# Does anyone share my pricing concerns?



## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

First of all I'd like to make it clear that every author has the right to decide how they publish and market their books and I completely respect each individual's decisions on how they go about it.

However, there's often chat here about pricing (amongst other subjects) and authors share opinions on eg what they consider are fair prices for different lengths of books.

My concern is that more and more authors are choosing to price full length books (often their only books) long term at the cheapest price amazon will allow. I can't help but feel it's putting out the wrong message about the value of books generally and particularly the worth of indie books. A fellow author (who I very much admire and respect, if she's reading this, I'm not judging here) recently remarked that I have very good sales considering my book is so highly priced. It's $2.99 in US and £1.99 in UK. Now, if that price is considered high for a stand alone 100K word general/literary novel then I wonder if we're doing something wrong.

In UK especially, the cheapest possible price now seems to be considered the norm. Or to put it another way, it looks like indie prices generally are getting cheaper.

Now, if this was because people really needed the money and found that this sort of pricing gave them the best return then I might understand it. But I think it's happening because authors are feeling they need to compete with one another. And maybe the way we've got into the habit (me included) of announcing our sales here is adding to that pressure.

Authors who are relaxed about the idea of self-publishing are not doing this. I think it's people who've got into the habit of competing because that's been their experience of writing so far and also maybe because they're simply using it as a stepping stone (if they get higher sales than others, whatever the cost, they might get an agent and a 'proper' contract).

Obviously, it's up to individual authors what they do. And I'm not suggesting price fixing. But I do wonder whether many new authors are thinking beyond the first few months' sales figures and whether they are stopping to consider that they might be pricing out both themselves and other indie authors in the long term.

I'd be interested to know what others think about this, whether they think it's a problem (or likely to become one) and if so what we might do about it.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

There's nothing we can do about it, so I hesitate to say what I think. But I will. 

I generally agree with you. I've read readers' remarks on forums about low price = low quality, and I don't want to be associated with that mentality whether it's accurate or not. Even $2.99 is too low for some readers.

Everyone needs to decide for him/herself what the right price is for a book, and the author is the only one who can define success. I won't permanently price my full-length novels that low. IMO $2.99 is quite low for a quality story, but I'm okay with using it as my loss leader. (I'd give away the 99c novella if Amazon & BN would let me.)


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Emotionally, I agree that $0.99 - $2.99 is too low for a well written novel that will entertain you for hours, excite you, maybe even move you.  I easily spend thousands of hours writing a novel.  So yes, maybe $0.99 - $2.99 is not "fair".

I charge $2.99 for my novels based on research that this is the "sweet spot" for maximizing profit.  You only earn $2 per sale, but you can sell more this way.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I'd sell just as many novels for $10.  Currently, I cannot change my Amazon prices without giving up the 70% option -- iTunes won't let me raise my books higher than $2.99.  Someday, if I can convince iTunes to raise my prices (I've contacted them about it, but was ignored), I'd like to try selling my books for a higher price on Amazon.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

It's such a tough decision. I'm one of those who lower the price to $0.99. How much would I be selling/making if I were to raise the price? I don't know. What I do know is:

I'm selling about 13 x the number of books I was at $2.99. Sometime tomorrow, I will surpass the number of books I sold last year in the first three weeks of this month. I'm (hopefully) developing a good reader base who will be interested in the next book ($2.99 or above) and all that come after. I'm thinking VERY long-term. 

Was it the right choice for me? I think so. Will it help depress prices? Perhaps. But if I can stick to my plan, it might actually help raise prices. If my subsequent books sell well at a higher price that will benefit the community.

I wish I knew what the right thing to do is. All I can do, all anyone can do, is make their best guesstimate and go for it.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

If established authors want to go for the cheapest option and in their experience it's working for them then good luck to them. They're making that decision having watched the market for some time. My concern is that new authors are simply seeing sales numbers, deciding to try and beat them by undercutting others but doing so without considering the bigger picture.

In the UK store I notice that the authors with the cheapest books and boasting the highest sales figures since the store opened initially scored quite high percentages in the 'customers who viewed this book went on to buy' stats under my book. But now their percentages are dropping and presumably their relative sales are dropping, implying that those quick sales might have been more profitable in the long run if they'd set a higher price. This is the sort of bigger picture that I don't think new authors are considering.

I'd be interested to hear Joe Konrath's take on this.


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## Christine Merrill (Aug 19, 2010)

I think there needs to be a realistic balance struck between the needs of the author and the needs of the audience.  Not saying that I know what it is, though.

But I find it really demoralizing when my traditionally published stuff gets tagged as overpriced and Agency pricing when the book only costs $3.99.  The electronic version is $2 cheaper than paper (which I consider fair).  And Harlequin is not one of the publishers doing agency pricing.  

I know how many hours I put in on that book.  I know my royalty rate, which is the same as it is for the print edition of that book, basically microscopic, compared to a self published book.  I can look in my bank account and see that I am not getting rich.

And yet, people are accusing me of price gouging.  I pray that they are not drinking a Starbucks latte as they tag me.  Because I am already bitter enough.  I am pretty sure that I can deliver more entertainment than a cup of coffee.  Why can't I be priced like one? 

I really do want to see people reading my stuff for a fair price.  I do not believe that an ebook should cost more than a paperbook.  But 99 cents for everything is not actually fair, IMHO.  Short term?  Yes.  Everyone likes a sale.  Backlist?  Maybe.   Short projects?  Sure.  and I don't mind being free once in a while, as long as it is done for a reason.

But if everything gets to be rock bottom all the time, how can we or the reader make any distinctions between new and old, short and long, professionally edited vs thrown together?


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## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

Ali, I raised the price of my book to $2.99 last week and sales virtually stopped, so I lowered it again and sales are going through the roof.

