet, and promote for me (assuming they like it). Those aren't bargain hunters because they love a bargain; those are folks who can't afford to feed their kids.
> 
> However, I'm talking about the average bargain hunter. The person who can afford it but don't want to. There are plenty of retail studies on bargain shoppers. They generally are only loyal to the cheapest price. There is a great market for them. Lots of people have made lots of money from them.
> 
> I am not that person. I don't understand those kinds of people, I don't understand how to offer a product for them. So, I focus on the group that I understand and can relate to.


I agree with you on this too. Furthermore, the people who buy at higher price points never complain about the word count being to low to justify the price. I also find bargain hunters to be almost impossible to satisfy.

Then again, I'm biased on the price issue. The 99 cent price point devalues the perception of the author and his/her work and I can envision the bargain hunter snickering even when they decide to "give this poor author a chance." I love telling stories, but I'm want to make a decent income writing someday and the 99 cent price point doesn't provide a sustainable income unless you have 10 titles selling 100 copies a day each, which is hard to do given the varience of book sales so 99 cents isn't right for me.

One more thing, authors need to do their own pricing experiments before dismissing the DWS price chart as incorrect and invalid for a new author to follow. Until you've actually tried his price chart who are you to say whether or not it would work? I say this while acknowledging the authors who commented and mentioned their own price experiments and concluded that this doesn't work for them --they have an educated perspective on this. On the other hand, some of you are just dismissing DWS on the basis regurgitated indie pricing theory that has been commonly passed around and accepted as gospel without testing the prices for their own books. Experiment for yourselves


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

This is what annoys me. KBers say "no one will pay $4.99 for an unknown author's novel"*. 

I counter: My publisher set my debut novel at $4.99 and it's selling everywhere (except friggin' Amazon, but that's besides the point). What about NY6 publishers? They put out debut authors at $9.99-19.99 all of the time.

KBers counter: That's publishers who can promote the book.

I counter: Why won't you go with a publisher?

KBers counter: Why should I? A publisher doesn't do anything for you. I'd still have to market and it isn't like publishers have editors anymore.

I counter: Then why not put your book at $8.99?

KBers counter: No one will pay that for an unknown author.

Conclusion: People make up stuff as they go along.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_" On the other hand, some of you are just dismissing DWS on the basis regurgitated indie pricing theory that has been commonly passed around and accepted as gospel without testing the prices for their own books."_

My default position is to dismiss any pricing theory unless I have reason to accept it.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

As a relative noob, I've approached my pricing with a fairly simple formula, pricing my sub-novel-length works at roughly $0.99 per 10,000 words. Since my shorts tend to be 10-20K, I'm comfortably in the $0.99-1.99 range. Collections are "bargain" priced ("buy 5, het 2-3 free") at $4.99 for 85-90K words. It seems to work. I plan on pubbing a novel-length work this spring, and haven't figured the pricing on it yet, but the $7.99-8.99 range DWS gives feels a bit high.

I do think the 99-cent price point comes with a strong negative association, but I just can't justify going higher. Maybe for later works. We'll see.

As far as DWS, I take what he says with a lot of salt. He and his wife create a lot of buzz (and therefore attention to their stories) by stirring the pot.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> This is what annoys me. KBers say "no one will pay $4.99 for an unknown author's novel"*.
> 
> I counter: My publisher set my debut novel at $4.99 and it's selling everywhere (except friggin' Amazon, but that's besides the point). What about NY6 publishers? They put out debut authors at $9.99-19.99 all of the time.
> 
> ...


 - Fist bump on that


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

undeadwriter said:


> As far as DWS, I take what he says with a lot of salt. He and his wife create a lot of buzz (and therefore attention to their stories) by stirring the pot.


So they only make buzz by stirring the pot? Not by their extensive lists, extensive experience, extensive books, extensive awards? Kristine's short fiction alone is considered amongst the top crust of the genre. How do I know this? Her fiction has been awarded top crust awards in her genre.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

I just learned something very important about ebook pricing in the US vs Canada. It's cheaper to buy an ebook than the mass media here because the American publishers are putting the US mass media price on the Canadian ebooks! I was wondering why everyone is making such a fuss about this...cause all of the books I buy are a couple dollars cheaper than the paperback. Also, I buy nearly everything that's Big Pub from Kobo. That's why!

Shooooooooosh Don't tell them anything.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

undeadwriter said:


> As far as DWS, I take what he says with a lot of salt. He and his wife create a lot of buzz (and therefore attention to their stories) by stirring the pot.


When was the last time you bought a book on the basis of buzz and controversy?

Speaking for myself, I've never bought a book based on someone stirring the pot and generating a buzz. They sell books because they've written a ton and are good at what they do, not because they made a bunch of writers angry.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

Krista D. Ball said:


> So they only make buzz by stirring the pot? Not by their extensive lists, extensive experience, extensive books, extensive awards? Kristine's short fiction alone is considered amongst the top crust of the genre. How do I know this? Her fiction has been awarded top crust awards in her genre.


I think they both have a lot of interesting things to say about traditional publishing, agents, and contracts. When it comes to indie publishing, I think they are in the same boat we are, learning as we go, so I weigh their comments on that subject with the same weight I give to comments on these boards.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Krista D. Ball said:


> So they only  make buzz by stirring the pot? Not by their extensive lists, extensive experience, extensive books, extensive awards? Kristine's short fiction alone is considered amongst the top crust of the genre. How do I know this? Her fiction has been awarded top crust awards in her genre.


Note the conspicuous *absence * of the word "only" in my post. I said they create a lot of buzz, which they do, by stirring the pot. It's certainly not the only way they create buzz. In order for a reader to buy a book, s/he first has to be aware of it. Kris and Dean drive a lot of new traffic to their sites by blogging things that generate excitement (of both kinds).

Note, also, the absence of any other exclusionary language in my post. I'm aware of their lists and their talents. I made no judgment about them.



GlennGamble said:


> When was the last time you bought a book on the basis of buzz and controversy?
> 
> Speaking for myself, I've never bought a book based on someone stirring the pot and generating a buzz. They sell books because they've written a ton and are good at what they do, not because they made a bunch of writers angry.


Last time I checked, "stirring the pot" didn't just mean making writers angry. And, yes, I've bought books based on buzz and controversy. You may not have. So what?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"When was the last time you bought a book on the basis of buzz and controversy? "_

DaVinci Code - Dan Brown 2002(?)
Forgotten Man - Amity Shales 2008
Rehabilitating Lochner - David Bernstein 2011
Coming Apart: State of White America - Charles Murray 2012

The above is a sampling. There are others.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> For me, it isn't so much the $ but rather the loyalty. Bargain hunters aren't known, as a group, as being loyal.


This!


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> For me, it isn't so much the $ but rather the loyalty. Bargain hunters aren't known, as a group, as being loyal.


I think that's an excellent point.

I also think that if you put a reasonable price on your stories, then people will read the blurb and probably the sample/reviews first before they buy. They'll know what they're getting when they download your book. That might lead to fewer buyers, but it will hopefully lead to happier readers.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> This is what annoys me. KBers say "no one will pay $4.99 for an unknown author's novel"*.
> 
> I counter: My publisher set my debut novel at $4.99 and it's selling everywhere (except friggin' Amazon, but that's besides the point). What about NY6 publishers? They put out debut authors at $9.99-19.99 all of the time.
> 
> ...


This is where I was going with my "What's an unknown author" question.

But I didn't have the energy. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

James Patterson was an unknown author to me until I started reading as a hobby 5 years ago.  In fact, go to any coffee shop or bookstore and ask the average individual "have you heard of John Locke, Amanda Hocking, JA Konrath?" Or any indie bestseller for that matter.  Most have not, yet they have sold a ton of books being "unknown."  Will people pay $2.99 for a short story by an "unknown author?"  Considering that thousands of people pay more than 12 bucks for unknown trad. pubbed authors and indie authors that I've never heard of my answer is yes.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Zelah Meyer said:


> I think that's an excellent point.
> 
> I also think that if you put a reasonable price on your stories, then people will read the blurb and probably the sample/reviews first before they buy. They'll know what they're getting when they download your book. That might lead to fewer buyers, but it will hopefully lead to happier readers.


