# What's keeping self-published authors from pricing their books much higher?



## Nicole M (Nov 1, 2012)

Hey all, as a reader I love that self-published books are so cheap! However, I know a lot of readers who can't tell the difference between a self-published book and a traditionally published one. (Assuming the self-pubbed author has a professional design) So what's keeping a successful self-pubbed author from pricing their books at 6.99+? I understand why a new author would do it but I see authors who have a huge audience publishing their books at 2.99 still, how come? Wouldn't readers buy them just the same as they buy traditionally published books?


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

because readers won't even buy trad published e-books at 7 or 8 dollars any more?

(except for very well known authors who can command high prices from their followers)


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## Nicole M (Nov 1, 2012)

telracs said:


> because readers won't even buy trad published e-books at 7 or 8 dollars any more?
> 
> (except for very well known authors who can command high prices from their followers)


Huh..I was under the impression they would since I don't recognize many of the names on the top lists but maybe that's just my own ignorance. What about 3.99-5.99? I find that a lot of great books sell at .99-2.99 which I find so cheap for an author who really put money in his or her work. (Especially considering the 30% royalty rate in the lower end of prices.) I wonder what makes certain books sell at 3.99+ and others at .99. It can't just be a matter of quality, right?

Thanks for your response.


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## thesios (Sep 7, 2015)

My personal feeling is that indie publishing , is a race to the bottom

Indie authors have devalued their work so much with assistance from amazon.

I mean how many novels can you find in the romance genre @ .99

Authors will wake up one day and decide enough is enough and start slowly raising prices

to the US and UK consumer paying an extra $1 is not difficult, readers wont buy anything above .99 cents because authrs have allowed them

enough of my rantings.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Nichole Moreno said:


> Huh..I was under the impression they would since I don't recognize many of the names on the top lists but maybe that's just my own ignorance. What about 3.99-5.99? I find that a lot of great books sell at .99-2.99 which I find so cheap for an author who really put money in his or her work. (Especially considering the 30% royalty rate in the lower end of prices.) I wonder what makes certain books sell at 3.99+ and others at .99. It can't just be a matter of quality, right?
> 
> Thanks for your response.


I sell box sets at $6.99 currently and everything else at $4.99. My next book will be $5.99 and all new releases after that will be as well.


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## ShadyWolfBoy (Sep 23, 2015)

One of my books is $2.99 as a loss leader for the series (also because it was originally released as 5 $0.99 episodes, one of which is now free, so I wanted to be sure the omnibus was the best deal).

One is $3.99, mostly because it doesn't sell very well at any price so I don't pay too much attention to it.

The rest are $4.99. That's a stable price point I'm comfortable maintaining. (though Amazon price recommendation beta has suggested prices as high as $6.49 for one of them).


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## Gone Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

We miss you, Harvey Chute.


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## benwest (Oct 22, 2015)

Price what you want. Evil Amazon isn't stopping you. All those authors "racing to the bottom" aren't going to stop you either. Why does it matter what other authors price their wares? 

To the OP: It's because all those authors you see on the bestseller lists are making A LOT OF MONEY already at that price; more importantly, they're looking at the long game. All those thousands of readers that bought their books at .99-cents will go on to buy other books in their series for much higher prices. Every one of those ladies (and they're mostly women in the romance genre) are super smart. Don't you worry about them not making the cash.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

I started with my books priced $1.99 and $2.99. I changed them to $2.99, $3.99 and $4.99 and my sales continued at the same rate for the next 4 months. I will continue with this pricing. I set it by looking at comparable books in my genre.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

to be honest, there are as many answers as there are authors, and readers:

some readers look at only trad published books.
some readers look for only indie writers and buy them at a range of prices.
some don't care who published the book and just seek out books based on criteria other than price.
some readers want low-priced books and seek them out.
some read low-priced first books in a series and then go on to higher priced books.

and please note:  this is not static.  a reader who may seek out low priced books/freebies when they first get a kindle but then move into a different category as time goes on.

personally, i do not think authors are "pricing towards the bottom".

some authors price low because that's what they think will get them noticed.
some price their first book low and move up.
some price based on how other authors price.

and again, please note: this is not static.  over 7 years of e-reading, i have seen many authors change how they price (and then change back, and change again....)  sometimes it gets confusing.


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## Elliott Webber (Sep 24, 2015)

I've been having this internal debate with myself for a while now as the launch of my first book is getting closer. I would not sell a standalone full-length novel for anything less than 2.99. If it's a loss leader to a series, then it's a bit different and I would consider it. And honestly, from what I've seen, people are willing to pay for good books, and I don't think asking for 5 or 6 bucks for a book that will provide 10h+ of entertainment is an outrageous thing to do. In fact, I think its perfectly reasonable. 

People pay way more for way less all the time. Just going to watch a two hour movie costs more. I just spent $15 to go see The Martian the other day (before the snacks). The book was cheaper, lasted longer, and was still slightly better, but it was still money well spent and I don't regret it. 

At the end of the day you chose the price, and you chose what value you want to get for the work you have put in. I will probably lean toward the upper range of the 0-6.99 scale right out the gate, because I value my work, and I don't think I'm robbing anyone by charging at least 2.99 for a full-length novel. Will this mean my books will flop and die in the fiery pits of obscurity? Maybe, but I can always lower the price later. I'm willing to admit to being wrong and change my approach. But I'm also willing to take calculated risks.

And if you want to charge 0.99 or nothing for your full length novels, I'm certainly not going to stand in your way or say you shouldn't be doing it. It seems to work just fine for a lot of people out there. It's just not a model I'm particularly comfortable with.

Now, what a lot of trad publishers are asking for is ridiculous, especially when you can usually get the paperback for the same price or cheaper.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I see it as a race for visibility.  Until one is established, lowering the risk/bar to entry for a new writer is one of the keys to building name recognition and a fan base and/or brand.  Add the ease of self-publishing and there is a huge explosion of us authors all competing for the same thing, visibility.  Obviously the big name authors and the already visible authors are excepted from this author's opinion.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

There's a constant conflict between making money and getting visibility.  Once you're getting visibility, you might choose to raise prices.  Or you might start off with higher pricing, then lower it for a sale, etc.  It's always a balancing act with the marketplace shifting and changing.  You need to know your genre and build your audience.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Self-publishing is very old.  But the current mainstream methods of Amazon et al. made it into the mass press bits when authors sold millions of copies . .. . at 99 cents. Has there been authors who sold a million+ copies of their book at a higher price point? I don't know, probably. I used to take in-bound phone calls for some natural health guru's hardback book that he was selling hands over fists. Just looked it up, apparently it sold over 3 million copies. (and it was a scam, Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About)

I have advocated for higher prices and my books are at high price points than what is typical. I also write in a niche genre. Do I hear from readers my books are too expensive? Yep. Got that in reviews. Am I going to worry about the handful of reviews complaining or the thousands who have bought the books and not returned them? Am I going to worry about the readers who walked away because the book was too expensive or the people who said "Yes,?" For me as a reader, $1 or $10, if I WANT to read the book, the price isn't going to stop me. So all I have to focus on is making sure my book is something a reader who likes my genre will want to read.  And to be fair, I share chapters as I write them and review copies to any reader who wants one, so technically, ALL of my books may be procured for free. 

Not many will talk here about pricing high and selling low volumes. I still sell a good deal of books, this calendar year is over 25,000 across all of my titles, but it's like every strategy, I can only speak about what works for me. And in the same breath that I will say "I sold 25,000 books and gave away 75,000 this year free and my prices were high" someone else will say based on their experiences I could have sold a lot more if my prices were lower. Maybe. Maybe not. We can't go back in time and test.  I do talk about my sales figures with others in my small niche genre and across the board, absent of advertising, there is a range a book sells. It just does X-Y volume. If you buy an ad and promote, that range is much wider. I am cognizant that volume and price can have an optimum intersecting point.

I don't find $9.99 or $14.99 for a book to be ridiculous. ::shrug:: I didn't have to drive, I didn't stand in line, I wanted it one second and in the next one I had it. Will I spend $15 for 2-3 hours of entertainment? You better believe it. Am I doing that all day, every day? Erm, no. But our my discretionary budget each month, I spend about $40-$60 of it on books, music, and movies. And I don't watch a lot of movies and most music I love I already own, so the bulk of that is on books. I also have KU but hubby mostly uses that. My "me" time is limited, so any product that cuts down on the stress of procurement I am all for, and if that means $11.99 to giggle at Amy Poehler's 
Yes, Please then sign me up. I can read that and feel like a grown up while my daughter's kid show plays in the background.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

benwest said:


> Price what you want. Evil Amazon isn't stopping you. All those authors "racing to the bottom" aren't going to stop you either. Why does it matter what other authors price their wares?
> 
> To the OP: It's because all those authors you see on the bestseller lists are making A LOT OF MONEY already at that price; more importantly, they're looking at the long game. All those thousands of readers that bought their books at .99-cents will go on to buy other books in their series for much higher prices. Every one of those ladies (and they're mostly women in the romance genre) are super smart. Don't you worry about them not making the cash.


This. I sold 20,000 books (with 4 titles released) the month I lowered the first in series to 99 cents.