I have the sequel coming out next month and have decided to keep that at $2.99, it'll be interesting to see if it sells or not, especially as most of those leaving a review are demanding the sequel.

Mel


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Christine Merrill said:


> And yet, people are accusing me of price gouging. I pray that they are not drinking a Starbucks latte as they tag me. Because I am already bitter enough. I am pretty sure that I can deliver more entertainment than a cup of coffee. Why can't I be priced like one?


I know how you feel. There are three Starbucks within a five minute walk from my apartment. There are about twenty other coffee shops on the same stretch. All these places are PACKED all day. Most have a dozen people in line at any given moment. They buy $3-$6 drinks which are gone in an hour. I confess I'm one of these people.

And yes, I think my books are worth more than a cup of coffee. But I don't have thousands of people a day lining up to buy my books. I have to go out and promote -- in the evening after work, during lunch breaks, on the weekends. And somehow write new books, too. Starbucks has thousands of employees, marketing teams, advertising agencies, and billions of dollars to work with. I don't. I have my evenings, my netbook, and elbow grease. So I do what I can, and try to feel happy. People are reading my work. Thousands of them. Sure, I wish it were millions, but I'm not complaining.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

I have bought Indie books for less than an English pound only to find myself reading quality literature that I would have happily have paid good money for - it feels like highway robbery - but then I've downloaded the peerless Jane Austin and other classic authors for free. Pricing is the way it is - even if we weep for the quality work receiving what seems like scant reward (perhaps the reward is in the feedback from happy readers). The same happens in the art world. Ali, I wonder if you have ever attended an art exhibition of local artists? At most "amateur" art exhibitions I see exquisite work which displays huge talent, years of experience and days of careful work - and usually works are priced a £30 or less, barely covering the costs of materials. The fact is that people strolling into such exhibitions on spec are prepared to buy for under fifty quid, but are just not expecting to pay more. Most artists are just delighted that their work will adorn someone's house rather than being piled against their studio wall with the rest. I'm not saying this is right, but it is just the way it is. In the end each writer has to price their books in whatever way works for them, - and I'm sure that will mean quality work selling at a snip and there are a lot of lucky kindle readers (myself included) benefiting from this phenomena.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I've tried raising my prices.  Sales stopped.  I'm going to try again next month.  If sales stop, then back down the prices go.  If not, then I'm happy to sell them at slightly higher (but still very reasonable) prices.  In a competitive market, a product has to be priced at a level at which it sells, even if it seems too low to the seller.  And my purpose in selling books is to help pay my bills and get my kids through college, so moving books is what matters most to me.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

I'm still considering lowering the price of Kinshield once the sequel is out. I'm undecided. I doubt I could have the kind of success that others have at that price because fantasy fiction isn't a hot genre (and my book is an older, more traditional type that people are generally "done" with ), but I figure that as I add books to my shelf, I can price them higher and drop the prices of the early books. Thing is, we can't drop it down from 99c unless Amazon changes its policy. If sales start to slump at 99c, then what?


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

melcom said:


> Ali, I raised the price of my book to $2.99 last week and sales virtually stopped, so I lowered it again and sales are going through the roof.
> 
> I have the sequel coming out next month and have decided to keep that at $2.99, it'll be interesting to see if it sells or not, especially as most of those leaving a review are demanding the sequel.
> 
> Mel


Mel, I don't know how long your book's been out but unless I missed it for months then not very long.

How you choose to price it is entirely up to you but it would be a shame if you've set a precedent of a low price in order to get quick sales today rather than spend several months building up your reputation as a community member and author.

I do worry that new authors are pricing too cheaply for instant gratification and I especially worry if trying to outsell other authors (perhaps because of reading the figures here) has driven them to that.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2011)

Steve Weick is one of the owners of Onebookshelf.com, which is a digital retailer of roleplaying games, fiction, and comic books. The company started in 2001. They have ten years of sales data under their belts, and they know digital selling.

While the RPG industry is not identical to fiction, there are a lot of similarities and the processes are relatively the same. There are "traditional" publishing companies like Wizards of the Coast, White Wolf Game Studios, Palladium Books, etc. But the industry also supports a huge indie market. The RPG industry started moving away from print toward digital products years ago, and it is a good indication of the direction fiction is currently moving.

Now OBS has a very close relationship with its publishing partners, and shares sales data with us so that we can make good decisions. They recently sent out an e-mail covering a lot of business topics. After talking to Steve he gave me the OK to share the following from his e-mail. I think it is relevant to this thread.

_Finally, before your eyes glaze over from this long-winded email, I wanted to say a quick word on pricing. In the era of 99 cent apps and songs, it is easy to envision a world where the price of digital content continues to fall. Some publishers have been experimenting with low price points and finding some success. I want to offer a few counterpoints to the low price approach.

First, consumers often base their purchasing not on absolute price but rather on price expectation. If you're not familiar with the term "price anchoring", I recommend you check out Mintlife's article here. Consumers will respond to a $1 RPG sale because their price expectation for RPGs in anchored at $15-$50 for a core rulebook and $5-$25 for a supplement. When the price they pay is far outside of their expectation it ignites interest in grabbing the deal.

If all publishers trended prices down to $1 for an RPG, then customers will re-anchor their price expectations at that level and $1 RPGs would no longer ignite large sales volumes for any single publisher. Instead $15 RPGs will seem expensive; much like any app over $1.99 is "expensive".

Second, low price points seem to be suboptimal for long term total revenue. Our data on sales rates of core rulebooks shows very little correlation between a rulebook's PDF sales rate and the rulebook's price. This suggests that selling really cheap PDFs of your core books won't sell dramatically more copies, and will therefore get you less total revenue.