To steal a Julie statement, I'd love a Burberry purse. This one:










It's $1350. I don't think that is a reasonable price, not ever. I mean, that's just a purse, people! Yet, I have a coworker who owns a Burberry purse (and Jimmy Choo shoes). Why? To her, it's has value to have those things. For me? I'd rather make an extra mortgage payment.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> _"When was the last time you bought a book on the basis of buzz and controversy? "_
> 
> DaVinci Code - Dan Brown 2002(?)
> Forgotten Man - Amity Shales 2008
> ...


You left off the latest GRRM book


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Thanks for putting it so succinctly.


Anytime. Sometimes, it's important to show the circular thought processes that go on around here.

Look, price your book how you want. Use some thought behind it. Don't just assume the new author thing - that one drives me up the wall.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> _" On the other hand, some of you are just dismissing DWS on the basis regurgitated indie pricing theory that has been commonly passed around and accepted as gospel without testing the prices for their own books."_
> 
> My default position is to dismiss any pricing theory unless I have reason to accept it.


Exactly. DWS has provided relatively little evidence to support his position on pricing. He doesn't even price a number of his books this way, so it's not even based on specific experience. That said, he could be right.

Since conclusive hard evidence doesn't exist, we're looking for whatever evidence we can find. Dave W and others have had success at higher prices. A lot of us have done very well at $2.99 or $3.99. Some people have done awesome at 99 cents. We can look at the reasons why these might have occurred and perhaps argue over what someone "would have" sold if they were priced higher or lower.

But for me at least, someone's long experience in publishing - or lack thereof - has little or no impact on how I interpret what they say. It really should make no difference whether Dean and Kris stir things up just to generate controversy or whether they have loads of business experience that they are applying effectively in evaluating the situation. The truth will be evident in looking at their words, regardless of who they are. Even wise men are foolish from time to time.


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## samanthawarren (May 1, 2011)

I try to stay out of ebook price arguments usually, and I've already made a blog post about this for later, but I wanted to chime in anyway. I'm sure many will disagree with my opinion, but that's okay. 

I don't like DWS's price plan at all. It's overly complicated and charges way too much for a small number of words. "But our work is worth it." Yes, our work is worth a lot. But as indies, we already make a lot more than traditionally published authors do anyway (royalty-wise). While they're making $1.20 on a $7.99 book, were making $2 off a $2.99 book (assuming we go through Amazon). Yes, there are other markets, but we typically make more than the average tradpub author regardless of the market. That is what allows us to keep our book prices low. And I'm happy keeping my books priced under $5 for a <100,000-word book. The lower prices encourage people to not only buy the books, but it encourages them to read in general. With the increased availability of reading apps/devices, I've seen several non-readers start to read, and they're actually enjoying it. They can't afford books that are $8-$12 a pop, but they love the ones under $5. Maybe you call them "cheap" or "bargain hunters" but I've been in their shoes. I still am for the most part. $8 on a book is a lot when you don't have a lot of money, but $3 or even $5 is manageable. I'm more likely to buy a book at that price. Over that, I'll go look at the library first. I've heard a lot of people argue that if a book is good, the cost doesn't matter. But money DOES matter for a lot of people. I'll keep my books affordable so everyone can read them.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

samanthawarren said:


> While they're making $1.20 on a $7.99 book, were making $2 off a $2.99 book (assuming we go through Amazon).


I make a lot more than $1.20 on my trad stuff. Do you people just make up stuff as you go along?


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I make a lot more than $1.20 on my trad stuff. Do you people just make up stuff as you go along?


Dean's other half has posted that she makes somewhere between 10 and 15% of gross on her ebook sales through tradpub. Other authors and agents have posted about a standard among the Big 6 of 25% of net, which winds up being about that amount or slightly higher depending on how the contracts define net and whether publishers are getting 70% from the retailer or more or less

I have no doubt that some authors make more - perhaps you're one of them. But the commenter referred to $1.20 on a $7.99 book (and ebooks are specifically what we're talking about), and that is right in line with the standard. Not universally true, but a long way from made up.


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## samanthawarren (May 1, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I make a lot more than $1.20 on my trad stuff. Do you people just make up stuff as you go along?


As Edward pointed out, I used the standard of 15% that I've seen quoted by many traditionally published authors, so no, I don't just make stuff up as I go along, but thanks for asking.


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## WilliamKing.me (Jul 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I make a lot more than $1.20 on my trad stuff. Do you people just make up stuff as you go along?


Somebody's paying you a lot more than a 15% royalty on a mass market paperback, Krista? Where do I sign up? In 25 years in the business I have never seen that .

All the best,

Bill


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

It might be noted here that a traditional publisher pays an advance and takes on all the risks. They are the ones out thousands if the book doesn't sell or sells poorly. Most writers I know who publish traditionally don't count on royalties at all (they are a nice bonus if they show up).  Getting a 10k or 50k or 100k advance you don't ever have to pay back is nice.  Not that I want to start a discussion here about "unknown" authors not getting advances that high, heh.  I know plenty of new writers who got 20k+ per book for their first deals.

Everyone has to make their own pricing decisions, obviously, but I think it is good to put some serious thought and try different price points out (and leave them alone for a few months, not days) before making any hard and fast decisions about this stuff.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

WilliamKing.me said:


> Somebody's paying you a lot more than a 15% royalty on a mass market paperback, Krista? Where do I sign up? In 25 years in the business I have never seen that .


Oh I didn't say that  (Though I make more than that on trade paperback...I think most people do). She was referring to the typical big publisher boilerplate of 10-15% on ebooks. I made a darn tooting more than that, as do I know a number of authors.

Guys look...you're writers. Can you please at least be specific when you write? i.e. When you do math, state where exactly you are getting your figures (i.e. Using the NY6 reported rate of 15% -- which out of the 15ish RL friends and acquaintance I have w/ giant publishers, all make more than that).


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

samanthawarren said:


> As Edward pointed out, I used the standard of 15% that I've seen quoted by *many traditionally published authors*, so no, I don't just make stuff up as I go along, but thanks for asking.


At the rest of beating a very dead horse, you are quoting big NY6 contract terms. Very large difference from "traditionally published authors."

I just ask that people be clear when giving out data points like this. After all, this is how internet rumours start.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Doomed Muse said:


> Not that I want to start a discussion here about "unknown" authors not getting advances that high, heh. I know plenty of new writers who got 20k+ per book for their first deals.


I know 2 IRL (not pretend people on the interwebz) who got lower-range 5 digit advances this year on a) one her 3rd novel, first big NY contract and b) his 2nd novel, 2nd big NY contract.



> Everyone has to make their own pricing decisions, obviously, but I think it is good to put some serious thought and try different price points out (and leave them alone for a few months, not days) before making any hard and fast decisions about this stuff.


Yup. Someone earlier said she wants everyone to be able to afford her book. Ok. That's the kind of seller she wants to be. Great. There was actually some thought put into that decision. Julie doesn't price for that group at all. She prices for the horror/gaming group, who will pay a higher price for exactly what they are looking for.

I love it when I see people think about the business side and make decisions based on solid facts (i.e. the kind of seller they want to be, who they want to target, etc) as opposed to "um, everyone else is doing this, so I guess I should, too."

And DWS does say to try out things, figure out what works best, etc. I think the Doomed one has great advice above -- leave it alone for a few months, not days.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Courtney Milan said:


> I'm not trying to be mean here. I recognize that Dean Wesley Smith says smart things from time to time.
> 
> But he has also said that he wouldn't be able to make a living if he relied solely on his indie works. Of the books that he has advertised on his site, none of them are in the top...100,000.
> 
> ...