Price depends a lot on genre. Romance readers are very price-sensitive, largely BECAUSE they are so voracious. If you're buying 3-5 books a week, you're reluctant to spend more than $5/book unless it's a very favorite author. So yes, romance authors are pricing themselves out of a lot of readership by pricing above $5, unless they are very well established indeed. The sweet spot for non-erotic romance (erotic can price a bit higher) seems to be about $3.99 right now. That spot is a bit higher, I'd say, than it was a couple years ago, when it was more like $2.99.

Other genres, such as sci-fi/fantasy and thriller, can price higher. The readers there don't buy as many books, but are willing to pay more (probably, yep, because they don't buy as many books). Mystery readers are almost as voracious as romance, and from what I know, they too can be fairly price-sensitive.

Study your genre, price for your genre, and keep studying it. Realize that there will be variations within your genre depending on subgenre and your position (meaning: how many reviews you have, how good those reviews are, whether you have a "name" at all). Even depending on the store where the book is selling. My Montlake books (big, meaty 100K+ romantic suspense/women's fiction books) are $3.99 apiece. My lighter New Zealand books in German translation are selling gangbusters at $4.99 apiece via Amazon Crossing. Both those companies presumably have one heck of a lot of pricing data at their disposal. I'd assume they're going for maximum profitability.

Don't be afraid to experiment and see which price works best for you. You can always change it back.

The amount you make is price TIMES units. If you make more money at a lower price--that's your most profitable price, and never mind somebody telling you that you're "racing to the bottom." It's about the money, baby.

Hugh Howey's Author Earnings Report has some helpful information on profitable prices, I believe. One reason indies price lower than trad is that those prices move many more books (in digital). An author who's getting 6% royalties on a $7.99 book is also different from one who's getting 70% royalties on a $3.99 book. The second author has the luxury of setting that lower price, getting a much larger audience, and making more money. Sounds pretty much like a win, no? (Of course, the author getting the 6% may have print sales and so forth, and her publisher may be pushing her book hard to bookstores and so forth, so that may be the tradeoff she's making.)

It's not always that simple. But if you're publishing mainly in digital, yes, there are reasons to price lower--at whatever the sweet spot is for your genre.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

there's one other thing to keep in mind.  length of work.  we use the generic term "book", but romance works tend to be shorter than say sci-fi or fantasy, (one of the reasons romance readers read more, they have to read more to get the same number of pages).  

i tend to avoid anything too short, just like i won't buy just one potato chip.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Nichole Moreno said:


> Hey all, as a reader I love that self-published books are so cheap! However, I know a lot of readers who can't tell the difference between a self-published book and a traditionally published one. (Assuming the self-pubbed author has a professional design) So what's keeping a successful self-pubbed author from pricing their books at 6.99+? I understand why a new author would do it but I see authors who have a huge audience publishing their books at 2.99 still, how come? Wouldn't readers buy them just the same as they buy traditionally published books?


Having read a lot of threads here and elsewhere about pricing, fear and lack of confidence are two big reasons a lot of indies price in the 99 cent basement or otherwise devalue themselves and their work. The common refrain being "I'm a nobody, why would anyone pay for my book?" I'm happy to see more indies experimenting with the +3.99 price range and going with 99 cent first in series rather than permafrees. There's no one way to do this, and I'm encouraged by all the writers who are experimenting rather than just following the herd.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

telracs said:


> there's one other thing to keep in mind. length of work. we use the generic term "book", but romance works tend to be shorter than say sci-fi or fantasy, (one of the reasons romance readers read more, they have to read more to get the same number of pages).
> 
> i tend to avoid anything too short, just like i won't buy just one potato chip.


Not necessarily. My books are almost all 100K+, and I write romance. Many bestselling romance authors write at that length. (One easy way to tell is to check the audiobooks. You tend to see the same names in there--and their books tend to be 9-11 hours, up to as high as 20 hours. In other words: 90-180K.) Erotic romance can be both short and priced higher. I'm not so sure length correlates that much with price.

In romance, there is a big difference between "category romance" (50-60K) and "single-title romance" (80-110K+). Those types of books also tend to have different readerships.

That's why I say it's so important to study the books LIKE YOURS. And don't compare to what JoJo Moyes' latest book is going for, unless you're, you know, JoJo Moyes.

Also please note that pricing to encourage readers to take a chance on your book (which romance readers are LOATH to do without a free/very cheap first book) is NOT "devaluing your work." I'd call it, "having confidence that once they try it, they'll like it and buy more." I don't see much of anyone pricing all their books at 99 cents these days. Why the heck would they? If you see a lot of 99-cent books in the Top 100, those are probably price promos that are working. Getting lots of readers to try it, and if they like it, to go on and buy the rest of the books.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I'm comfortable with my price points and will move more than 400,000 books this year (not counting more than 60,000 in free giveaways and however many KU units that I had on top of that). I price at .99 for first in series and $2.99 and $3.99 for sequels. I would rather have more readers than higher price points. There are some people who can price at $5.99 in my genres and move a massive amount of books. I don't think I'm there yet. Am I racing to the bottom? I don't really care what others think about my price points. I care what I'm doing for my bottom line. Pricing is a personal thing. I don't think one size fits all.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> Not necessarily. My books are almost all 100K+, and I write romance. Many bestselling romance authors write at that length.


Very true. I write HistRom, and my novels are 90 - 100k range. I price at $3.99 unless I'm having a sale for two reasons: 1) I feel that's a pretty good price for that length. 2) Most of the HistRom authors I look up to/try to emulate charge $3.99.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

Rosalind James said:


> Not necessarily. My books are almost all 100K+, and I write romance. Many bestselling romance authors write at that length. (One easy way to tell is to check the audiobooks. You tend to see the same names in there--and their books tend to be 9-11 hours, up to as high as 20 hours. In other words: 90-180K.) Erotic romance can be both short and priced higher. I'm not so sure length correlates that much with price.
> 
> In romance, there is a big difference between "category romance" (50-60K) and "single-title romance" (80-110K+). Those types of books also tend to have different readerships.
> 
> That's why I say it's so important to study the books LIKE YOURS. And don't compare to what JoJo Moyes' latest book is going for, unless you're, you know, JoJo Moyes.


can you translate that into terms readers tend to look at? i.e. pages, not words or audio hours.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

telracs said:


> can you translate that into terms readers tend to look at? i.e. pages, not words or audio hours.


300-600 pages for single-title romance. Mine tend to be more like 350. A "category romance" (think those little Harlequins) is more like 150 pages. Different audience, looking for a simpler, shorter story. Or, of course, perhaps a serial, which can be even shorter, more like 75 pages or less.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Rosalind James said:


> 300-600 pages.


That sounds about right. I'd say about 85- 95% of romance I have read over the years falls into that range. Although I never did a count. But most of the ones I read are somewhere just shy of 400 pages. I don't read a lot of category romances though and those probably make up for the 15%. Although even the category romances I read are mostly historical and they tend to be longer than say the contempo lines.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Nichole Moreno said:


> Hey all, as a reader I love that self-published books are so cheap! However, I know a lot of readers who can't tell the difference between a self-published book and a traditionally published one. (Assuming the self-pubbed author has a professional design) So what's keeping a successful self-pubbed author from pricing their books at 6.99+? I understand why a new author would do it but I see authors who have a huge audience publishing their books at 2.99 still, how come? Wouldn't readers buy them just the same as they buy traditionally published books?


Going back a few years, the scramble was to 99c because of the likes of a few self-published authors, selling around a million eBooks at that price, and they were lucky to be the first at that price. That didn't end well at all for most, as so many did that, it lost its value. Some still sell at 99c and good luck to them, but many now choose the minimum $2.99 to get the 70% royalty.

I have a book that back in those days was priced at 99c making me $100 every month. I put the price up to $4.99 and it nose dived in the charts and has since lost all visibility. I'm lucky if I now sell one of that book every month now.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

I remember reading about pricing on Melissa Foster's blog. She wrote about having a book that sold 50,000 copies in a month at 99 cents. She raised the price to $2.99 and sold 20,000 the next month. That computes to $17,000 the first month, and $41,000 the second. The huge discrepancy is partly to do with the difference between 35% and 70% royalties.

How many times do you go shopping because something is on sale? Large marketers hold sales to get people in their stores. But they usually don't have everything on sale. First-of-series at free or $0.99 is a tried and true marketing strategy. If you can hit the high-end market and price your books high, go for it. Some people will pay premium prices because you label fish eggs as caviar.


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## TElleryHodges (Jan 9, 2015)

I price my book at $4.99 because its a number that wouldn't turn me off if I was picking a book to read but didn't recognize the name of the author.  For some reason, 5 dollars is the price that psychologically doesn't feel like I am really risking money.

I'll likely price the sequel at $5.99 and last book in the series $6.99.

Basically the idea being that people who like the first book will go onto the second, but the sequel will never get the same number of readers as the first, there is no such thing as 100% conversion and the number lowers with each release. I heard once, don't remember where, that (assuming the initial entry in a series isn't terrible) an author can expect 60% of the people who finish it to buy the next in the series, and 90% of those who finished the second to pick up the third. So you increase price in order to make up for lost readers along the way. Its not perfect by any means, and I haven't released a sequel yet, so I can't really speak to its effectiveness.