Third, lots of $1 sales transactions kill us in micro-transaction payment processing fees. When an exclusive publisher sells a title for $1, we pay .31 to Paypal (or nearly the same to credit card processors) and pay the publisher 70 cents. We're already down a penny before we cover any other operating expense. Customer purchase frequency and habits are not the same for games and comics as for music, nor do we make profits selling hardware devices, so what works at i-Tunes/Apple won't work for us. A race to the bottom in pricing would force us to make some type of change in royalty structure with publishers or fee structure with customers, neither of which we want to do - ever - unless forced upon us by too many sales where we take a loss on every sale.

For those reasons and others (like affording decent art), we encourage publishers not to see lower prices as a long term way to raise your total income._

======

To follow up on a couple of Steve's points:

The issue of "absolute price" versus "price expectation" is one I have talked about before. It is one thing to have a book priced at $3.99 or $4.99 and place it on sale for 99 cents for a limited time. The price expectation is that the book will cost $4.99, and the customer has a chance to save money by acting immediately on the sale. But when the normal price is 99 cents, this becomes the expected price and there is no sense of urgency to make a purchase.

Steve also mentioned short term success. The point of his post was that many new publishers have been using the low price point. OBS is looking at TEN YEARS worth of sales data, not six months. The reason why some publishers are having short term success is not because they are selling cheap. It is because their prices are _below the customers' expectations for the type of product_. But what the data is showing is that as customers become more accustomed to lower prices, the lower prices has less of an impact on sales volume.

The micro-transaction fees, whether you realize it or not, played a part in Amazon's decision to push indies away from 99 cent books to the $2.99 and up range with the special 70% royalty. And you can be sure other sites like Smashwords will follow suit soon. Processing fees are fixed, depending on the form of payment. If it is Paypal, you have a fixed amount they charge on each business transaction. If it is a credit card, you have a fixed amount you pay regardless of the total transaction.

Finally, there is no long term evidence that low prices by themselves actually drive sales. Why does one author with a 99 cent book see it rocket to the top, while another languishes at the bottom of the sales rankings? If price was truly a driving factor, the bestsellers' lists would be a constant flux of new 99 cent titles. Instead, the bestsellers' lists tend to have a huge range of prices, from free up to almost $20. Price only becomes a factor if there is an expectation among the consumer base that a product should cost MORE that the reflected sales price.

Example: Your book is listed at $3.99 and you are selling one or two copies a day. After a month, you drop the price to .99 cents. You now start getting ten to fifteen sales a day. The typical author says "99 cents is the sweet spot." But what has actually happened is that customers have a price expectation of $3.99 for the book, and when they see the 99 cent price they think they are "getting a deal" and grab it. The longer the price remains 99 cents, the less effective that price is because it becomes the new norm.

Example: An author with a $2.99 book that has only promoted on forums drops the price to 99 cents. In order to "take advantage" of their new price, they promote the hell out of the price. They buy ads at KindleNation and other sites to promote the 99 cent price. They see a spike in sales and assume it is because of the low price.

But if the author had put the identical effort into marketing at the original price of $2.99, assuming all other things about the book are equal (good writing, good cover, good editing, etc), long term sales data shows they would have had almost an identical result&#8230;and made more money per individual sale.

In short, the thing Steve is talking about is understanding cause and effect in marketing. If you think the 99 cents will drive sales, and you drop the book to 99 cents and get sales, you will assume the 99 cents triggered the sales. I've actually seen this happen on this very forum. An author will make a comment like, "I haven't marketed all that much and lowered my price to 99 cents. After promoting the 99 cents I saw more sales" and will attribute the sales to the low price. But the sales are more likely triggered by the PROMOTION, which she admitted she was not doing before dropping her price!

I'm NOT saying to never use the 99 cent price. There are legitimate reasons to use it for short term marketing plans. But the point is to take a long term approach and understand that you need to use it SPARINGLY and EFFECTIVELY. Overuse of low prices changes the customer's expectations in regard to price and can negatively hurt long term sales.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Are authors relying on low prices to sell their books rather than other forms of promotion? You see the problem, because if this is what people are doing then prices will simply drop and drop and cancel out the gain we should be getting from all the extra customers.

btw, yes, I have attended exhibitions, yes I have bought from them, yes I realise the hours and costs involved to the artists. whenever I buy anything indie I try to buy it directly from the person who created it so they get the profits if there are any.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> Are authors relying on low prices to sell their books rather than other forms of promotion? You see the problem, because if this is what people are doing then prices will simply drop and drop and cancel out the gain we should be getting from all the extra customers.


In many cases, yes. You'll often hear people rather proudly claim they have never spent any money on ads or promotion, but instead rely on the low price to sell for them. What they don't realize is that they are in effect STILL paying...just on the back end in terms of lower revenue per sale as opposed to the front end. And they don't get that as the low price becomes the norm, it will have less and less impact on sales.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Oooh, Daniel, Dream is out.  WOOT!  I'll be buying it the instant I get home.  Quick, raise it to $2.99 - I promise I'll still buy it - it's the hawk on the cover 

K.C. - I think .99 for the first book in a series is smart.  Granted, I'm just a single reader, but I tend to look at .99 as a paid sample.  I'll happily pay $1 for a full work to sample a series or an author, and if I enjoyed it and want to read more, I'll happily pay more for the sequels.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Thanks Julie, our posts 'crossed in the post' but you've summed up what I've been trying to say more successfully than I have - maybe because you're a more experienced writer .


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Arkali said:


> Oooh, Daniel, Dream is out. WOOT! I'll be buying it the instant I get home. Quick, raise it to $2.99 - I promise I'll still buy it - it's the hawk on the cover


Thanks, Arkali! Yeah, I've actually raised the price already. Amazon just hasn't updated it yet. The $0.99 was only a week-long sale, so grab one now before it updates. I hope you enjoy it.