Agreed. These price suggestions are nuts. Wishful thinking. I want to sell tens of thousands of cheap books a month, not hundreds of expensive ones.

I hope traditional presses keep pricing themselves out of this game. Their silliness has been my opportunity.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Agreed. These price suggestions are nuts. Wishful thinking. I want to sell tens of thousands of cheap books a month, not hundreds of expensive ones.


Can you explain why? I'm just being nosy and honest aren't doing it to harass you later. I really am interested (since I just said I like it when people have a plan). I want to hear about your plan - I think that information helps people more than anything.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Can you explain why? I'm just being nosy and honest aren't doing it to harass you later. I really am interested (since I just said I like it when people have a plan). I want to hear about your plan - I think that information helps people more than anything.


I'm interested as well. I don't think DWS made much of a compelling case for his specific numbers, but that doesn't mean they're nuts. Indie authors with little or no following have shown they can command between $5 and $10 for ebooks. Many of us can't/haven't, but it's just as easy to blindly dismiss those as luck as it is to insist that everyone should charge higher.

As Krista says, a plan and/or a reason for choosing specific prices is the most valuable piece of information to share. $2.99 to $3.99 is working for me, so I don't have immediate plans to change. My plan is to keep doing what has been working. But the way I arrived here was by trying things. I do wonder if my bestselling book might sell almost as many copies at $7.99 as at $3.99. At some point, I almost certainly will try higher, when I feel that I'm willing to accept the risks. Probably when I have another book or two out, but possibly sooner if circumstances warrant (for example if a book gets featured somewhere and climbs the charts quickly - my current plan does not rely on such a thing of course, but it would be a concrete thing that might cause me to make adjustments).


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

genevieveaclark said:


> Has no one said it's odd that considerations about genre (or anything else beyond word count) are absent from that reasoning? Or specific goals? Or strategy? I think DWS's - or anyone's - pricing strategy should be their own, but I'm not sure equating word count with price constitutes a strategy, so much as a blind rule.
> 
> Or did Krista just say it so far up thread that I've forgotten?


There are certain things Krista always said. Genre considerations is one of them 

There is one good thing about DWS's post. It got people talking about pricing and not in a sad "woe is me" tone.


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## jabeard (Apr 22, 2011)

This entire conversation has made me feel a lot better about my eventual plan to price my historical fiction release later this year,

Sure, I know we shouldn't price based on "what we feel it's worth" and all that, but I'm practically putting a Master's thesis level of research into the thing, and it just feels like I should price it a bit higher.  Maybe a year from now, I'll be back on KB espousing the glories of .99 cent HF after selling only a copy to my wife. 

Though I can't say that I really share the suspicion of low-priced historical fiction, but I've heard several HF authors talk about selling better once they raised their prices, so it might be a lot more common than I realize.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Setting a price based entirely on length seems, to me, to be based on the assumption that length = value _for the reader_. I don't believe that's true, by any means. Admittedly, it's hard if not impossible to measure value, but it must be possible to make some sort of relative value judgment, if we're honest with ourselves. (If we're being dishonest, well, make the first book $whatever.99, and then just go up $1 every subsequent book - $2 if you're a slow writer - because "clearly this is the best thing I've ever written, yet!"...) You know, "I'm going to price this at $3.99, because it hopefully raises thought-provoking questions about a matter of current social relevance, and stuff" or "This one's going to be $1.99, because epileptic zombie cattle, while hilarious, have been done a thousand times before, and this is just unapologetic comedic fluff, soon to be forgotten"...


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

jabeard said:


> Though I can't say that I really share the suspicion of low-priced historical fiction, but I've heard several HF authors talk about selling better once they raised their prices, so it might be a lot more common than I realize.


I'm just being honest. Perhaps it's because I come into the discussion with one degree in history, and plan to get #2 once I kick the kids out of the house. Plus, I have kept up my research.

So, when I look at the work that I would be putting into an historical (if I wrote one...which yes yes I know I should, shut up I'm busy, stop nagging you're all worse than my mother, I'm doing the non-fiction book what more do you people want from me), 99 cents would NOT be even a price I could consider (outside of promotion).

Snobby? Probably. Honest? Absolutely.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Under one scheme:

Price is a tactic that supports a strategy. 
One must have a strategy before deploying a price in support of the strategy.
Word count is a characteristic of a book. 
Word count is not a strategy.
Word count may be a tactic in support of a strategy.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Word count may be a tactic in support of a strategy.


Very important!


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Can you explain why? I'm just being nosy and honest aren't doing it to harass you later. I really am interested (since I just said I like it when people have a plan). I want to hear about your plan - I think that information helps people more than anything.


I think it involves selling godzillions of copies of _Wool_ at 0.99, gathering up a rabid following, then selling godzillions of copies of Wool 2, and then selling godzillions of copies of Wool 3...and then unleashing the Kraken. Of course, this plan hinges on writing one of my wife's favorite reads in the past few months. But, alas, I fear my wife may not be the most loyal of readers as she only had to pay 0.99 per volume. She doesn't even remember Hugh's first name-and she has only asked if Hugh has any other books out three times rather than four. : /

I understand wanting to generate a loyal fan base, but I just don't get this pricing-loyalty continuum. Loyalty is generated by writing good stories, nothing more, nothing less. I price where I do because I'd like to make a decent amount of money while still providing my readers a good value.

B.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I think it involves selling godzillions of copies of _Wool_ at 0.99, gathering up a rabid following, then selling godzillions of copies of Wool 2, and then selling godzillions of copies of Wool 3...and then unleashing the Kraken.


Ah, but, see, I'm pretty sure Krista doesn't know anyone IRL who has a Kraken, so I don't think that argument is acceptable in this thread.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

George Berger said:


> Ah, but, see, I'm pretty sure Krista doesn't know anyone IRL who has a Kraken, so I don't think that argument is acceptable in this thread.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

George Berger said:


> Ah, but, see, I'm pretty sure Krista doesn't know anyone IRL who has a Kraken, so I don't think that argument is acceptable in this thread.


I would actually venture a guess that Krista, herself, owns a Kraken.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

George Berger said:


> Ah, but, see, I'm pretty sure Krista doesn't know anyone IRL who has a Kraken, so I don't think that argument is acceptable in this thread.


What, you haven't heard? Amazon puts a Kraken button on your KDP dashboard after you reach 100K paid sales.








B.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I understand wanting to generate a loyal fan base, but I just don't get this pricing-loyalty continuum. Loyalty is generated by writing good stories, nothing more, nothing less. I price where I do because I'd like to make a decent amount of money while still providing my readers a good value.


Except that there's a pretty good chance that a lot of books sold for 99 cents never get read, maybe more than don't get read when they are purchased at higher prices. No one can say for sure what percentage of books that's true for - is it 5 percent of them or 75% of them? That is one of the factors people are considering when they suggest there is a relationship between pricing and loyalty.

Another likely issue is that sales/marketing strategists have known for a long time that different types of customers have different behavior, and in most retail environments, there is a group of customers whose primary driver is price. This group historically shows less loyalty to brands. Does this apply to ebooks? It may or may not, especially given that books are not as much a commodity as many other retail items. But it would be foolish to dismiss it out of hand given the anecdotal evidence that it is a substantially different group of buyers purchasing 99 cent books than $4.99 or $9.99 books.

So while it's not unreasonable to believe that there isn't much correlation between loyalty and pricing, there certainly are reasonable arguments to support the opposite contention as well.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> I would actually venture a guess that Krista, herself, owns a Kraken.


There is a rumour that I am the Kraken. Vicious rumour, spread by my enemies.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> What, you haven't heard? Amazon puts a Kraken button on your KDP dashboard after you reach 100K paid sales.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah, no, I didn't know that. I'm not even close to 1K paid sales, alas.

_--George, so, wait, tell me more about this KDP (Kraken Deployment Plan) Select thing..._


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## jabeard (Apr 22, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> There is a rumour that I am the Kraken. Vicious rumour, spread by my enemies.