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## Dre Sanders (Oct 29, 2015)

I just did a free promo and my KENP reads are up, but one of my goals for my promo was to get readers to buy my second book. One week later, no sales. Now book 2 doesn't have many reviews, but I'm pretty sure people are reading book 1 all the way through. Someone mentioned that romance readers are really price sensitive and I'm figuring that out for myself. Also book 2 isn't exclusive to Amazon and it's priced at $3.99. As soon as I get some more reviews, I'm planning to do a $.99 sale for a week on book 2. It's just been my experience so far that readers on KU don't want to pay full price for my other book. I've had good reviews on book 1. Now, I'm having to rethink my strategy. These are standalone books so that's a factor too. I don't want to think it, but I'm wondering if we aren't training readers to always use price as the prime buying motivator. If that's true, where do we go next?


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## Nicole M (Nov 1, 2012)

Wow, what a wonderful response I've gotten. Tons of great advice here. I don't want to be misunderstood, I have absolutely nothing against authors who choose to go free or .99 cents. I was merely noting that sometimes, some really great books sell at that price and I find it a little low given the hard work it takes to write a book. (And again let me make clear, I'm a writer myself but like most of you, I'm a reader as well) 

That being said, I wonder how much we're devaluing our work by pricing at 99c. Let's just talk business. If a company came out with a phone identical in quality to a Samsung phone but sold it at $199, eventually, Samsung would have to lower its price as well. Or perhaps that's a bad example given the obsession people have over Samsung or iPhone. 

What I'm trying to say is... There's clearly some really not so good books out there selling tons at 99c and bringing the price of the product (books) down so that that price becomes an average for new books within that genre. Assuming we're all business people and not artists, aren't we collectively lowering our earnings? Couldn't the new low price point be 2.99? 

I hope my post isn't coming off as offensive. All I mean is.. Writing a good novel is difficult stuff... And while authors earn now more than they would've traditionally, .99 still seems an outrageously low point for me.

That being said, I really appreciate the success stories of those who started that way. Thanks for sharing.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

It's a can of worms no matter which way this goes, and believe me, I've said my share of incendiary things about lower price points.  People usually fall into one of two camps, either you are worried people are pricing low just because that's what everyone else is doing or you accept that if authors are just going to blindly price in a copy cat manner with no strategy (which is not what most of the free and 99 cent priced authors here are doing, by the way) then they probably are beyond help in terms of showing them another way.

Volume should go up when price comes down, but as you'll find here, that REALLY depends on the genre. In some genres, 99 cents is still seen as a sign of poor quality. In others, it's just about required for first in series. That said, just because ANYTHING is true for the majority of the genre, even that doesn't mean some author couldn't come in and just bust all of the norms by doing a different thing entirely.  

I too used to worry about devaluing, but I think until Amazon and other places remove the artificial ceiling of $9.99 with the carrot stick of a higher royalty, it really doesn't matter. A reader is going to read what they want to read. And if a book is too expensive for their budget, and they REALLY want it, they will either wish list it, put an alert on it for a price drop notification (there are many websites that offer that service free to readers), buy it anyway, or try to find a way for a review copy. But generally, I don't see any readers REALLY wanting a book and passing it up over price. Now, price will be a negative for a reader who only somewhat wants your book or is just willing to try it, but again, depending on the author's strategy that may or may not be a problem.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> But generally, I don't see any readers REALLY wanting a book and passing it up over price.


Many of us do just that, and often. Plenty of books I really want and I pass up over price. I will not pay over a certain price no matter how much I love an author and how long I waited for the release. If I win the lottery, then I won't have to worry about price. Til then, I have to budget. So yes, readers pass on books all the time over price. Sometimes I put them on a wishlist, but not always. And many on the wishlist sit there and sit there and never get bought as they don't come down on price.

Many times I would have outright bought a book if it hadn't been so super high priced, what passes as high for me. So instead of getting money from me, I either wait for a library loan, KU or I just let it sit and sink in the wishlist tbr pile. No matter how much I wanted to read it.

And no, I don't just buy 99 cent books.

But then I read a lot and I read genres who's readers read a lot.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I don't live on a budget and I've given up several authors because of price. I don't want my readers to ask themselves if my books are worth spending the money on.  If they do, I've already lost in some respects. You're never going to make everyone happy, but I have given up at least five authors because of the price of their books and I am much more likely to try out a new author via free or .99 book. I will most certainly buy more expensive books from an author after checking out the first one, but I'm not going to drop a lot on an author I've never sampled and already know I will enjoy.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Atunah said:


> Many of us do just that, and often. Plenty of books I really want and I pass up over price. I will not pay over a certain price no matter how much I love an author and how long I waited for the release. If I win the lottery, then I won't have to worry about price. Til then, I have to budget. So yes, readers pass on books all the time over price. Sometimes I put them on a wishlist, but not always. And many on the wishlist sit there and sit there and never get bought as they don't come down on price.
> 
> Many times I would have outright bought a book if it hadn't been so super high priced, what passes as high for me. So instead of getting money from me, I either wait for a library loan, KU or I just let it sit and sink in the wishlist tbr pile. No matter how much I wanted to read it.
> 
> ...


Yeppers. I had a big (100 or so responses) convo on my FB page with readers about price some time ago. The takeaway was: for a new author, they want free or 99 cents to try them out. (This is romance; voracious readers.) They start hesitating above $3.99, especially if it's a series. They are looking at the price to buy all the books in the series, you see. Ten books at $4.99? That's fifty bucks. Even if they think they'll like it, they're hesitating a little.

$4.99 was most of their "stopping point." Above that price, they aren't buying even an author they like, unless the author (and probably the particular series) is their VERY FAVORITE.

So yes, you'll get your most avid fans buying. But if you only have, say, 20 of those, or 200? You're much less likely to get to the "tipping point" where you have thousands of people buying your books if they are priced considerably higher than the majority of books in your subgenre. There ARE other books out there for people to buy, so you're lessening the chances that you'll get that tipping point. If you don't care about selling a lot, if your goals are more modest, then that's fine. But if your goal is to someday be a bestselling author, I wouldn't advise higher-than-normal pricing as the best strategy.

This is assuming you aren't yet a "name" author. There are also issues of "sending a quality signal," but again--if you've got 500 reviews on that book, and a 4.5-star average? If your books are superbly formatted and painstakingly edited? Then you're in better shape to send that quality signal (by pricing above $4.99). But even then, personally? I'd hesitate. I wouldn't be pricing contemporary, non-erotic romance, or similar genres (romantic suspense, historical romance) above $4.99 unless I were a beeeeeg name.

Same idea applies to other genres, just with higher price points.


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## Christopher Holliday (Oct 16, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I'm comfortable with my price points and will move more than 400,000 books this year (not counting more than 60,000 in free giveaways and however many KU units that I had on top of that). I price at .99 for first in series and $2.99 and $3.99 for sequels. I would rather have more readers than higher price points.


Kudos. Your pricing strategy is a ninja chop to the brainstem and great advice to writers wanting to build an audience but earn a fair return for their work.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Does Random House put their new authors out at 99 cents because they are a name no one knows? No. This notion that authors must "earn" a higher price point is ludicrous. 

I didn't earn my price. I set it. And I built a strategy to sell my book to readers who want to read it. That's really all this is, everyone has their own strategy, but to say authors must earn a price point is just so dismissive.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

Well, you have to earn a reader's trust and devotion if you want them to stay long term, right? It's not all about price points.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Does Random House put their new authors out at 99 cents because they are a name no one knows? No. This notion that authors must "earn" a higher price point is ludicrous.
> 
> I didn't earn my price. I set it. And I built a strategy to sell my book to readers who want to read it. That's really all this is, everyone has their own strategy, but to say authors must earn a price point is just so dismissive.


You built it, though. The strategy, the audience, all of that. And Random House has built up a certain level of trust and audience in its time on earth. Whether it's always merited or not, IDK, but it's there for many people.

**edit** What I'm saying is I think both views have good points and authors should and will do what works for them. It's always good to hear different views and most of us in this thread are listening avidly to different strategies and thoughts.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

What I see from romance writers is a desperation to rank high and edge out your competition. Perhaps even an obsession over ranking as the be all end all of success. That's why so many people price at .99. It's not automatically a bad strategy, but it leaves a lot of royalties on the table. It may be worth it for the sell through to book two or for the borrows.

Personally, I price 2.99-4.99 for my books. I want to make money off royalties but I also want a large audience. I do give my mailing list freebies and run .99 or free sales, but I price novel length books at 3.99 minimum.


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## MMacLeod (Sep 21, 2015)

Here's my take on the market using a food analogy, because who doesn't like food?

Do you have a Trader Joe's near you? If you do, you've probably experienced their free samples. And if you're like me, you've gone in for a frozen pizza and come home with food you never knew you wanted, like corn chowder or jalapeno chicken sausage. It's pretty simple- you taste it for free, you want more. So that's kind of the same idea behind free books. But if you shop at Trader Joe's all the time, you know it's a small store and they are really careful about what they stock. Their food is, for lack of a better term, curated. Only the best. So maybe even without the free sample, I might toss a kind of pricey marinated pork loin I've never tried before into the cart because it's from Trader Joe's and I'm pretty certain they won't steer me wrong. In this way, Trader Joe's is kind of like a traditional publisher. They've gained my trust over the years so now they don't have to give me free stuff all the time to convince me to buy more expensive stuff. I believe what they sell has value.