This, uhm... isn't off topic. It's an example of how to use $0.99 for a temporary promotion. Yeah... that's the ticket.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

Thanks, Julie. That was a very informative post. Makes a great deal of sense to me. I'm hoping/planning to sell my books for the next 2+ decades. I'd hate to shoot myself in the foot for long-term sales by getting too anxious to see big numbers. I see this as my retirement income, not pay bills now income.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Daniel Arenson said:


> Thanks, Arkali! Yeah, I've actually raised the price already. Amazon just hasn't updated it yet. The $0.99 was only a week-long sale, so grab one now before it updates. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> This, uhm... isn't off topic. It's an example of how to use $0.99 for a temporary promotion. Yeah... that's the ticket.


Excellent business plan, pricing and promotion, Daniel. Please feel free to quote it several times on this thread - at least it will be doing something useful .

Another point this kind of raises is something I discovered soon after I published my book to kindle - that helping others helps you. Luckily I got in with a group of people who believed very much in this approach and they instilled it in me - and I'm very glad they did.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

kcmay said:


> Thanks, Julie. That was a very informative post. Makes a great deal of sense to me. I'm hoping/planning to sell my books for the next 2+ decades. I'd hate to shoot myself in the foot for long-term sales by getting too anxious to see big numbers. I see this as my retirement income, not pay bills now income.


I need it to be both of those .

I learned a lot of those business points years ago when I worked for American Express (in UK). It's partly the memory of that business training that's making me ask questions now.


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## Julia Brady (Jan 5, 2011)

Something you have to consider is that movies and television shows are now only being sold for $0.99 to $2.99 when they are downloadable, also. Yes, they sell much more, but they also have a lot more expenses that we don't have, like paying actors, marketing and advertising on a massive scale, etc.

When someone has a choice between paying $1.99 to watch a movie online or paying $2.99 to download a book, it seems easier to watch the movie. Sure, the book will take longer to read and provide more hours of entertainment. But customers won't often see it that way.

It's hard enough as it is to get people to choose reading over television or video games or movies. Pricing low helps make the decision a little easier.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

Some say, and it's in line with supply (limitless ebooks) and demand (limited customers) theory, that we're headed for $0 ebooks one day, that all revenue will be ad generated then. (Not an outcome I wish for, personally, but I think it's a possibility.)

I don't market much, otherwise I'd never finish my WIP and preserve my screw-off time. So even though I have a book that's got 34 reviews averaging 4.5 stars, it tanks at $2.99 to the point where if I left it at that price for two months I'm sure it would disappear from notice and sales would dwindle below what I'm making now off the book at 99 cents. So I figure I'm simply maximizing revenue at 99 cents.

And if I'm somehow losing money due to the lower price, which I don't believe, then I'll chock it up to advertising expenses as I've sold about 10K copies of the book by now (with probably two-thirds being 99 cent sales).

Oh, forgot. I have been experimenting with price in the UK. After the .71 GBP (equivalent to 99 cents in America) price got it in the top 100 over there for two weeks I raised the price a bit, but still kept it under a pound, and subsequently the book fell out of the top 100 and has been at around 250 or thereabouts for a month, and I'm losing money as a result in comparison to what I was making inside the top 100 at the slightly lower price. Yesterday Amazon UK discounted the book back to .71 GBP. You think they're trying to tell me something?


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Julia Brady said:


> Something you have to consider is that movies and television shows are now only being sold for $0.99 to $2.99 when they are downloadable, also. Yes, they sell much more, but they also have a lot more expenses that we don't have, like paying actors, marketing and advertising on a massive scale, etc.
> 
> When someone has a choice between paying $1.99 to watch a movie online or paying $2.99 to download a book, it seems easier to watch the movie. Sure, the book will take longer to read and provide more hours of entertainment. But customers won't often see it that way.
> 
> It's hard enough as it is to get people to choose reading over television or video games or movies. Pricing low helps make the decision a little easier.


I'll leave worrying about that till my book's made into a film .


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Daniel Arenson said:


> Thanks, Arkali! Yeah, I've actually raised the price already. Amazon just hasn't updated it yet. The $0.99 was only a week-long sale, so grab one now before it updates. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> This, uhm... isn't off topic. It's an example of how to use $0.99 for a temporary promotion. Yeah... that's the ticket.


There - I'll quote it FOR you  Honestly, I was surprised to see it at .99 and won't be bothered a bit if it's $2.99 by the time I get off work  In this case, it's definitely not the price that sold me, it was the cover - specifically, the hawk


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Suzanne Adair said:


> Robin Sullivan posted to Joe Konrath's blog recently about using price to position her husband's fantasy series. She didn't want her husband's books to be perceived as "self-published" and thus "low quality." Thus the prices she set were comparable to those from traditional publishers.


Fwiw, the first book in the series is priced at $0.99.


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## Julia Brady (Jan 5, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> I'll leave worrying about that till my book's made into a film .


But it IS something to think about now, because we need people to make the choice to buy a book INSTEAD of choosing other forms of entertainment that are priced very low.

We are competing with all those other forms of entertainment in addition to other books in our genres.


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## matt youngmark (Jan 11, 2011)

Since the entire eBook industry is still in its infancy, I think pricing has a long way to go before it smooths itself out. For a year, I had my kindle edition at 9.99 and then 5.99, as a reflection of the $14.95 paperback price -- it wasn't until just a few weeks ago when I decided to start treating ebooks as a significant sales opportunity that I dropped it to 2.99, and started seeing more than the occasional ebook sale. Although I agree that a race to the bottom in pricing benefits few, I would also argue that the real work of normalizing ebook prices is going to come from the major publishers. Right now indie authors are mostly finding success at the .99 - 2.99 price point because it's below the pricing expectations set by the majors -- Loki help us all if they drop their prices to join us.