RELEASE THE KRISTA!


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

edwardgtalbot said:


> So while it's not unreasonable to believe that there isn't much correlation between loyalty and pricing, there certainly are reasonable arguments to support the opposite contention as well.


And let's be clear. Plenty of companies have made a fortune selling to bargain shoppers. Walmart, Dollar Stores, Tim Hortons, McDonald's. There's no doubt there is a market for these kinds of companies, just like there is a need for Starbucks, Second Cup, and Burberry.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

George Berger said:


> Setting a price based entirely on length seems, to me, to be based on the assumption that length = value _for the reader_. I don't believe that's true, by any means. Admittedly, it's hard if not impossible to measure value, but it must be possible to make some sort of relative value judgment, if we're honest with ourselves. (If we're being dishonest, well, make the first book $whatever.99, and then just go up $1 every subsequent book - $2 if you're a slow writer - because "clearly this is the best thing I've ever written, yet!"...) You know, "I'm going to price this at $3.99, because it hopefully raises thought-provoking questions about a matter of current social relevance, and stuff" or "This one's going to be $1.99, because epileptic zombie cattle, while hilarious, have been done a thousand times before, and this is just unapologetic comedic fluff, soon to be forgotten"...


Hmm. In the absence of quantitative metrics (and self-evaluative judgments are, well, questionable at best), it seems word length provides a good first assumption for developing a pricing strategy. As I've said, I start with a buck/10K word approach when setting a new title's price point. That's an _a priori _ assumption that may change depending on a particular title's performance. For unknown authors (such as myself) who can't price based on brand-recognition, readership may be the most important factor in deciding price, even overriding revenue. Thus the bargain basement pricing. Whether or not the overcrowded 99-cent price point is associated with dross, it may be the only reasonable price point for a particular title. It's an unfortunate consequence of the times. Higher prices are also no guarantee of quality.

Bottom line, as stated by others, is that pricing needs to be decided for and by each author for his/her own titles, and one's strategy should become more sophisticated with time and experience. The worst strategy is the absence of one. Beyond that, who's to say what's best? Anyone who claims there are "rules," whether they're DWS or Shatzkin or anyone else, is just blowing smoke.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

undeadwriter said:


> For unknown authors (such as myself) who can't price based on brand-recognition, readership may be the most important factor in deciding price, even overriding revenue. Thus the bargain basement pricing.


A puppy just died.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Can you explain why? I'm just being nosy and honest aren't doing it to harass you later. I really am interested (since I just said I like it when people have a plan). I want to hear about your plan - I think that information helps people more than anything.


Why do I think those prices are nuts? Because I have readers complaining that 12,000 words is too short for 99 cents. They say they love the book, brilliantly written, awesome-awesome, but they feel cheated because it was over after less than an hour of reading. I can't imagine charging $3.49 for the same length work. I'd be stoned to death.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Why do I think those prices are nuts? Because I have readers complaining that 12,000 words is too short for 99 cents. They say they love the book, brilliantly written, awesome-awesome, but they feel cheated because it was over after less than an hour of reading. I can't imagine charging $3.49 for the same length work. I'd be stoned to death.


I have a novella at $2.99 for 12k. No one has complained or attempted to stone me.

What genre? Is it labelled correctly? Also, "too short" doesn't always mean a reflection about the price, but rather a commentary on having wanted the book to keep on going because they were engrossed (I've had people wish my 50k novel was twice as long...they were happy to pay the $4.99; they just wanted to keep reading their favourite characters).


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I have a novella at $2.99 for 12k. No one has complained or attempted to stone me.


And this relates to Hugh's sitch how?


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

undeadwriter said:


> And this relates to Hugh's sitch how?


To show that different approaches work for different people and different genres. It's important to talk about these things, as opposed to just regurgitating yesterday's kindleboard posts.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Hey now, I only drown puppies with regurgitated posts that still have some nutritional value.


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## Kevis Hendrickson (Feb 28, 2009)

Krista D. Ball said:


> To show that different approaches work for different people and different genres. It's important to talk about these things, as opposed to just regurgitating yesterday's kindleboard posts.


Gotta tip my hat to you for attempting to wave the battle flag of reason when it's so much easier to just regurgitate yesterday's kindleboard post.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson said:


> Gotta tip my hat to you for attempting to wave the battle flag of reason when it's so much easier to just regurgitate yesterday's kindleboard post.


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## Gregory Lynn (Aug 9, 2011)

Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson said:


> Gotta tip my hat to you for attempting to wave the battle flag of reason when it's so much easier to just regurgitate yesterday's kindleboard post.


I dunno, regurgitating yesterday's kindleboard posts requires swallowing it first and that can be quite dicey at times.

This really should be pretty simple.

If you think there is one answer, you're wrong.

Think about what you have written. Think about who will like it. Think about where you want to be in one year, five years, ten years, and twenty years. Even if you're ninety, you never know, they may cure oldness next week.

Write the stuff you want to have written in one year, five years, ten years, and twenty years. If you can't, figure out why and figure out what you need to do to get to the point where you can.

Market your stuff to the kind of people you want in your following. Price your stuff appropriately.

Consider the realities.

Cheaper sells more copies but doesn't always generate more revenue, readers, or loyal fans. If it's priced like a throwaway it will be treated like a throwaway. Note that some of the people who read something they buy for a buck are going to love it and buy more stuff and become big fans. I bought the second and third books in Christopher Bunn's Tormay trilogy because I bought the first one for a buck and really liked it. Please note, I have not yet read the second and third books in Christopher Bunn's Tormay trilogy despite buying the first one for a buck and really liking it.

Books priced on the higher end are going to sell fewer copies and while they generate more revenue per copy there is no guarantee they will generate more revenue overall. They are more likely to be read but by a smaller audience so you may get fewer actual people reading your work. On the other hand they are more likely to like it because they paid more for it (I know it sounds stupid, doesn't matter, it's a real effect observed by actual science) and thus, presumably (though I have no actual science on this) are more likely to buy more stuff.

If I can stop producing words that resemble the pus oozing from the open sores on a syphilitic donkey and start producing words that actually work and convey meaning and tone and atmosphere and, oh yeah, a story that is worth the @#$%@#^@ time it takes to read it then I'm going to produce a novel and if its level of syphilitic donkey pus is low enough I'm going to publish that bad boy, price it at $2.99 and get my donkey working on the next one.

And you know what? Periodically I'm going to re-evaluate because that's what you do when you're running a business in times that are a changin'.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

George Berger said:


> Setting a price based entirely on length seems, to me, to be based on the assumption that length = value _for the reader_. I don't believe that's true, by any means.


Really? Would a reader typically be happy to pay the same price for *THE BEST SHORT STORY EVER WRITTEN* as they would for *THE BEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN*? Which has more value?


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

NathanWrann said:


> Really? Would a reader typically be happy to pay the same price for *THE BEST SHORT STORY EVER WRITTEN* as they would for *THE BEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN*? Which has more value?


Unfortunately, this value to a reader can't be predetermined by the author, not accurately anyway, nor can it even be determined by the consumer until after consumption. And while the author can set a single price, its value won't be so easily quantified or so narrowly defined.


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## Gregory Lynn (Aug 9, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Really? Would a reader typically be happy to pay the same price for *THE BEST SHORT STORY EVER WRITTEN* as they would for *THE BEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN*? Which has more value?


Really?

I mean really?

This is supposed to be a forum for writers nestled within a forum for readers. Is it that hard not to read more into what someone said than was actually said?

Nobody is talking about the best short story ever written and nobody is talking about the best novel ever written and the likelihood that any of us are going to produce either of them is only greater than zero by the width of a hair on the back of a flea.

The point was length is not the only measure of a story's value. For example, I would pay more for an Atlanta Burns short story by Chuck Wendig than I would for a novel by Terry Goodkind because I read Shotgun Gravy and loved it and stopped reading The Sword of Truth in the middle of the third book because I realized if every single one of the characters were drying in a grease fire right in front of me I'd reach for marshmallows to make s'mores.