Then there's this supermarket near me called Wegman's. They have a huge wine department. Massive. 20 foot high ceilings, warehouse shelves piled with wine. Some of it is $3, some of it is $30, some of it is even more. I've gotten good bottles and terrible bottles at most price points. Their categories, "pinot" and "merlot" are no indicator of quality, and their descriptions are works of fiction (I mean, what is a spicy hint of oak and cherry, anyway?). So what do I do? I stick to the under $6 bargain bin. I suspect the $3 wine is only worthy of using to remove varnish from furniture and I fear the $30 bottle won't be so much better than the $6 one that it's worth paying 5 times more. But what they do every week is offer a free tasting, and not just of the mid-range wines. Sometimes they have a $6 bottle and a $15 bottle and a $40 bottle side by side. I get to try them all for the same price (free!) and decide. And sometimes it's obvious at the first drop why that one wine is $40 because OMG is it fantastic. It might be out of my price range, but I'd buy it for a special occasion, or if it went on sale, in a heart beat. And other times the $40 bottle is just no big deal, and the $6 bottle is great. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And Wegman's is like indie publishing. There's a warehouse full, and the prices and the descriptions aren't much of an indicator of the quality of what is inside. So more than the Trader Joe's guys, you have to play with price to entice people to take that first taste. You can't just give away some of it and then charge a few bucks to taste the more expensive stuff because people won't be bothered to try it.

Of course, what neither of these stores do is keep giving away their products for free forever. And neither should we. But pricing books and building a long term readership is more complicated than handing out samples of food, so the strategies are more diverse, the unknowns are scarier, and a lot of people probably stay lower and for longer than is best for them. To go back to my analogy, the indie book market is like a store with a whole lot of free samples. You might go in to buy yogurt for lunch, but if the yogurt is $8 a carton, even if it's the best yogurt ever, you might be willing to walk around the store and fill up on free bites of chicken nuggets, pizza rolls, and grape soda. Is it as good or as satisfying as yogurt? Maybe not. But you're still full by the time you leave the store, and you still have $8 in your wallet. If the yogurt is only $1, you'll almost certainly opt for it over the free junk. But what about $3, or $5? See, even with food, it's hard to predict how price will influence the decision. So there's the dilemma. 

And now I think I need some wine...


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

A few years ago, indies wondered if they'd ever be able to sell for more than .99. The feeling I got was that no, it would never happen. Readers wouldn't pay more than that for self-published authors. Now many sell for 2.99 and up, and we're still debating on what to charge and if we'll be able to go higher.


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## Shawn Kobb (Aug 14, 2014)

I know I definitely have a breaking point when it comes to eBook price and I'm sure most readers are the same. Even if I can afford the price and really want to read it, I get angry when I see an eBook priced at $12.99 or whatever ridiculous price the traditional publishers often select. It isn't so much that I don't think the book is worth $13 of entertainment as much as the fact that I can often buy a physical copy for the same price or not much more. It is especially annoying when the traditional publishers set these high eBook prices as those digital copies are primarily profit and very little of it is going to the author.

I had an email exchange with Chuck Wendig about this not too long ago. I was telling him I was looking forward to his new Star Wars novel, but couldn't justify spending more for a Kindle copy than the hardback version. His argument was that the hardback was only so low because Amazon was slashing the price. I'm sure that he's right, but it still doesn't explain why a handful of bytes of data is worth $14.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

This has been an interesting discussion, and there are no right or wrong answers to the pricing question.

I recently experimented a bit. I'd had all my books at $3.99 from the start, not for any rational reason but just because it felt like a comfortable price point for a brand-new author of epic fantasy - cheap enough for impulse buys but not TOO cheap. 

In August, I put the price up to $4.99, on the grounds that they're long books so it's good value, and I get more borrows than sales anyway. Sales just about halved. OK, that might have happened anyway, who knows, but it seemed like a signal. So down they went, this time to $2.99. I didn't see any great surge in sales, and when I checked the top 100 in my genre I found more at $3.99 than anything else. So now I'm back with $3.99. 

I'd still like to sell at $4.99, but I guess I have to be a bit less prawny before I can get away with that.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

PaulineMRoss said:


> This has been an interesting discussion, and there are no right or wrong answers to the pricing question.
> 
> I recently experimented a bit. I'd had all my books at $3.99 from the start, not for any rational reason but just because it felt like a comfortable price point for a brand-new author of epic fantasy - cheap enough for impulse buys but not TOO cheap.
> 
> ...


This is a lesson in know-your-market-omics


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## Steve Vernon (Feb 18, 2011)

I had great success - or at least great for me - with a 99 cent promotion of one of my books last month.

I kept the sale going until the first week in November. Just this weekend I moved the price up from 99 cents up to $3.99. I'm nervous as all get-out. I saw my book sell over 100 copies in a single day at 99 cents and those are hard numbers to turn away from - but really, four bucks isn't too much to ask for when it comes to e-books. 

But it is a hard choice for most of us to make - especially those folks who are just stepping into the indie-publishing world.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

My pricing is simple:

Short stories (up to 9,999 words): 99 cents
Novellas/Novelettes (10,000 - 29,999 words): $1.99
Over 30,000 words: $3.99

Works for me, works for the reader...and I run 99 cent sales from time to time.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Dre Sanders said:


> I just did a free promo and my KENP reads are up, but one of my goals for my promo was to get readers to buy my second book. One week later, no sales. Now book 2 doesn't have many reviews, but I'm pretty sure people are reading book 1 all the way through. Someone mentioned that romance readers are really price sensitive and I'm figuring that out for myself. Also book 2 isn't exclusive to Amazon and it's priced at $3.99. As soon as I get some more reviews, I'm planning to do a $.99 sale for a week on book 2. It's just been my experience so far that readers on KU don't want to pay full price for my other book. I've had good reviews on book 1. Now, I'm having to rethink my strategy. These are standalone books so that's a factor too. I don't want to think it, but I'm wondering if we aren't training readers to always use price as the prime buying motivator. If that's true, where do we go next?


I think it is just the economic times...a year or two ago I would buy any book regardless of price, but lately I find myself always checking the price first - and trying to keep at 2.99 or below. I have to restrict my entertainment expenses (which largely consists of ebooks by the way as I do not even own a television). If it is one of my favourite authors though I might stretch to 4.99, but I have declined books higher than that even though I used to like the authors and have looked for more affordable new authors instead.


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## busywoman (Feb 22, 2014)

Lots of great points of view here.

One thing I'd say from a reader perspective is that I've begun to tire of .99 books, because there's so much junk these days at that price point.  I used to read them.  

Today, I'd rather try the first in a series at free and then pay more for a decent book thereafter.  I also use KU to try new books that are otherwise priced higher than .99 cents, and buy others from that author at their normal price.  

In other words, what I am saying is that .99 has become a signal to me of poor quality or books that are shorter than I like.  

And absolutely NO offense meant to anyone pricing their books at .99 cents.  I am not speaking of any author in this thread or any author in particular.  I am not suggesting that YOUR .99 cent book is low quality.  And I can fully appreciate that readers in some genres may not have a bias of "low quality" when it comes to .99 books.

But I do have that bias. With so much content out there, as a reader your brain starts to take shortcuts when filtering through the offerings.  And these days one of my shortcuts has become "pass by the .99 cent offerings because they're too often low quality or too short."

And you know what else?  I hadn't even consciously thought about that until reading this thread.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I bought plenty of 99 cents books that are great. Most often though those are on sale for a short time. And they usually are 3.99-4.99. Some even 6.99. I snapped up a few in the last couple of weeks that fall under that. Those are books I have on wishlists so I get notified of the price lowering. I don't ever browse the store strictly looking for 99 cent books. A book will have to be what I want to read period, no matter the price of if its free.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Does Random House put their new authors out at 99 cents because they are a name no one knows? No. This notion that authors must "earn" a higher price point is ludicrous.
> 
> I didn't earn my price. I set it. And I built a strategy to sell my book to readers who want to read it. That's really all this is, everyone has their own strategy, but to say authors must earn a price point is just so dismissive.


Random house has lines that put brand new books and big name authors out the gate at $2.99. That is the regular price. Then they have other books coming out at 13.99 like some Danielle Steel. Never read her, wouldn't for that price anyway. They also have a book coming out next year I am desperately waiting for. The next in the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. Its like one of my very favorite series of all time. It's listed at 13.99 right now as preorder. Yeah right. I am not going to pay 13.99, not even 9.99. If it was more like 6.99 an below, I would snap it up even on a pre-order. Instead, I wait until it arrives at the library and pay nothing. Well other than my usual local taxes yadda yadda.

And there is a difference if Random House puts out a new author of in a new author is self published. I know nobody wants to hear that, but it is true. Contrary to what many authors are saying that we readers don't care or are clueless about publishers, its just not true. Maybe its a genre thing, but I have always known publishers. Sometimes we even shop by specific publisher as they can give one what one wants. A new author with Random House I just have more trust overall in than a self publisher never heard of. Just what it is. Once I know you or the books you write, it is different.

So now I put those 13.99 on a wishlist and I eagerly wait for their release. It will kill me a little if I can't read it when it first comes out, but 13.99 I cannot afford to pay. Or really anything above 6.99.