Also, I suspect that the reason indie authors are selling many more books at .99 than at higher prices has less to do with competing against other indie authors, and more to do with finding the price point at which a reader is willing to take a chance on something they've never heard of before. If every indie author raised their prices to 2.99, would we all see significantly stronger sales at that price point, since readers' pricing expectations would rise to match it? My guess is no. My guess is that all indie authors would be selling in the neighborhood of what the 2.99 authors are selling now, and readers would be taking fewer chances on indie books.

As long as anybody with a word processor and a dream can sell their book in the Kindle store (and don't get me wrong, I'm behind this 100%), 99 cent ebooks are going to be a market reality. If no one has ever heard of me, or knows anything about my book, pricing it as a 99 cent impulse buy is honestly probably my best strategy (and after I have a couple more books in the series, I'll probably drop the price of the first one to .99 myself, and keep the others at 2.99). My philosophy is that if you want to sell at a higher price, it's up to you to distinguish your book from the crowd. And I chose 2.99 because I want to set that as the price expectation for MY OWN books -- competing with other books at other price points is just part of the landscape.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Hi MYM,

I take your point on that. But by the time you've sold several thousand books you're building a reputation. You'd think authors would raise their prices above 99c at this point - but most don't seem to because I think they're just too addicted to seeing those books fly off virtual shelves.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

Ali Cooper said:


> Hi MYM,
> 
> I take your point on that. But by the time you've sold several thousand books you're building a reputation. You'd think authors would raise their prices above 99c at this point - but most don't seem to because I think they're just too addicted to seeing those books fly off virtual shelves.


So I lay out a cogent argument for why I'm pricing at 99 cents and then have to read this ad hominem attack? Thread's all yours, OP.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Hi MYM,
> 
> I take your point on that. But by the time you've sold several thousand books you're building a reputation. You'd think authors would raise their prices above 99c at this point - but most don't seem to because I think they're just too addicted to seeing those books fly off virtual shelves.


Speaking for myself, that's not it at all.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

No concerns. Vive $ .99. Vive $ 3.99. Vive everything in between.

Edward C. Patterson


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Eric C said:


> So I lay out a cogent argument for why I'm pricing at 99 cents and then have to read this ad hominem attack? Thread's all yours, OP.


I'm sorry that you take an observation as a personal attack. I've stated several times that I respect everyone's individual decisions and reasons for their particular case. My concern is of a general nature particularly regarding the expectations of new authors.


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

Julia Brady said:


> Something you have to consider is that movies and television shows are now only being sold for $0.99 to $2.99 when they are downloadable, also. Yes, they sell much more, but they also have a lot more expenses that we don't have, like paying actors, marketing and advertising on a massive scale, etc.
> 
> When someone has a choice between paying $1.99 to watch a movie online or paying $2.99 to download a book, it seems easier to watch the movie. Sure, the book will take longer to read and provide more hours of entertainment. But customers won't often see it that way.
> 
> It's hard enough as it is to get people to choose reading over television or video games or movies. Pricing low helps make the decision a little easier.


I'm not sure I accept the idea that as authors, we are most often competing directly with movies, video games, and TV shows. Yes, these are all forms of entertainment. I enjoy all of them. I would argue that while there are certainly plenty of readers who are also movie buffs, gamers, and TV watchers, the decision to purchase entertainment is probably fairly focused. If I want a new video game, it's because I'm in the mood to play a game...not because I found a game that's cheaper than a book I also want to read. Although all these things can fall under the category of "entertainment", they are not equivalent. Speaking only for myself, it's not all the same to me whether I purchase Halo: Reach, or buy a copy of _The Social Network_ on DVD, or an episode of "Fringe", or perhaps pick up the latest Stephen King novel. If I'm in the mood to play a game, a book isn't an adequate substitute. Yes, most people have a fixed budget and may need to make choices about what to spend their money on, but books aren't priced to compete with games aren't priced to compete with movies aren't priced to compete with concert tickets.

Also, where in the world are you buying $1.99 (relatively new, non-indie) movies online? While iTunes does offer sales on older movies, new releases are usually $9.99 and up. Amazon's new "Video On Demand" releases are similarly priced. Single episodes of TV shows are generally $1.99.

That said, I still believe that in most cases, books compete mostly with other books. Most consumers have some idea what they want to buy when they go online to purchase entertainment. Most readers (the people I'm targeting with my books) don't need to be persuaded away from video games by rock-bottom prices.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Monique said:


> Speaking for myself, that's not it at all.


Then that's fine.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

LOL. Okay. I'm outtie.


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## matt youngmark (Jan 11, 2011)

Ali -- when authors start reporting that they've raised their prices and are doing well at that price point, others will join them. For now, I don't see it as any kind of "addiction" issue (the case for a $4.00 cup of coffee, on the other hand, may be otherwise), but simply authors pricing their books at what the market will bear.

Markets are amazing things, but they're not governed by what we think our books are worth. They're governed by a bunch of people trying everything under the sun and discovering what works for them.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Another side to my concern is that authors hoping to publish are telling me they see no sense in spending time on their book and perfecting it if they're only going to sell it for 99c.

So if 99c becomes too much of a norm, is it going to encourage new indie authors to publish low quality books - something most people here seem keen to dissuade people from doing?


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Monique said:


> LOL. Okay. I'm outtie.


Sorry I wasn't being sarcastic. I mean seriously that if you have a good reason for your pricing that's fine. The problem comes when people assume that's the price they have to set because everyone else is. And even worse when they decide that for that price they can't be bothered to edit their book properly. Authors are saying these things to me.