The statement that there are other factors than length does not mean that length is not a factor.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Would a reader typically be happy to pay the same price for *THE BEST SHORT STORY EVER WRITTEN* as they would for *THE BEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN*? Which has more value?


Depends on whether or not you automatically assume that the short story is an _inherently inferior medium_ to the novel.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I'm a horror fan. If I found the best horror story ever and the best horror novel ever and both were priced at whatever (where whatever is a reasonable price like less than 10.00 or something, for me, personally)...

I'd buy both. That's kind of a duh. I'm a horror fan. Why wouldn't I want to read and enjoy both? Awesome is awesome.  I love both Robin Mckinley and Patricia Mckillip. If they both put out a book at the same time, I won't look to see which is cheaper, I'll buy both.  If I find a book that looks like one I like (right genre, good cover, interesting description, etc), that's a good thing. That book isn't competing with the other book, it's getting the benefit of me being a fan of books like that.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

A product has a bid and ask price. A sale takes place when BidPrice = AskPrice. Value doesn't matter in commerce. It matters in lots of other things.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> A product has a bid and ask price. A sale takes place when BidPrice = AskPrice. Value doesn't matter in commerce.


And how does a prole generate a BidPrice on a product, Captain Capitalism?


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

I saw in Dean's blog comments that he has said in the future he won't have anything priced under $2.99, so in a sense this discussion is moot, at least in terms of Dean's recommendations. I guess his new recommendation is to bundle and price everything at $2.99 and above.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Point by point:



Gregory Lynn said:


> This is supposed to be a forum for writers nestled within a forum for readers. Is it that hard not to read more into what someone said than was actually said?


As you said, this is a forum for writers, I expect the writers to be able to clearly communicate their intentions without me _reading more into it_



Gregory Lynn said:


> Nobody is talking about the best short story ever written and nobody is talking about the best novel ever written and the likelihood that any of us are going to produce either of them is only greater than zero by the width of a hair on the back of a flea.


I think you might be reading something into my statement that wasn't there. I didn't suggest that any of us here in the _writer's cafe_ were going to write either the best short story or novel ever written. What I was doing was comparing two things of equal quality.



Gregory Lynn said:


> The point was length is not the only measure of a story's value. For example, I would pay more for an Atlanta Burns short story by Chuck Wendig than I would for a novel by Terry Goodkind because I read Shotgun Gravy and loved it and stopped reading The Sword of Truth in the middle of the third book because I realized if every single one of the characters were drying in a grease fire right in front of me I'd reach for marshmallows to make s'mores.


You're comparing two dissimilar things. DWS's original blog post illustrates that *he* increases the cost of *his* books based on the length. A short story, novella and novel all written by DWS all have the same (or very similar) quality, the only difference being the length so that seems, to me, like a pretty good basis for increasing price. Now, of course, the base price for the smallest work has to be set, and by your anecdote above you seem to be suggesting (I don't want to read too much into it) that DWS (and other authors) should look around and somehow decide whether their work is better someone else's and use that as a starting point. Hypothetically speaking you're suggesting that an author should say: "My book is just as long and in the same genre as _Twilight_ but my characters are far more interesting that that wet blanket Bella and mope Edward therefore I will price my book higher." But who is to say which characters are more interesting or who is a better writer? The reader? Or maybe your anecdote is suggesting that Fans of an author's work should pay more than non-fans? I'm not sure. Maybe you're suggesting that we should adopt a "Pay What You Want" structure. And maybe we should have a tip jar so that people can pay more after they've determined if the characters are great.



Gregory Lynn said:


> The statement that there are other factors than length does not mean that length is not a factor.


And what other factors do you suggest we use for determining a price scale?


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Now, of course, the base price for the smallest work has to be set, and by your anecdote above you seem to be suggesting (I don't want to read too much into it) that DWS (and other authors) should look around and somehow decide whether their work is better someone else's and use that as a starting point.


Who said an author should decide whether their work is better than someone else's? How another writer prices their work is out of one's control.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for a writer to decide that a 20,000-word novella they wrote this year, after thirty years of professional experience, is worth more than their 80,000-word first novel that Signet accepted back in 1980. I think it's reasonable that a 20,000-word dieselpunk story be priced higher than a 20,000-word western story by the same author. (Krista's genre difference at work - there are a lot less dieselpunk stories than there are westerns, after all.) I think it's completely sensible that the triumphant and long-awaited 45,000-word conclusion to the Pastafazool Tetrology has more - or certainly no less! - value to its intended audience than the 120,000-word first volume. If their personal pricing strategy means that they price that 45,000-word book more or less or the same than someone else prices a book of any other length, what does it matter?



> A short story, novella and novel all written by DWS all have the same (or very similar) quality, the only difference being the length so that seems, to me, like a pretty good basis for increasing price.


Um, no. A short story, novella, and novel by DWS _may_ have comparable quality, but that's not a given, by any means. They most likely _will_ meet a minimum threshold of "quality", however you want to measure that. But you're conflating "quality" and length with value, and assuming that everything a writer produces over the course of their career is equally good.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

George Berger said:


> Who said an author should decide whether their work is better than someone else's? How another writer prices their work is out of one's control.


When an author (or publisher) sets a price, they are setting it based on what they believe readers are willing to pay for the work. Right? In Gregory Lynn's anecdote that I quoted, he, as a reader, says that he would pay more for author "A" than for author "B". So if author "B" is priced at .99 and author "A" is $5.99 he might buy author "B" at the lower price point, feeling that, despite the possibility of lousy characters, the lower price will still be worth it. So, is he suggesting that authors price their books compared to how they feel they fare against the competition?



George Berger said:


> I think it's reasonable that a 20,000-word dieselpunk story be priced higher than a 20,000-word western story by the same author. (Krista's genre difference at work - there are a lot less dieselpunk stories than there are westerns, after all.)


Why? Is this is a supply and demand comparison or a genre pricing culture comparison? I think "Krista's genre difference" is to take the genre's pricing culture into mind ("YA paranormal readers are not as willing to pay high prices as historical fiction readers." Is that because there are "more" YA paranormal books out there or because traditionally, authors have thought "I spent 5 years researching and writing this epic, there's no way I'm selling it for .99" and readers feel the higher price represents more time/research etc?)



George Berger said:


> Um, no. A short story, novella, and novel by DWS _may_ have comparable quality, but that's not a given, by any means. They most likely _will_ meet a minimum threshold of "quality", however you want to measure that. But you're conflating "quality" and length with *value*, and assuming that everything a writer produces over the course of their career is equally good.


I'm not sure that "value" is a good term to use in this discussion since a book's value (relative worth compared to the price paid) can only be determined _after_ it has been read, and by that point it's too late.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

George Berger said:


> Um, no. A short story, novella, and novel by DWS _may_ have comparable quality, but that's not a given, by any means. They most likely _will_ meet a minimum threshold of "quality", however you want to measure that.


That's exactly the point. All of the books that DWS releases (or any other author I would hope) whether written yesterday or 20 years ago meet that "minimum threshold of quality" of which his prices are based. sure, some are probably "better" than others or more appealing to some readers but in those cases, those readers are getting a deal.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I have a novella at $2.99 for 12k. No one has complained or attempted to stone me.
> 
> What genre? Is it labelled correctly? Also, "too short" doesn't always mean a reflection about the price, but rather a commentary on having wanted the book to keep on going because they were engrossed (I've had people wish my 50k novel was twice as long...they were happy to pay the $4.99; they just wanted to keep reading their favourite characters).


Science fiction. Yeah, it's labeled correctly. There's a "Note from the Author" that details the length and publishing history. And the page count shows up under the price.