I am currently waiting to read an author that has her books re-released. I have been waiting for years for these out of print books. Patricia Veryan. I got so exited when I saw them popping up in the store. They want 7.99 for books that were first published in the 80's. I don't think so. No matter how much I want to read those, I won't pay 7.99 for them. Unfortunately they are with McMillan and are not in any library I have access too as ebooks. So I am out of luck. It makes me sad, but again, I read a lot and I can't afford to pay that much for books. So I find other great books and other great authors to read. There really is no lack in either of those.


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

Atunah said:


> there is a difference if Random House puts out a new author of in a new author is self published. I know nobody wants to hear that, but it is true. Contrary to what many authors are saying that we readers don't care or are clueless about publishers, its just not true. Maybe its a genre thing, but I have always known publishers. Sometimes we even shop by specific publisher as they can give one what one wants. A new author with Random House I just have more trust overall in than a self publisher never heard of. Just what it is. Once I know you or the books you write, it is different.


I don't think it's a genre thing. I'm aware of the publisher too, but then I also read the dedication and acknowledgement page.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Everything I've heard from people who've done a lot of experimentation is the maximum profit is realized in the $2.99-$3.99 range. I don't feel like I have the leisure to experiment, at least not yet, so I've gone along with that.

A very significant number of posts here involve the question of what an individual copy of a book is "worth" almost as an issue of morality. That's a really dangerous trap to fall into. What's important is not what an individual pays for an individual copy, it's what Amazon deposits into your bank account.


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I'm comfortable with my price points and will move more than 400,000 books this year (not counting more than 60,000 in free giveaways and however many KU units that I had on top of that). I price at .99 for first in series and $2.99 and $3.99 for sequels. I would rather have more readers than higher price points. There are some people who can price at $5.99 in my genres and move a massive amount of books. I don't think I'm there yet. Am I racing to the bottom? I don't really care what others think about my price points. I care what I'm doing for my bottom line. Pricing is a personal thing. I don't think one size fits all.


This. I agree and price my books exactly the same way. For the first book in a series, I price at $0.99 or prema-free. Then slowly raise the price for the others. Some of my non-fiction books are priced at $4.99, but pricing is different for non-fiction.


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## thesios (Sep 7, 2015)

Dont get me wrong

Pricing the first @ .99 as a loss leader is different than pricing all ur books @ .99


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Don't forget that some of us are still charged the extra $2 whispernet charge on all our books if we live in certain countries. If you want to attract readers in your home country because that is where your books are set, you have to price low to account for the extra charge - especially with the exchange rate as it is at the moment. If I price my books at $3.99 readers in SA will have to pay $5.99 which equals approx R75 and I can get a three course Sunday roast with glass of wine for the same price. . Only one of my books is $3.99 the rest are either $2.99 or 99c.


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## bendanarama (Jul 25, 2015)

AS much as anything, I don't think there's the necessity to. We're all doing our own promotion, any printed copies are generally print on demand, we're not a big publisher that needs to recoup all those costs of big print runs. In a way, that allows indie writers to undercut.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

It really depends on how much you sell. If my prices had been $2.99 across the board this year, I would not have afforded to pay out of pocket for German translations. That's 4 freelancers between translators and copy editors I've paid money to. I also have copy editors I pay. I also am paying for audiobooks. Will some of these projects earn me money? Well, that's that hope. But in the meantime, I have a balance sheet I have to keep that pays my wages, pays taxes, pays costs, and pays freelancers. 

To hear that "self-published is not the same as trad pub" just makes me giggle. It's 2015. There are far more authors self-publishing now who have had their time with NYC publishing. Are they suddenly crap now that they are publishing themselves? I don't think so.  There was never a shortage of GREAT books to publish, some of the best stories were rejected again and again in a sick game of offer roulette. The bottle neck has always been a lack of slots in the schedule for larger publishing companies in a given publishing year. On top of that, the generations of "gatekeepers" have NOT just maintained "quality" as people like to say, but absolutely also stifled fringe audiences, minority writers, and speculative genres. "We can't market your zombie/Alice in Wonderland cross-over . . ." Acquisition decisions are not always about the best book but the best book to market at the moment. 

Everyone saying authors shouldn't price high because they don't have the same costs as a big publisher is really assuming a great deal. Price as a function of earnings is meaningless without volume. If you write in a specialized niche genre, your book could SIT in the Top 100 on Amazon for that genre and you only sell 50-100 copies a month of that title. It's never going to sell thousands in a month, there just isn't that large of an interest in that specific genre. Does that mean those readers should just be denied their favorite stories? No. Of course not. 50 copies a month is 600 copies a year. 600 copies a year times a $2 royalty is $1200, which won't go very far unless you DIY a great deal, and a $5 royalty on those same 600 sales is $3,000. I am in a genre that's like that. It has a very clear trend of what new releases do, what older releases do in a month, and what a new book will do for the author's older titles. We have authors in our groups who test lower prices all the time, they sell more, they don't make more. 

And what about advertising costs? You want to buy a big ticket ad? A lot harder to make the kind of money you need to just promote a 99 cent historical fiction book on Bookbub, assuming you can get picked up? That's $660. That's 330 sales of a $2.99 books, 1885 sales of a 99 cent book to cover that cost. Or maybe you want to take a class to stay on the cutting edge of Facebook ads or bootstrap templates for responsive web design etc. That's going to cost you some money. 

There are some costs bigger publishers actually SAVE on across their titles because of their scale, and some indies absolutely win on because of their scale. But it's still not even as simplistic to say "Indie authors shouldn't NEED to price higher than $4.99 because they don't have the same costs..."


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## JVRudnick (Sep 12, 2014)

Have to mention, that I bought last week the SciFi Special Report on Amazon sales etc, from k-lytics....

they go DEEP into my genre and have some great trends to learn about, including of course price...

sad to say they make a strong argument that we SciFi writers price our books TOO LOW...

disclaimer: i get nada from this firm - just thought that anyone who spends that kinda time to report
on my own genre should get a plug....I think the 50+ page report cost me $19US I believe....

WELL worth the cash, eh!


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

my books are all pretty much 20K-30K novellas. I have about 30 titles I price at 2.99 each and sell a couple thousand a month between them all so I just leave it at that since I seem to be doing ok with it..


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2015)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> On top of that, the generations of "gatekeepers" have NOT just maintained "quality" as people like to say, but absolutely also stifled fringe audiences, minority writers, and speculative genres. "We can't market your zombie/Alice in Wonderland cross-over . . ." Acquisition decisions are not always about the best book but the best book to market at the moment.


I had to laugh at this, I know you were probably picking a random example - but there's actually a big market for zombie/Alice in Wonderland cross overs


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Tilly said:


> I had to laugh at this, I know you were probably picking a random example - but there's actually a big market for zombie/Alice in Wonderland cross overs


Pride and Prejudice and Zombies will be out in theaters in February. It came out as an ebook in 2009, by Seth Grahame-Smith. Oh, and now it's $10.


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## eswrite (Sep 12, 2014)

In a word: *discoverability*. Few will buy an unknown unless they have a heavy recommendation, or an affordable proposition. Trouble is, with everything priced at $2.99-$5.99, indies are getting lost in their own noise, too.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

I was just arguing with myself about this in another thread.  My first self-published novel is going to start at $5.99.  My small-market-publisher novels (four of them) are $4.99, and they're shorter.  My novellas are $2.99, self-published.

If $5.99 ends up being the wrong price, I'll lower it, but I'm currently banking on the genre (Sci-fi) and my existing reader base making that a solid price.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> It really depends on how much you sell. If my prices had been $2.99 across the board this year, I would not have afforded to pay out of pocket for German translations. That's 4 freelancers between translators and copy editors I've paid money to. I also have copy editors I pay. I also am paying for audiobooks. Will some of these projects earn me money? Well, that's that hope. But in the meantime, I have a balance sheet I have to keep that pays my wages, pays taxes, pays costs, and pays freelancers.


That's an interesting decision. I'm curious about why you'd pay for German translations & audio if you have a niche market even in English-language ebooks? It's hard enough for authors to earn out in audio with a mainstream audience--it's just not a huge market. Ditto German. The German market from what I can tell is perhaps 10% of the US one, and audio's even less than that--5%? From what I've seen, audio's an iffy investment unless an author is selling very well in ebook format.

I think the point about price vs. revenue is that they're not the same. The idea of pricing at $2.99 or $3.99 is that it "works" if your overall revenue is more than it would be at a higher price. So--for many [edited to add--ROMANCE] authors, at $3.99, they're going to make more than an author will who prices at $8.99, because of volume and increased visibility, and hence more able to pay all the above. Not necessarily, of course. But the idea being that that pricing will allow the author to make a whole lot more. That's how it worked out for me, but I'm not in niche genres, and I can see that that could be different.

I did see an article the other day about how badly ebook sales are down for some of the Big 5 publishers, which is attributed to their high pricing. I saw something about a 23% DECREASE in ebook revenue. That was interesting! Author Earnings has some stuff about that as well. Particularly in high-volume genres like romance, lower pricing really seems to work to encourage sales. (And by "lower," I don't mean 99 cents; I mean $3.99.) That's why the Amazon imprints price lower as well, I'm sure--because that's the most profitable spot.