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## matt youngmark (Jan 11, 2011)

I suspect we'll always have people pumping out ebook junk, and we'll always have people trying to make a serious go at selling their books by crafting a higher quality product -- no matter where the sweet spot is in pricing, good books will always have a sales advantage over bad ones.

Ultimately, the market is going to adjust itself to where the profits are.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

I'm going to back out of this discussion for a bit because I have absolutely no wish to offend anyone. Unfortunately, when discussing something like money online it's very difficult not to do so inadvertently.

I would simply urge authors to look at the bigger picture and to listen to people like Julie (B&S) who have business experience.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

flanneryohello said:


> I'm not sure I accept the idea that as authors, we are most often competing directly with movies, video games, and TV shows. Yes, these are all forms of entertainment. I enjoy all of them. I would argue that while there are certainly plenty of readers who are also movie buffs, gamers, and TV watchers, the decision to purchase entertainment is probably fairly focused. If I want a new video game, it's because I'm in the mood to play a game...not because I found a game that's cheaper than a book I also want to read. Although all these things can fall under the category of "entertainment", they are not equivalent. Speaking only for myself, it's not all the same to me whether I purchase Halo: Reach, or buy a copy of _The Social Network_ on DVD, or an episode of "Fringe", or perhaps pick up the latest Stephen King novel. If I'm in the mood to play a game, a book isn't an adequate substitute. Yes, most people have a fixed budget and may need to make choices about what to spend their money on, but books aren't priced to compete with games aren't priced to compete with movies aren't priced to compete with concert tickets.
> 
> Also, where in the world are you buying $1.99 (relatively new, non-indie) movies online? While iTunes does offer sales on older movies, new releases are usually $9.99 and up. Amazon's new "Video On Demand" releases are similarly priced. Single episodes of TV shows are generally $1.99.
> 
> That said, I still believe that in most cases, books compete mostly with other books. Most consumers have some idea what they want to buy when they go online to purchase entertainment. Most readers (the people I'm targeting with my books) don't need to be persuaded away from video games by rock-bottom prices.


This. Assuming that one can afford the medium, cheaper forms of entertainment don't win out one when comparing different entertainment platforms. By that, I mean assuming the person can afford to game, period - ie. they have either a computer or a TV / Game Console set, a DVD player, whatever, they're going to buy in the category that they want at that particular time. I'm a gamer, I watch some TV (though not a lot), and I read. If I want a new book, I'll get a new book. If I can't afford a new book because I've already blown my book budget I'll either read one of the freebies I have or re-read a previously read book. Other folk might borrow from a friend or the library. If I want to see a movie in theaters but can't afford it I'll either save up, bum money off my friend  or suggest renting movies at home. What entertainment venue one chooses at any given time doesn't really have much to do with price.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

To tell you the truth, while I am interested in a discussion of pricing, I get really tired of this debate. There are too many people emotionally attached to their price point, and that kills discussion.

IMHO, Ali is right logically, but it is nothing to worry about. Its the same thing as Lee Goldberg's fear of all the horrible writing that is flooding into Amazon. It's not going to hurt anybody. People can create ghettos for themselves. They can put themselves out of business. Or they can create a new "pulp fiction" category that is the greatest movement ever. That's irrelevant to those who don't do the same thing.

I posted about this on my blog a few weeks ago, and rather than go into it all, I'll post a link again: Books are not commodities, they're pastrami on rye. http://daringnovelist.blogspot.com/2011/01/books-are-not-commodities-theyre.html

Some people have patience and don't have a problem building an audience over a long time. Others want it now, and work on a shorter time line. That's okay. One does not ruin the other. We're all learning. We'll all find what works for us - and yes, we'll all have some failures along the way.

Camille


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## RobertMarda (Oct 19, 2010)

I find this thread very interesting and thank everyone who has contributed to it.

As I progress with my first book which I plan to publish here when finished I am doing my best to learn about marketing and debating what price to set my books at.

I wonder if this price anchor/price expectation that is discussed is individual in nature or collective or both.  If 100 indie authors price their book at 99 cents and 2 indie authors price their books at $2.99 will the perceived price anchor for all indie books become 99 cents?  Or is the price expectation something that is per indie author and so using the same example as above those 100 authors have set the price expectation for their books at 99 cents and the 2 other authors have their price expectation set at $2.99.  If this last is true then I would think that the 100 indie authors that priced their books at 99 cents will not have any impact on the sales of the 2 authors that chose to price their books at $2.99.  Assuming the quality of all the books is equal and marketing is equal could the 2 indie authors pricing their books at $2.99 expect to have as good sales as the other 100?

As a reader and someone with a set budget looking to buy books I would look at all the 100 authors with books at 99 cents before looking at the ones at $2.99.  Part of the reason I do this is because from the sample I get a sense of the quality of the book and if it can keep my attention then I will buy it.  As a reader I am looking for a bargain.  And then it seems I would make myself a hypocrite if I then publish a book for more than what I usually pay for a book.

Where recognition plays a part for me is that if Anne McCaffrey creates a new dragon riders of pern book I will pay whatever the paperback price is for that book and I won't bother to sample it because I already know I will like it.

For my part, no matter what price I finally decide to use when I publish my book, I want the book to be the best I can make it and will not skip parts of the process simply because I only expect to get 99 cents per book.  I do not look at the pricing as a way for me to compete for sales with other indie authors.  My book will not be like the other books.  My story is different.  I will be looking for the right price for a new author seeking readers who will enjoy the story I wrote.  I've read some of the books published by people here and have been very entertained.  I expect my book will entertain as well but it is nothing like the books I have read by indie authors here.

As I embrace the idea that I can actually publish my own book and have hope because of the success of others here I do wonder about how much I can earn if I have to publish at 99 cents to have any hope of my book getting purchased and read so that people will talk about it.  I've considered not going with the flow but of course fear that not doing what everyone else is doing is a sure way to doom what I write to oblivion.