As for our differing experiences, I'm assuming that the quality of your story is much higher than mine. If I paid $2.99 for a stellar short story, I would think it a bargain. I read a story yesterday for a buck that was worth three times that. Hopefully I'll be able to tighten up my prose to the point that I feel more comfortable charging more (and readers don't feel cheated reading what they get and leave negative reviews).

I agree with your follow-up comment, that different strategies work for different people. I also agree that these things are best discussed so we can all learn from them. And I suspect you're right. Genre probably matters. Cover art probably matters. Maybe people see the rubbish I pass off as my own cover art and expect a lot less value for their money?

I have no idea. All I know is some readers feel cheated at my current prices. Then again, some feel like they're ripping *me* off (I even get PayPal donations from this latter group after insisting my prices are too low). I wish I had all the answers, but I don't.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

SF is one of the premier genres that accepts novellas and novelettes, and short stories. They have a history of it.

However, I do note that there is nothing in your blurb about length. It is mentioned in the "editorial review" section (your note) which I didn't read the first two times I looked at your page.


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## Ursula_Bauer (Dec 12, 2010)

More than price goes into value of a book. Readership and cultural habits, for instance.

Here's what I find a very weird example, but fits I think.
My two urban fantasy novels, while in the same universe and linked, are very different.
The first is much more classic romance in an urban fantasy setting. It's around 70 - 80K words. (romance >50%, fantasy plot <50% of book)
The second (immortal protector) is closer to an urban fantasy w/romantic elements. It's around 100K. (Fantasy plot >50%, romance <50% and doesn't necessarily drive all story arcs)

There are three audiences: romance readers who like urban fantasy. Urban fantasy readers who tolerate romance. And the overlap, the reader who reads both w/o issue.

Digital sales are almost identical for each book.

Book sales - my cheaper Immortal Protector classic romance in urban fantasy setting sells less than my extremely cost prohibitive Urban fantasy w/romantic elements Immortal Illusions.

For a while I wondered, WTF? I wouldn't pay that kind of price. The book is like 17 bucks or something obscene like that. (publisher sets price here) Granted, I think it's a way better book. Has a TON more going on. It's a more ballsy story with ten times more action and wierdness than the first. But I didn't think that was enough to drive the difference in sales because that hard copy price I felt was high.

And then I recalled my Epic and Urban Fantasy friends - the cultural norm amongst them is to (a) own hardcopy and (b) the bigger the better and (c) price didn't seem to matter, though higher was the norm.

Since the average customer buying hardcopy of Illusions is most likely in the Epic and Urban Fantasy group, then the higher hardcopy sales make more sense.

I think your audiences have preferences and that will override price to some extent, and also, I believe as others have mentioned, so will Author. favorite authors for an audience will often trump price, and I'm not immune to that. Tho recently I stopped buying a favorite mystery author because I refuse to support agency pricing. I had to draw my line somewhere, and that's where I decided to plant it. The e book was more than the print.

I do think DWS can price as he likes, and market will either support or not support him accordingly. I also know many digital presses that set price based on word count. I believe this isn't a one size fits all world, though, and influenced by far more than word count. Personally, I think his prices are outrageous, but my opinion is just one in a vast pool of buyers who might look at that and say : sure, this fits in with my entertainment budget.

And that's the real crux, right? What is our buyer's entertainment budget sensitivity?


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Krista D. Ball said:


> SF is one of the premier genres that accepts novellas and novelettes, and short stories. They have a history of it.
> 
> However, I do note that there is nothing in your blurb about length. It is mentioned in the "editorial review" section (your note) which I didn't read the first two times I looked at your page.


It's probably because my writing stinks.


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## Gregory Lynn (Aug 9, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Point by point:
> 
> As you said, this is a forum for writers, I expect the writers to be able to clearly communicate their intentions without me _reading more into it_


Then perhaps you could do them the courtesy of not reading more into it eh?



> I think you might be reading something into my statement that wasn't there. I didn't suggest that any of us here in the _writer's cafe_ were going to write either the best short story or novel ever written. What I was doing was comparing two things of equal quality.


I didn't suggest that you did, although the assumption that the greatest short story ever written is the same quality as the greatest novel ever written is not one that is necessarily warranted.



> You're comparing two dissimilar things. DWS's original blog post illustrates that *he* increases the cost of *his* books based on the length. A short story, novella and novel all written by DWS all have the same (or very similar) quality, the only difference being the length so that seems, to me, like a pretty good basis for increasing price. Now, of course, the base price for the smallest work has to be set, and by your anecdote above you seem to be suggesting (I don't want to read too much into it) that DWS (and other authors) should look around and somehow decide whether their work is better someone else's and use that as a starting point. Hypothetically speaking you're suggesting that an author should say: "My book is just as long and in the same genre as _Twilight_ but my characters are far more interesting that that wet blanket Bella and mope Edward therefore I will price my book higher." But who is to say which characters are more interesting or who is a better writer? The reader? Or maybe your anecdote is suggesting that Fans of an author's work should pay more than non-fans? I'm not sure. Maybe you're suggesting that we should adopt a "Pay What You Want" structure. And maybe we should have a tip jar so that people can pay more after they've determined if the characters are great.


Of course I am comparing dissimilar things. That's what the market is, a bunch of dissimilar things.



> And what other factors do you suggest we use for determining a price scale?


All of them. Genre, quality, demand, whatever else you can think of.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"And how does a prole generate a BidPrice on a product, Captain Capitalism?"_

For a consumer in a mass market, it's the maximum price he is willing to pay. He generates it when he decides what he will pay. When that price is greater than or equal to the asking price, a sale occurs.

I acknowledge we can't see all the bids like we might on an organized market, but they operate in the same way. The visibility isn't the same, but the dynamics are.

If we look at all the threads here about price, most deal with the lack of visibility of the bid prices.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

When I think of a successful indie pricing strategy, I think of Debora Geary. Now Debora is doing an incredible number of things perfectly. She has a few books out in two separate series, all set in the same world and targeted to a specific set of readers. Her reviews are incredibly good, and she has constant interaction with her readers via her Facebook page. She's basically formed a community around her books and the world of her books.

And all her books are set to $3.99. She's almost singlehandedly holding up that price point in the fantasy best-sellers. A few other people price there, but most indies are lower. She's in Select and uses her free days wisely, and made arrangements to get her books to her readers on other devices in order to keep those readers happy.

She's a shining example of an independent author who not only works hard, but works in a sharp, targeted way. And her reward is strong sales at a solid price.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

jnfr said:


> When I think of a successful indie pricing strategy, I think of Debora Geary. Now Debora is doing an incredible number of things perfectly. She has a few books out in two separate series, all set in the same world and targeted to a specific set of readers. Her reviews are incredibly good, and she has constant interaction with her readers via her Facebook page. She's basically formed a community around her books and the world of her books.
> 
> And all her books are set to $3.99. She's almost singlehandedly holding up that price point in the fantasy best-sellers. A few other people price there, but most indies are lower. She's in Select and uses her free days wisely, and made arrangements to get her books to her readers on other devices in order to keep those readers happy.
> 
> She's a shining example of an independent author who not only works hard, but works in a sharp, targeted way. And her reward is strong sales at a solid price.


Look, I like Debora as a person. I'm so happy for her success and well done her. However, that doesn't mean her style of career is for me. It isn't. Oh sure, I'd love to make $100k a month, but I don't write in mass popular genre/subgenres. Her techniques would laughably fail for me (I know, I tried some of them early on).

It's no different than those who copy Konrath, even though all they write is literary short fiction. Seriously...let's actually think and ponder and consider for ourselves _which is what DWS says. It's about challenging yourself to look at his numbers and think about how they relate to you, not to compare them to Debora, Joe, or the Wizard of Oz._


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Boy, I'd certainly never say that everyone should follow Debora's model. Pretty sure I didn't say that here. I'm much like you, Krista, in that it's not a model that would ever work for me (I'm neither that focused nor that hard a worker, and my writing wanders all over the place). 