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## Navigator (Jul 9, 2014)

Nichole Moreno said:


> Hey all, as a reader I love that self-published books are so cheap! However, I know a lot of readers who can't tell the difference between a self-published book and a traditionally published one. (Assuming the self-pubbed author has a professional design) So what's keeping a successful self-pubbed author from pricing their books at 6.99+? I understand why a new author would do it but I see authors who have a huge audience publishing their books at 2.99 still, how come? Wouldn't readers buy them just the same as they buy traditionally published books?


Because there's no need for us to charge more than $8 for most books. We don't have the financial overhead costs that traditional publishing houses do. And most of us don't bother with physical books still either.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

I'm probably the outlier here, but I price all of my full-length (100K'ish words) titles at $8.99 or $9.99. Always have, probably always will. 

We've tried a few experiments over the years, dropping the price on the first-in-series, running specials, and just putting a title on sale. It has never worked. Sales remained at about the same level, revenues go down, and bad reviews go up.

Over the years on this distinguished board, I've always been in the camp that believes most (not all) Indies undervalue their work. That position has generated ill-will on several occasions. Still, I would advise anyone, in any market, with any product, to avoid using pricing as their principle marketing tool. This is especially true on Amazon, where the steeply discounted book does not give you any separation from the herd. 

The bottom line is whatever works for the author. If I were just starting out today, I probably couldn't get away with that pricing. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have become a full-time writer if I had been relegated to pricing at .99. It's just too difficult to make a good living at that price point.


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## benwest (Oct 22, 2015)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I'm probably the outlier here, but I price all of my full-length (100K'ish words) titles at $8.99 or $9.99. Always have, probably always will.
> 
> We've tried a few experiments over the years, dropping the price on the first-in-series, running specials, and just putting a title on sale. It has never worked. Sales remained at about the same level, revenues go down, and bad reviews go up.
> 
> ...


You could get away with a lot of things 4 years ago -- a high price point, amateur cover, average prose -- but unless you're writing in a very niche genre with a rabid fanbase and not a lot of suppliers, those days are long gone. You got in when there was very little competition, Joe, but I'd be surprised if you're picking up a lot of new readers on a daily basis with that 9.99 first-book today, with all the new blood in your genre. If you're not constantly picking up new readers, you're relying on old fans to keep buying, and I'm not sure how long that can last.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Depends soooo much on genre. It's hard to talk about "profit-maximizing pricing" without being genre-specific. I guess the way you talk about it is to say, "See what works for your genre." I think that for Joe's genre, it obvious works. For mine, it wouldn't. Completely different readership with completely different buying habits and price-point sensitivities. 

(Adding: Hi, Joe!)


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

I'm guilty of pricing the majority of my books at 99p/99c. My books are usually around 10k words or less, therefore I (wrongly or rightly) didn't think I should be charging more for them.

However, I've been setting out my writing/publishing schedule for next year and I'm making a conscious effort to write longer works and charge a bit more for them, probably around £2.99 or £3.99.


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## hunterone (Feb 6, 2013)

thesios said:


> My personal feeling is that indie publishing , is a race to the bottom
> 
> Indie authors have devalued their work so much with assistance from amazon.
> 
> ...


I agree to some extent. We are CONDITIONING people on the value of a book. But having said that. There is something to walking into a STORE and buying something you can hold and take home. It speaks value. It speaks $10 or $15

But jumping on the internet and getting a file ( that you don't even see most of the time if KB places it on your kindle ) yeah the perceived value is a lot less.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

I price my stuff based on length:

First in series - Free or $0.99 (if in KU)
<15K - $0.99
15-25K - $1.99
25-50K - $2.99
50-75K - $3.99
>75K - $4.99

I mostly write 30K novellas and 15K serials, so the vast majority of my stuff is $1.99 or $2.99 with $4.99 often used for serial box sets.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

hunterone said:


> I agree to some extent. We are CONDITIONING people on the value of a book. But having said that. There is something to walking into a STORE and buying something you can hold and take home. It speaks value. It speaks $10 or $15
> 
> But jumping on the internet and getting a file ( that you don't even see most of the time if KB places it on your kindle ) yeah the perceived value is a lot less.


I've run into plenty of people who are avid readers who have vowed to never pay for an ebook. They generally don't have to - they wait for something to go free or heavily discounted or they get it from the library. I've said this before, but based on what I read from most folks here, I would conclude that the average price for a book is 0. What I mean is as follows:

Suppose an author gives away 10,000 copies of the first in series. Then the author sells 1,000 each of nine titles in their catalog. That's 19,000 units, of which 10,000 are free and 9,000 are paid. Ergo, the average book is free. The author still made those 9,000 sales, but most people received a free book. I think this strategy is getting less and less useful and when Amazon discovers people aren't buying stuff with their e-ink kindles it'll eventually go away, but I think that's the situation now.


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## MKK (Jun 9, 2015)

benwest said:


> You could get away with a lot of things 4 years ago -- a high price point, amateur cover, average prose -- but unless you're writing in a very niche genre with a rabid fanbase and not a lot of suppliers, those days are long gone. You got in when there was very little competition, Joe, but I'd be surprised if you're picking up a lot of new readers on a daily basis with that 9.99 first-book today, with all the new blood in your genre. If you're not constantly picking up new readers, you're relying on old fans to keep buying, and I'm not sure how long that can last.


The enviable thing about Joe's position is he ticks of most of your points...and has the option of lowering his price if need be. There isn't a lot of good quality fiction in that genre and his type of reader will sniff out a poseur pretty quickly.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

benwest said:


> You could get away with a lot of things 4 years ago -- a high price point, amateur cover, average prose -- but unless you're writing in a very niche genre with a rabid fanbase and not a lot of suppliers, those days are long gone. You got in when there was very little competition, Joe, but I'd be surprised if you're picking up a lot of new readers on a daily basis with that 9.99 first-book today, with all the new blood in your genre. If you're not constantly picking up new readers, you're relying on old fans to keep buying, and I'm not sure how long that can last.


Your points are valid to some extent, and decisions like pricing depend somewhat on what the author's aspirations. Mine are quite humble compared to many. 
Anyone who says, "Joe can price high because of his genre," is slightly off-base with that notion.
My biggest income producer in 2015 has been my action/adventure titles, which have nothing to do with apocalypses or preppers.
As far as attracting new readers, the first title in each of my three series sold well in Oct:

SciFi series 1 of 3: 48 copies
Prepper series 1 of 10: 181 copies
Action/Adventure series 1 of 2: 410 copies

So I am bringing in new readers (600+ last month?) at the higher price point, regardless of genre. A small number to be sure, but given the above mentioned aspirations, I'm good with it.

All that aside, one of my key justifications for keeping my prices high is that I've never considered myself a mainstream novelist... I'm just not that good. No matter how I priced my stuff, it's not going to appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. Yet, chugging along at 120-200 books per day keeps me off the streets.

Another thing that helps any author's bottom line is having a large backlist (I have 24 titles). At the higher price point, even selling 1 copy per day each at $6.93 royalty, that's $5K per month (round numbers). Some portion of us could probably squeeze by on that level of monthly income.

What I'm trying to communicate is that indie books do sell at higher price points, and some of us are cool with lower sales volumes. Again, it's what works for the individual author. My only reason for chiming in is to show an example to others who might be considering charging more for their work. It's not for everyone, but it's not impossible.


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## benwest (Oct 22, 2015)

Joe_Nobody said:


> Your points are valid to some extent, and decisions like pricing depend somewhat on what the author's aspirations. Mine are quite humble compared to many.
> Anyone who says, "Joe can price high because of his genre," is slightly off-base with that notion.
> My biggest income producer in 2015 has been my action/adventure titles, which have nothing to do with apocalypses or preppers.
> As far as attracting new readers, the first title in each of my three series sold well in Oct:
> ...


Joe, honestly, I'm not invested one way or another in what other writers do with their books, but I think it's somewhat irresponsible for someone of your caliber and reputation to tell noobs they can price at $9.99 (or somewhere equally high) these days and make any kind of living. I think even you have to admit that in 2015 it's taking more releases in shorter periods to maintain the level of earning you're used to back in 2011 or even 2012, and you have a built-in audience. And it's only going to get harder as more writers come into the market.

That's all I'm trying to say, and that's all I'll say on the subject. Everyone should do what they want. I'm out.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

benwest said:


> Joe, honestly, I'm not invested one way or another in what other writers do with their books, but I think it's somewhat irresponsible for someone of your caliber and reputation to tell noobs they can price at $9.99 (or somewhere equally high) these days and make any kind of living. I think even you have to admit that in 2015 it's taking more releases in shorter periods to maintain the level of earning you're used to back in 2011 or even 2012, and you have a built-in audience. And it's only going to get harder as more writers come into the market.
> 
> That's all I'm trying to say, and that's all I'll say on the subject. Everyone should do what they want. I'm out.


Despite what Joe says, his pricing works for him because he has a distinctive voice and a strong appeal to his group of readers (and that group isn't tiny). It's really, really hard to say whether that would work for a new indie author, because books and authors are different. Some authors and some books have a secret sauce in the voice and style that just WORKS. I suspect Joe is one of those authors. (Somebody smarter than me about analyzing books can probably tell you why that is. I can never put my finger on it, personally.)