I am more likely to price a book a publish, especially the first book I publish, at 99 cents as a way of getting my book in the hands of as many people as possible so that it will get read and so ignite the word of mouth sales of that book.  So in that way I will be like many others here and watching the sales but I will be viewing each sale as one more person that I hope enjoys the book and recommends it to someone else.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

When I published my first book, I priced it at 99 cents. This was a much smaller forum and most everyone knew me. Yes, it flew off the shelves. Eventually, I priced it at $2.99 and it's my best seller. 

My criteria for pricing is the length of the book.

.99 for short stories and novelettes
1.99 for novellas
2.99 for full length novels (over 50K)

I dropped the price of C&C to $0.99 for about a month, but there weren't enough sales to justify the drop. Since that's my longest book at 168K, I've toyed with the idea of pricing it at $3.99. Haven't had the courage to do it.

The thing is that I'm in this for the long haul. If I had a trad pubbed pb on bookshelves, I would want to get as much in royalties as I could because it has a limited shelf life. Since my books will mostly likely be on the virtual shelves for the rest of my life, I can keep them priced reasonably and continue to build up name recognition, sales and reviews. 

I don't sell thousands of books every month, but I'm pretty happy with what I sell at the price I sell it. It works for me and it looks like it works for readers.


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## HeidiHall (Sep 5, 2010)

I debate this conundrum repeatedly! I sell my book at $2.99 because I believe it is a fair price for a first book and I receive a decent royalty in relation to a traditionally published author at that cost. But my eyes do go green with envy when I see others post that they are selling thousands of copies in the same amount of time it takes me to sell hundreds. I'm excited for them and consider dropping my price on nearly a daily basis...what holds me back? Reader feedback! I have never had someone tell me that $2.99 was too high a price to pay, in fact, they usually ask why it's so cheap. Not saying that everyone loves my book, some definitely don't (it's a bit racy), but cost is never an issue. 

I don't get angry when others are selling their books for so little because there are very valid reasons for pumping up your numbers by this method. What I do see is that my readers are finding me at my current price at a rate that is doubling monthly. BUT, (dun, dun, dun) I fully intend to lower the price for my first book when the next is released (for a period of time). So what's the answer? Heck if I know . But I will continue to support my fellow indies at whatever price they deem appropriate and do my own thing as I'm wont to do.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Awesome post, Camille.  I think I'm going to have to try to buy some Zingerman's bread since you said they ship


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## Scamp (Dec 31, 2010)

From a reader's perspective, pressuring by authors for other authors to raise prices looks, well, like pressuring.  It's like you're telling those who price their books at $.99 that they're hurting you (or the whole indie industry) and you're trying to cajole/reason/argue them into raising them.

No, I'm not picking on you in particular, Ali. Seriously. This thread just called to mind the numerous posts I have seen made to a couple of authors who, for example, have been either very close to or on the bestsellers' list for a sustained period of time. The authors are being *advised* that they are undercutting/selling short their own books and setting up unreasonable expectations among readers.  This advice is given despite evidence to the contrary, evidence that shows book sales often completely plummet when some authors have tried to raise their prices. Sometimes they never get their momentum back.

Most of you are unknowns to most of the reading public.  Nobody cares how long you have spent writing your book or what you think the book is worth. Nobody cares that you feel you *must* price at $2.99 because it's more money in *your* pocket. The question is what readers will pay.  I have seen many many posts from readers who will absolutely not pay a dime over $.99 for a new author.  Why?  They've been burned too many times, and $2.99 is not cheap no matter what anybody says.  I can take my $10 and buy 10 highly *experimental* reads or buy 3.  As a consumer, I'll take the 10.

Also - and I'm surprised to see how little recognition of this there is in the indie author world - the trad-pubs are seriously cutting into sales and driving your prices down.  They are getting very smart.  The Big5 and mid-sized publishers are increasingly offering freebies and cut prices for books in series.  This diverts attention away from the indie market significantly.  These publishers are well known, as is the perceived quality of their offerings.  Just look at the sheer volume of free offerings.  They know what they're doing.  I used to think they were bumbling oafs, but I've changed my mind. They're playing a serious game, and they're playing to stay alive.

If you don't sell, and sell a lot, you won't make a name for yourselves.  I'll wager that the authors selling $.99 books, the ones who are sittin' pretty on the bestseller list, are 'undercutting' themselves quite happily all the way to the bank.  They are making good money and attracting notice.  If it works for them, then it's good strategy.  The more books they write, the better reputation they gain, the more books they sell (some at slightly higher prices), the more money they will make and the more options they will have.

I'm *just* a reader - so what do I know? - but I'm offering my unschooled, unsolicited advice anyway.  If $.99 is the sweet spot for your book, let it ferment.  Go from unknown to known.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

I noticed this banner the other day and thought about starting a thread on it, but this seems like a great spot for it. I would say this is Amazon's way of raising price expectations for indies:


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

I haven't yet self-published a book, though I hope to do so this year. So my thoughts and feelings on this topic are based mostly on observing the market and watching what the most successful indie authors are doing.

I would never price my (full-length) novels at $0.99. I just wouldn't. I don't honestly believe it's necessary--at least not to achieve the level of success I want. No one can deny that pricing as low as possible may entice impulse buyers and encourage people to give someone unknown a chance, but I don't think it's an author's only option, assuming they are thinking long-term and have also produced a quality, professional book.

Does one need to price at $0.99 to achieve success? Clearly not. Many of the most successful indie authors price well above $0.99...sometimes even above $2.99.