But I watch what she's doing, study it really, as I do everyone I see who succeeds at this game. Dean is doing it one way, Debora another. I admire her, as I admire him. 

Complete agreement from me that everyone needs to decide what works for themselves.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

smreine said:


> I, for one, welcome our new Modwitch overlord.


Only if she buys me Nutella


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Only if she buys me Nutella


Oh, you and your bottomless Kraken...


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> As for advice, I'd personally rather take advice from someone who has been doing this for a long time, then someone who's hit it big fast and has less publishing experience overall than myself. Since I'm in this for the long-haul, I'd rather take information from people who have actually been in this for the long haul. Someone like me who's been publishing for 3 years (4? I forget) is nothing compared to someone who has been doing it for 30+ years and is still changing and adapting as times change. I'd like to listen to a person like that.


I thought this was worth rebumping. 

Two months later, I still don't understand why people dismiss Dean Wesley Smith's advice, considering that he's been making a living writing before I was born. Some of you might say, "he's not more experienced than any of us on ebook selling therefore he has no template to speak from." That's hogwash. He's been around long enough to see the long-run and the long-term ebb and flow of being a writer.

With that being said, I will repeat that authors need to do their own pricing experiments before dismissing the DWS price chart as incorrect and invalid for a new author to follow. Until you've actually tried his price chart who are you to say whether or not it would work? I say this while acknowledging the authors who commented and mentioned their own price experiments and concluded that this doesn't work for them --they have an educated perspective on this. On the other hand, some of you are just dismissing DWS on the basis regurgitated indie pricing theory that has been commonly passed around and accepted as gospel without testing the prices for their own books. Experiment for yourselves


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## Louis Shalako (Apr 13, 2011)

At first all of my titles were $0.99. But this didn't make much sense when some were short stories, and some were full-length novels. By going to $2.99 for the novels, I make more money by selling fewer books, and there is a structure--I can lower the price on the novels, and make the shorts for free if I choose. The key thing is to experiment and not be doctrinaire about it. As an unknown author, self-edited, yes, the $0.99 ghetto has some dangers and some rewards. By making CreateSpace PODs, I have higher-priced products, and then the e-books at $2.99 look like the bargain they are.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

Louis Shalako said:


> At first all of my titles were $0.99. But this didn't make much sense when some were short stories, and some were full-length novels. By going to $2.99 for the novels, I make more money by selling fewer books, and there is a structure--I can lower the price on the novels, and make the shorts for free if I choose. The key thing is to experiment and not be doctrinaire about it. As an unknown author, self-edited, yes, the $0.99 ghetto has some dangers and some rewards. By making CreateSpace PODs, I have higher-priced products, and then the e-books at $2.99 look like the bargain they are.


You might want to experiment with the $2.99 price point for your short stories and $3.99 for your novels someday. You might be pleasantly surprised at the results.


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## yomamma (Feb 10, 2011)

I don't know that I agree with his pricing. I know that if I purchased something that was $3.99, unless it was STELLAR, I'd expect it to be longer than 10k. And I'd feel ripped off by the author. 

But I think a lot of it is genre. For example, I can get this 30k novella from Courtney Milan for 99 cents, and I know it's edited, clean, and well-written. If you price your 3k short story (and you tout on your website that you don't hire outside editing) at $2.99, I'm going to skip you and look for more like Courtney.

It's when I'm on the fence that price comes in, really. I look at page count and price, and then I sample. If I know it's short going in but I'm enjoying it, I'll probably still buy it even if it's expensive. If it's mediocre and expensive? No thanks.


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

jillmyles said:


> I don't know that I agree with his pricing. I know that if I purchased something that was $3.99, unless it was STELLAR, I'd expect it to be longer than 10k. And I'd feel ripped off by the author.


I notice that the only people who feel cheated and ripped off if an author isn't selling his/her work in the bargain bin or giving in away for free are authors. Most readers don't look at word count and don't care, unless they're authors of course 



jillmyles said:


> But I think a lot of it is genre. For example, I can get this 30k novella from Courtney Milan for 99 cents, and I know it's edited, clean, and well-written. If you price your 3k short story (and you tout on your website that you don't hire outside editing) at $2.99, I'm going to skip you and look for more like Courtney.


The way he looks at it, and the way all authors should look at it is "some will, some won't, so what." 



jillmyles said:


> It's when I'm on the fence that price comes in, really. I look at page count and price, and then I sample. If I know it's short going in but I'm enjoying it, I'll probably still buy it even if it's expensive. If it's mediocre and expensive? No thanks.


That is your right as a consumer and a reader, but mediocre and expensive are both subjective opinions of a story.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Dean doesn't hire outside editing because he lives with a Hugo award winning editor. Just fyi.  

I had prices more like he advises before he wrote that post. My sales have been the same or better than they were at lower prices (my novels sold not at all at .99 or 2.99 and my short stories sell the same at 1.49 and 1.99 as they did at .99).  I have settled on very simple pricing. I think Dean has too many tiers for my taste.  I have only three, a price for short stories, one for mid-length stuff, and one for novels. I haven't completely settled on the final pricing for these but figure another year of experiments will help decide that.


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## kellymcclymer (Apr 22, 2010)

GlennGamble said:


> I thought this was worth rebumping.
> 
> Two months later, I still don't understand why people dismiss Dean Wesley Smith's advice, considering that he's been making a living writing before I was born. Some of you might say, "he's not more experienced than any of us on ebook selling therefore he has no template to speak from." That's hogwash. He's been around long enough to see the long-run and the long-term ebb and flow of being a writer.


I read his blog often, and definitely do take his advice -- when I think he's right. A recent blog, where he talks about all the different "slices" of the long tail pie that are ours to command, really got me thinking.

However, some of his advice seems like poor business advice (perhaps why Pulphouse Publishing ended up tanking despite producing excellent product). For example, he seems to miss that short tail promotional strategies (free copies, 99 cents sales, etc.) are part of a long tail strategy. As far as I can tell from reading him often, he believes we should price ourselves high and sit and wait for our readers to find us. This is directly the opposite of most of the business advice I've been gathering for the last couple of years. I could be misunderstanding him, but I don't think so, because I've re-read some things, trying to see if I was misinterpreting that point of view (as it is more of an artist's viewpoint than a business person's strategy). Because of his experience, I tend to really examine the places where my opinion deviates from his. Since it is my career, and I'm solely responsible for it, I tend to go with my gut unless I can see where his gut is coming from.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

jillmyles said:


> If it's mediocre and expensive? No thanks.


But if it's mediocre and cheap?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Pulphouse died because they grew too quickly (yes, too much success too fast can kill a business). That's the short version of that story, anyway.

I don't think Dean is saying sit back and wait. What he advocates is focusing on the writing, on quality of craft and product, and on taking up as much "shelf" space as possible in as many stores and formats as possible.  That's hardly sitting back.

Frankly, all the lasting bumps in my sales have come from putting up more books. Nothing else, not freebies, not cheapies, has shown a lasting effect on my sales numbers.  Putting up new books? That pushes sales upwards for me, every single time.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Some of you might say, "he's not more experienced than any of us on ebook selling therefore he has no template to speak from." That's hogwash. He's been around long enough to see the long-run and the long-term ebb and flow of being a writer.


The difficulty with accepting longevity as a standard of expertise is that someone who has been around just as long can walk in and say the opposite. What would we do in that case? I'd probably suggest an analysis of both recommendations based on current and recent market conditions. To save time, I just do that immediately when I see any recommendation.

I dismiss his recommendation because it fails to consider important variables in both the internal and external environment the author faces. Basing a price on a single variable can be counterproductive if other variables mitigate against it.

And longevity as a consideration? History is full of fiascos driven by very experienced people. Believe me because I have invested a lot of years? No. I'll believe because the proposition stands on its own merits.