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Joe_Nobody said:


> Another thing that helps any author's bottom line is having a large backlist (I have 24 titles). At the higher price point, even selling 1 copy per day each at $6.93 royalty, that's $5K per month (round numbers). *Some portion of us could probably squeeze by on that level of monthly income.*


       

I squeeze by on far less than that!


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## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

Interesting discussion. I posted about my pricing strategy here about a month ago, and how I started my prices low at $2.99, then $4.99, then $6.99 and up, and the general advice from the board was that I should abandon the tier and standardise pricing across the board so as not to put new readers off.  As my brand new release and most expensive title at $8.99 seemed to be holding well, I decided to leave as is for the moment, and price other books at $4.99. Almost a month into the experiment now, and it's interesting to see that sales have fallen off across the backlist despite the standardised pricing, while the most expensive book continues to sell apace.

Seems my original strategy for these books of hook em low, sell em high had some merit, as new readers to the series have dropped off, while read-through (despite the comparatively eye-watering $8.99 price) is still holding. Not sure whether to hang tight and see if the pattern changes but at the moment, not liking the look of the graph on the earlier books ....


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

thewitt said:


> I started with my books priced $1.99 and $2.99. I changed them to $2.99, $3.99 and $4.99 and my sales continued at the same rate for the next 4 months. I will continue with this pricing. I set it by looking at comparable books in my genre.


The whole thing is so fluid. Sometimes if you price them lower they buy more and sometimes they don't. My prices were higher and I have now lowered them. Let's see what happens.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Indie publishing is a retail business (you sell directly to the end consumer.) Traditional publishing (in the case of most publishers) is a wholesale business: you sell to a retailer, who marks up the product and sells to the consumer. At least for now--eventually, however many years down the line, traditional publishing will need to adapt to retailing or they'll have a hard time surviving. But that's another story. But this is why traditional publishers use agency pricing and windowing: so they can direct flow toward their retailers and sell more of their wholesale product. They really don't care all that much about selling lots of ebooks. Their business model is currently still reliant on bookstore sales.

So since indies and traditional publishers are playing two different sales games, their tactics are different.

In retail, there are two ways to make money. First, you can sell a product at a much higher price and enjoy a wider profit margin. Or you can sell lots and lots of products at lower prices. Each sale individually has a narrower profit margin, but if you get those sales in high quantities the net effect is the same as the wider margin--or in some cases the net effect is even better profits than on higher-priced items.

The trick is to find the "sweet spot" for your product, where you can consistently sell plenty of units but still make an acceptable profit. It's going to be different for every product, even from the same author. Some books won't sell as many as others, so a higher price will maximize the sweetness of the sales margin. Other books will have very broad appeal, so a lower price will move way more units.

Sweet spots will also vary a lot based on genre. Historical fiction is dominated by the Big Five at the moment--they make up about 80% of the current offerings, and Amazon Publishing has about another 10% of my genre. Only 10% are small presses and indies. Because of the influence of the Big Five, who are trying to push readers toward paperback sales in bookstores, average ebook prices are very high for historical fiction. So I can price my books at $4.99 - $6.99 and still seem like a good deal. What works as a bargain price in one genre might be considered too high in others. There isn't a one size fits all approach to pricing.


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## AveryCockburn (Jul 5, 2015)

Perry Constantine said:


> I price my stuff based on length:
> 
> First in series - Free or $0.99 (if in KU)
> <15K - $0.99
> ...


My pricing thus far falls perfectly into this system (one 40K novella at $2.99 and two 90-110K novels at $4.99).

However, I'm about to release a 17K "short" story. I was thinking of charging $1.99--it seems a happy medium between too cheap and too expensive--but I've heard that that price point is ineffective. As I'm still relatively new and I write romance, where prices tend to be lower, I think I'm going to have to offer it for $0.99 despite its length.

I remind myself that my main goal in releasing short stories isn't to make loads of money off direct sales but rather to keep the series alive in readers' minds (and Amazon's algos) while they're waiting for the next long novel. Having a new release will also bring fresh eyes to the series, which should spur sales of the novels and novella. Lastly, I write them because they're fun.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Libbie is knowledgeable and wise. If you're just starting this thread, scroll up & read the EL Hawk one. Her latest book happens to be #10 on Amazon, too!


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## busywoman (Feb 22, 2014)

Joe_Nobody said:


> What I'm trying to communicate is that indie books do sell at higher price points, and some of us are cool with lower sales volumes. Again, it's what works for the individual author. My only reason for chiming in is to show an example to others who might be considering charging more for their work. It's not for everyone, but it's not impossible.


I for one am glad you share your examples, because newer authors should be exposed to a variety of opinions. It's not irresponsible in the least to think out of the box. "Dream no little dreams."


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Rosalind James said:


> Libbie is knowledgeable and wise.


I don't know about that, but thanks!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Wait a minute - you have a new writing book out, Libbie. Why did I not know this? Very timely, as I'm just beginning to dabble in historical romance. {Rushes off to buy}

PS Any plans to put your non-fiction out in paperback? I like my how-to-write books on my bookshelf.


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## JRHolmes (Mar 6, 2014)

ElHawk said:


> Indie publishing is a retail business (you sell directly to the end consumer.) Traditional publishing (in the case of most publishers) is a wholesale business: you sell to a retailer, who marks up the product and sells to the consumer. At least for now--eventually, however many years down the line, traditional publishing will need to adapt to retailing or they'll have a hard time surviving. But that's another story. But this is why traditional publishers use agency pricing and windowing: so they can direct flow toward their retailers and sell more of their wholesale product. They really don't care all that much about selling lots of ebooks. Their business model is currently still reliant on bookstore sales.


This is a great insight and something that independent writers need to pay attention to. I would go further and state that, for most fiction writers, traditional publishing's greatest selling point is exactly that they manage and dominate the wholesale market that feeds to brick and mortar bookstores and other outlets. We've seen that it is perfectly possible to independently and affordably hire editors, cover artists and marketing assistants on a per book basis. And, while it is certainly possible to replicate the marketing of your book catalog to physical bookstores in the same manner as small traditional publishers, that matter of *catalog* is a great barrier to independent writers who tend to be more focused on a book-by-book or small series marketing.


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## RichardSutton (Aug 21, 2011)

It's a very interesting question and the discussion here reveals a lot of insight. As for me, I guess since I can, I respond to the marketing data re: price point and price my eBooks according to the best response level from the data. The data comes in from a wide variety of sources, from forums, etc. I parse through it according to genre and reader age (important if available). At the end of the process, I have a best-guess scenario. Nothing is a sure thing, except that I've stopped reading many well-known authors whose publishers are jacking up the prices of eBooks to compensate for the cost of print production. I refuse to pay $10 for an eBook, especially when I know the writer is still getting only a pittance of that amount. The other day, I had a writer friend tell me he's actually had eBook returns! I had no idea that was even a consideration, but I guess it may well be. The whole bookselling pursuit by authors on their own is pretty hard to bank on. I think the Indies who hit it big are in the same slice of luck as those more traditionally published writers who write best sellers. It's very few of either description that do so reliably, and getting your breakout contract has little to do with it, from what those who have sold their books to publishers tell me. Many of them wish they hadn't. Many of them have a second book turned down, often based on the poor sales the first book produced while the publisher put all their marketing efforts behind the best selling authors any way.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Nichole Moreno said:


> Huh..I was under the impression they would since I don't recognize many of the names on the top lists but maybe that's just my own ignorance. What about 3.99-5.99? I find that a lot of great books sell at .99-2.99 which I find so cheap for an author who really put money in his or her work. (Especially considering the 30% royalty rate in the lower end of prices.) I wonder what makes certain books sell at 3.99+ and others at .99. It can't just be a matter of quality, right?
> 
> Thanks for your response.


Lots of us price our books in that price range. I don't have any below $3.99 and most at $4.99.


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## TheBehrg (Sep 18, 2015)

Jim Johnson said:


> I'm happy to see more indies experimenting with the +3.99 price range and going with 99 cent first in series rather than permafrees. There's no one way to do this, and I'm encouraged by all the writers who are experimenting rather than just following the herd.


Couldn't agree more Jim -- experimentation is key. What works for one doesn't necessarily mean it will work for another, which is why self-publishing is such an entrepreneurial market. I believe experimentation will continue opening markets that may not even exist right now...


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

thesios said:


> My personal feeling is that indie publishing , is a race to the bottom
> 
> Indie authors have devalued their work so much with assistance from amazon.
> 
> ...


I don't agree with you because till we make a big name for ourselves (if we ever do) we can't be charging $12.99 or more a book. You seem to forget the competition with celebrities, notorious people who have big scandals and go on to write a book, etc. etc.. I think that by pricing them less we actually sell more.


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## RomanceAuthor (Aug 18, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> Price depends a lot on genre. Romance readers are very price-sensitive, largely BECAUSE they are so voracious. If you're buying 3-5 books a week, you're reluctant to spend more than $5/book unless it's a very favorite author. So yes, romance authors are pricing themselves out of a lot of readership by pricing above $5, unless they are very well established indeed. The sweet spot for non-erotic romance (erotic can price a bit higher) seems to be about $3.99 right now. That spot is a bit higher, I'd say, than it was a couple years ago, when it was more like $2.99.