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## Guest (Apr 28, 2012)

If Dean has 5 price points, that's too many. It's confusing to the reader.
I remember a department store manager who was faced with low sales in the men's department, specifically men's ties.
He realized that there was one large tie rack. There were many different price tags, some separated by only 40 cents.
So he separated the ties onto 3 racks. All ties on one rack had the same price, the lowest in the store. The second rack had ties all priced the $2 more for the middle quality. Ties on the third rack were all priced another $2 more for the most expensive ties.
Tie sales rebounded the next day with just 3 price points: budget, medium and expensive.

As for pricing for a newbie author, I don't agree that the lowest price should be used. After all, did the publisher low price Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind because it was a first book?


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## JacobGilroy (Apr 12, 2012)

For amazon I'm going to go with $#.99 per 10k words, rounded down. A 55,000 word book would be $4.99. Minimum of $2.99, because cutting the royalty rate in half isn't appealing for me.

I think I'm going to price B&N a dollar higher since they take 35% instead of 30%.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

We might also note that a single price schedule based on word count eliminates price competition. That favors the more established and successful authors. Price competition is a powerful weapon for new entrants to compete against established authors.

The DOJ showed how Apple and the five publishers had a similar price schedule for eBooks based on the hardback list price.


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## lisalgreer (Sep 17, 2011)

Don't know if this conversation is still going on or not, but I started self pubbing back last September. I have a bunch of books with small presses, too. In total, I have at least 36 e-books out of varying lengths up to about 60K words. The highest priced one from a small press at this point is 4.19. It sells pretty well, and it's only 22K, but it's a hot genre.

I've done a lot of experimentation. When I look at the romance genre in which I write, I can see that many of the books in the top 100 are $2.99 or less. I write under a couple pen names, too, still romance, but different sub-genres. 

I take into account length, history of sales on the story, genre, etc. I look at things anew every month in terms of sales and pricing. My main prices are .99 for stories under 7K, 1.49 for 7K to 11K, 1.99 for 11K to 15K and 2.99 for everything above that (my longest self pubbed novella/novel is only 44K anyway). If a story just doesn't move, I'll lower the price and see if it helps. If not, I put it back to the original.

The 2.99 price point sells really well for certain genres, more slowly for others. So, mainly, it's trial and error. I'm happy with where I have things set because I tried higher pricing, and sales slowed to a big crawl and rankings went way down. I'd rather sell more and make pretty good money, than try to price everything $2.99 and up and sell very few books/make less money as things were going when I've tried stuff like this. As a short story, novella, novelette writer mainly, it just hasn't worked well for me. And I feel good about my prices and the quality that readers get for them. A comment by Bob Mayer, I think it was, on here also got me thinking: he was making something like .48 on a $4.99 or higher book with trad publishing. So, I realized, heck, if I make .35 on a short story, what am I crying about? .50 on a novelette? Great! And so on. That really gave me perspective as a writer who's only been at this since fall of 2010 and pubbed since spring of 2011. I also write fast, so I'm doing pretty well with it all, I think, sales wise.

FYI, self pubbed wise, I have at least 10 titles at .99 a few at 1.49, a couple at 1.99 and a few at 2.99 at this point. There is a dollar amount I hope to make each month, and so far, so good with a slump in April (ugh) and slightly slower sales in summer maybe. I feel pretty confident that those slumps have nothing to do with price since I can literally see sales jump when I lowered prices (after having them too high for my books at least). My top three bestsellers every month are two short stories in a popular genre (I've sold tons of these) and one of my 2.99 works.   With my publishers, my bestsellers are two serials, 6K words apiece, that sell for $1.99. It's a popular genre.

My pricing structure also pushes me to write longer, better works (I tend to write short), so I like that about it.


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## ELBigelow (Jun 29, 2012)

Dean Wesley Smith has a lot of good advice, no doubt, but his pricing works under the assumption that every indie writer is AS POPULAR AS HE IS. And that is just not the case. I believe an indie writer must first gain some loyal readers before he/she can charge that much. Gaining a readership is done by putting out high quality work at a LOW price. People these days just aren't willing to spend 2.99 for an unknown author's short story. Sad, but true.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

ELBigelow said:


> Dean Wesley Smith has a lot of good advice, no doubt, but his pricing works under the assumption that every indie writer is AS POPULAR AS HE IS. And that is just not the case. I believe an indie writer must first gain some loyal readers before he/she can charge that much. Gaining a readership is done by putting out high quality work at a LOW price. People these days just aren't willing to spend 2.99 for an unknown author's short story. Sad, but true.


I a not at all sure that is true. I doubt that his name is that recognizable outside the industry, to be frank. A very substantial portion of his writing is done under pen names and his own name isn't even all that widely known.

A lot of writers don't even know who he is.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

As a reader, the way I look at it 15K or under is short story length, and no way am I going to pay more than a buck for a short story. Just no way. You can get a quality anthology with a bunch of short stories for the price of a regular paperback. Yet he's charging $1.49 for a story under 3K? I've never read an author that good.

What's disturbing is his price chart passes what I'd consider a fairly reasonable novel price long before it ever hits a novel word count. A full-length novel's going to run around 100-150K for the most part, with some exceptions being shorter. Longer than that I'd call an epic and I think a higher price point is called for. But for a standard regular-length novel, as a reader I'm shopping around mass market paperback prices: $4.99 to $7.99. 50K may be a novel, but it's a very short one and doesn't rate the $4.99 price point, let alone at least $6.99 like he suggests.

No doubt those prices work for some authors. More power to them, but I think they're missing out on sales that way.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I a not at all sure that is true. I doubt that his name is that recognizable outside the industry, to be frank. A very substantial portion of his writing is done under pen names and his own name isn't even all that widely known.
> 
> A lot of writers don't even know who he is.


Yeah, I'm beginning to think name recognition may help push sales at higher prices, but it's far from necessary. There are other methods. And I think if a reader is interested by a book's premise, and that book looks good and has some good reviews, there are a lot of people who'll drop $5-10 for that book without much worry. You'll lose out on bargain shoppers, but bargain shoppers are just one actor among many.

That said, I still think a lot of DWS' prices are out of whack, and that he has too many striations.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Yeah, I'm beginning to think name recognition may help push sales at higher prices, but it's far from necessary. There are other methods. And I think if a reader is interested by a book's premise, and that book looks good and has some good reviews, there are a lot of people who'll drop $5-10 for that book without much worry. You'll lose out on bargain shoppers, but bargain shoppers are just one actor among many.
> 
> That said, I still think a lot of DWS' prices are out of whack, and that he has too many striations.


What he said.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Yeah, I'm beginning to think name recognition may help push sales at higher prices, but it's far from necessary. There are other methods. And I think if a reader is interested by a book's premise, and that book looks good and has some good reviews, there are a lot of people who'll drop $5-10 for that book without much worry. You'll lose out on bargain shoppers, but bargain shoppers are just one actor among many.
> 
> That said, I still think a lot of DWS' prices are out of whack, and that he has too many striations.


Pricing at $5.99 has not been an issue (so far, for me) at all. I'm wondering how much "an eBook must be between 2.99-4.99" is in our heads and in reality a higher price may not be an issue.


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## Ciye Cho (Jun 22, 2011)

eBook pricing is doing my head in. A few years ago I was constantly being told by people that new authors had to go the 99cents route to build a following and to make a splash... but now it does seem that 99cent books have a bad rep. It seems I'm always out of the loop. When people were 99cent-ing I was 2.99-ing... and now its the opposite  

I am seriously thinking about raising my novel (70,000 words) to 2.99, but I do wonder if people who have seen it at 99cents will be ticked off when it gets pushed up. I do know that some people have gotten samples off Smashwords (presumably with the intention of checking out the writing style, story, etc) and I wonder if they'll be a little annoyed when they check back to find a price bump of 300%

Do you folks just announce on twitter that your price of X dollars is going to expire in a few days? Or do you just raise it without warning?

(As an aside, a part of me does want to stick it out at 99cents for a little longer. I only just put the book out a week ago and I keep wondering if 99cents is really that bad.)


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