THIS!
The only romance reader I know who was successful pricing her books higher is Meredith Wild. Her books are $6.99 . She sold more than a million copies and then sold her series to a trad publisher for $7 million. (4 books self-pubbed, then the 5th pubbed by the trad publisher)
However, she had MASSIVE advertising: facebook ads and google ads. When I mean massive, I'm thinking in the range of a few hundred thousand.

So yeah, I suppose building a large audience at a higher price is possible, but I think it requires a lot of advertising.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

RomanceAuthor said:


> THIS!
> The only romance reader I know who was successful pricing her books higher is Meredith Wild. Her books are $6.99 . She sold more than a million copies and then sold her series to a trad publisher for $7 million. (4 books self-pubbed, then the 5th pubbed by the trad publisher)
> However, she had MASSIVE advertising: facebook ads and google ads. When I mean massive, I'm thinking in the range of a few hundred thousand.
> 
> So yeah, I suppose building a large audience at a higher price is possible, but I think it requires a lot of advertising.


And she wrote erotic romance. Erotic can be priced higher. Sex sells.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Rosalind -

I've been scarce on the Internet because mid-November my daughter's school nearly lost her at recess. She is 6. We did all of the hoop jumping they asked and they still refused to provide for her as her 504 Plan (it's a plan in the US for kids with special needs to be accommodated in the school system). Then, once they found her (she chose to sit on the edge of school property for alone time to get herself back under control) she cried for thirty minutes in the principal's office. At no time did they call me. In fact, they told me what happened off-handed at pick up like it wasn't the 4th major incident this year because they refuse to give my daughter the extra supervision her conditions require. So we homeschool now. Overnight I had to figure it all out and 4 weeks in, I finally have a "new normal" going to balance it all. 

Anyway, the reason I invested in the longer term projects is because most of my planning is long-term. I have the money to invest back into my business right now, and from my background of article writing and STILL selling "3 Fun Springtime Activities to Do With Kids" for $10 every spring a few times for seven years running now, I know seeds you plant now can always bear fruit later. For my niche, I have the wide appeal of Jane Austen that is a major factor in the appeal of my books. After English markets, Germany is my #1 foreign market, routinely making over 100 euros a month just on Amazon. When I release a new English language book it's more. Basically I took my earning from that market over the last year and a half and used it to pay for German language books. Even if the German language books only make me a few hundred euros a year, over time that adds up and I think it adds to my overall presence as an author. It's a mountain I went out and conquered.  And I have experience in that area now to know exactly what it is I am selling when/if I sell foreign rights for other languages.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Whoops, sorry, I forgot that I had asked why you did the German ones. Thanks for the explanation. I'm doing translations for the first time, myself. (I have a few done/being done by Amazon Crossing, and I just signed a contract to have two done myself.) I have to sell a bunch, though, to make it worthwhile, because it costs many thousands. So I have to maximize the revenue--price where it'll pay off best. Fortunately, I have a couple already published there, so I know what price will work. (Mine are EU 4.99 over there now & have done really well at that price.)

What I'm saying is--consider your (general your) market. If your genre has the potential for high unit sales, you may leave money on the table by pricing so high that your sales will be lower. You won't get as much visibility, because your rank won't be as high. Etc. 

Montlake appears to be experimenting with higher prices now in romance. My new release is $5.99. I think that could be a dollar high for a lot of readers. In my experience & conversation with readers, and the experience/conversation of other authors I know, for non-erotic romance, $5 tends to be a cutoff point beyond which a reader hesitates. But Amazon has the most pricing data out there, so, hey, I'm glad they're experimenting! I do tend to follow their lead on pricing for that reason. They KNOW where they maximize revenue.

For other genres, or even subgenres in romance, of course, this is different. But as I've said many times, revenue is units x $/unit. What matters is where that figure is maximized, depending how price elastic or inelastic a genre/subgenre is. Romance in general tends to be quite elastic--that is, a drop in price can greatly increase units sold, and therefore increase revenue. But of course individual authors' curves will look different, and so will different genres and subgenres. Experimentation is good, I think, and it's very hard to say anything "for sure."

I don't think this is an argument one can "win," because there isn't one "right" or "wrong" answer. It's just something you have to figure out by considering all the factors for your own genre and situation. Who knows if I've got it right!


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Oh I don't have the German translations priced like my English versions. I agree that market is still emerging, much like the American market was when I started.   I've raised my novella prices to $4.99 and seen no change in volume. But that's English versions. The German translations are 2.99 euro.


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## ccruz (Oct 11, 2014)

I'll be honest. I won't pay more than 4.99 for an ebook. Not when a paperback used to cost me 6.99. I don't like paying more than that for a digital version that doesn't cost that much to produce. Most of what I buy is priced at 2.99 and I love that I can read much more than I used to when I was paying for paper books because my budget stretches farther with the lower prices. I WILL stop reading a series if an author priced the first few books for 2.99 and suddenly starts publishing at $7, no matter how much I loved the series and characters. There is plenty cheaper entertainment out there, and indie writers are getting so good, it's no problem finding a new favorite. 
Movie tickets over here cost $7. I think that's a reasonable price, considering movies take millions of dollars to produce. Back when I lived in the mainland US, I didn't go to the movies because there was no way in hell I was paying $15 for a movie ticket when I could later get the movie from my Netflix subscription. 
Based on my pricing preferences, I price my work accordingly.


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## ccruz (Oct 11, 2014)

Joe_Nobody said:


> Another thing that helps any author's bottom line is having a large backlist (I have 24 titles). At the higher price point, even selling 1 copy per day each at $6.93 royalty, that's $5K per month (round numbers). Some portion of us could probably squeeze by on that level of monthly income.


I would literally consider myself rich if I made $5k a month. I'm lucky if I make 1k a month off my primary income AND my editing business!


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> And she wrote erotic romance. Erotic can be priced higher. Sex sells.


Sex doesn't acutally sell as well as people think it does:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/11754878/Sex-sells-It-can-make-you-forget-what-is-being-advertised-say-scientists.html

I see the most low priced books in erotic romance. A lot of people are pricing at .99 so they have access to mailing list advertisements. Pricing higher can make the ROI for Facebook or Google ads make more sense.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Rosalind James said:


> I guess what I'm saying is that my own German books are EU 4.99 each (which is high in romance). The second one sold 3,000 units in 2 weeks in October alone, which was a lot of visibility and pretty good money (I mean, it's Germany, so that's really good!). What I'm saying is--consider your market. If your genre has the potential for high unit sales, you may leave money on the table by pricing so high that your sales will be lower. You won't get as much visibility, because your rank won't be as high. Etc.


4.99 is not a high price for a German e-book.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

ccruz said:


> I'll be honest. I won't pay more than 4.99 for an ebook.


Does that include a boxed set of a whole trilogy? (Romance)

Each book is priced at 2.99 and is 60k words.

I was going to price the box set of 180,000 words at 7.99. Would that fly?


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## ccruz (Oct 11, 2014)

Oh, boxed sets are a whole different subject. I meant for a single ebook. Pricing higher for boxed sets is only fair.



Cherise Kelley said:


> Does that include a boxed set of a whole trilogy? (Romance)
> 
> Each book is priced at 2.99 and is 60k words.
> 
> I was going to price the box set of 180,000 words at 7.99. Would that fly?


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2015)

Quote:
". . . till we make a big name for ourselves (if we ever do) we can't be charging $12.99 or more a book . . ."

This is a quote I can't agree with.
The publisher of Gone With the Wind didn't low price the book because author Margaret Mitchell was an unknown.
Ditto Scruples, a first book by Judith Krantz.
Etc. etc.

Indies are the ones low pricing their products.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Okey Dokey said:


> Quote:
> ". . . till we make a big name for ourselves (if we ever do) we can't be charging $12.99 or more a book . . ."
> 
> This is a quote I can't agree with.
> ...


Check the relative ranks for $12.99 romance books on Amazon vs. those priced $3.99-4.99.

There's a reason so many tradpubbed authors are moving to a hybrid model. Because they can sell a lot more books and get a lot more visibility at lower prices. And--make a lot more money.

Big-push books from big publishers get, well, big pushes. Big marketing dollars. Big promo. Big difference.


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## benwest (Oct 22, 2015)

Okey Dokey said:


> Quote:
> ". . . till we make a big name for ourselves (if we ever do) we can't be charging $12.99 or more a book . . ."
> 
> This is a quote I can't agree with.
> ...


This line of thinking astounds me. It's like you're not even trying to pretend you understand the difference between being published by a major publisher and doing everything your little lonesome as an indie. I mean, seriously. You're not even trying.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Not to mention the numbers, when Gone with the Wind was published, there was probably less than a tenth of the number of titles there are out there now. It just plain had less competition.


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2015)

Okey Dokey said:


> Quote:
> ". . . till we make a big name for ourselves (if we ever do) we can't be charging $12.99 or more a book . . ."
> 
> This is a quote I can't agree with.
> The publisher of Gone With the Wind didn't low price the book because author Margaret Mitchell was an unknown.


You're comparing a book published in the 1930s to what indies and trad publishers do today. Your reference is 80 years out of date. The landscape has changed, there's this thing called the internet and e-books for starters.

Also, interesting to note you are pricing your own work low. Any reason why you don't price higher, if you think that's what people should be charging?


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

I price my 70k PNR series at 4.99. I'll be launching a spin-off in 2016 and while the books will most likely be a little shorter, I'll still be pricing at 4.99.


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