I would rather focus on submitting my book to respected reviewers and doing solid promotion than to practically give my work away. This is just my personal opinion on the matter. I'm already traditionally published and could stick with that, if I wanted, and if I'm selling at $0.99 as an indie, I actually think I'd be better off doing just that. My goal in going indie would be to make publishing more profitable for me as the author, and if I'm earning only $0.35 (or whatever it is) per book, AND footing the costs of editing, cover design, marketing, etc., I just don't see that being a more profitable route.

And honestly, pricing at $0.99 very clearly labels your book as being self-published. Not that this is entirely a bad thing, but in some cases, it may be. This whole ebook/indie publishing thing is very new to most consumers, and I wholeheartedly believe that $0.99 is way cheaper than what most readers expect to pay for a book. And while that may excite them for a while, if they drop a dollar on enough crap (and we all know there's plenty of that out there), that price point starts to denote questionable quality instead of incredible deals. I would rather price my books to compete with traditionally published books, since I'm confident I can produce that quality. Or rather, I'd rather price my books below traditionally published books, but not so far below that I place my book into a whole different category in a reader's mind. I have no problem with my book being seen as a relative bargain, but I don't want it to be bargain basement.

I can't control what other people do, and in a way, it doesn't really matter. I'm not intending to compete only with $0.99 indie books. The market is a lot bigger than that, and I believe I can eventually gain fans and readers from among those people who don't shop exclusively at the bottom of the price range. It may take me more time, it may take great word of mouth, but it can be done.


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## Joe Chiappetta (May 20, 2010)

When it comes to eBooks, the cheaper the better. That's how I like to buy, and how I like to price my own books. Distribution and commerce should be relatively free and easy. That will bring growth and widespread adoption.


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## Julia Brady (Jan 5, 2011)

Arkali said:


> I noticed this banner the other day and thought about starting a thread on it, but this seems like a great spot for it. I would say this is Amazon's way of raising price expectations for indies:


Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that banner. I wish they'd have put $4.99 or less. Mine are all $0.99 or $2.99, though.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I want to pause to thank Scamp for being such a strong supporter of indies. (Scamp: I am sure you are personally responsible for selling a lot of my books!)

And her comments raise another aspect of this ongoing debate, which I've been thinking about a lot more lately.

There are really two issues. What's a fair price? That is, what price is fair in the long run, not as a marketing gimmick? IMHO that's a negotiation between the author and the audience. No two books are going to have identical considerations.

The other issue, though, clouds that first issue. That issue is marketing. As Scamp says, indie writers need to find readers, and they need to convince people of what they're worth. IMHO, free is a much better tool for this purpose than a temporary low price. Of course, Amazon prevents us from doing either one well. They don't let us give away books for free, and they don't let us set a higher list price and then offer a discount. (Smashwords, of course, allows us to do both, so for all the reporting issues and lowest-common-denominator formatting rules, Smashwords remains one of our greatest tools.)

And I'm sorry to say this, Scamp, but the amount of work it takes to produce a work IS relevant. It's extremely relevant. If you can't maintain a system in an ongoing way, it'll die. That's just how it is. High ranking and popularity is nice for the ego, but it doesn't pay the rent. This is the most common way a freelancer or small business person puts themselves out of business. If the audience isn't there for a fair price, then they aren't there period. The writer does not owe it to the audience to subsidize their entertainment. You may give something away to attract an audience, but then the fair price has to kick in.

Now, there is nothing to say that a lower price isn't a fair price for many books and writers -- especially if the writer lives in a depressed state with a low standard of living, or writes very fast, writes shorter works, or has a VERY wide audience -- but fair _is_ important, and it's only fair if it takes both sides into consideration.

Camille


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## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

Ali, thank you for starting this thread, I hope you don't stay away...

Julie, thanks for taking the time for such thoughtful posts.



Suzanne Adair said:


> Sisters in Crime (http://www.sistersincrime.org/), a non-profit organization that promotes the efforts of women authors of crime fiction, recently commissioned a study of consumer book buying habits. One section of the resulting report dealt with prices of ebooks. Note that the information you see below is specifically about crime fiction: mystery, suspense, thriller.
> 
> The _fairest_ price that consumers reported they'd pay for an ebook was $9.90 for men and $8.46 for women.
> 
> ...


Thank you for posting this Suzanne.

I come from a business background and like Julie's post, no matter how I do the math, I cannot see a long-term benefit for pricing low. Then again I know my book has a fairly small niche market and I know I have not found a fourmula for reaching them yet. I also know I am getting there, drip by drip and I am prepared to hang in there for the long haul, as tedious as it is. Robin and Michael did not do it overnight even with their skill at marketing.

It does concern me that by far the bulk of indie books appear to be coming out at $.99, but again, if we do the math we can see that that price cannot sustain itself if ebooks are to succeed. And the business model of advertising being the new model makes me shudder.

I have to believe that the study quoted by Suzanne reflects far more of the readers I am trying to reach than the culture which has grown up around 'free' or cheap reads.

Sharon


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## screwballl (Jan 4, 2011)

I have yet to finish my first book, but I do plan to initially release it at the $2.99 price point and then if I see it is doing well, may kick it up to $3-4. The way I see it is people tend to be willing to pay a little for an unknown author, but a lot for a well known author... which means as time goes on and more people self-publish, the better known publishers lose out and that leaves the entire market full of $2-5 ebooks (self published). All except those set by publishers, where they tend to charge $15 for an unknown publisher to get back their money, and less ($9-12) for a well known author where they will likely make their money back quicker.


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## matt youngmark (Jan 11, 2011)

Camille -- I completely agree with your thoughts on marketing and finding an audience for ebooks at a fair price. But I'm not sure I'd say that if ebooks don't pay authors' rents the system will implode. Keep in mind that the vast majority of traditionally published fiction writers have day jobs too.


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## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

$2.99 has been 'established' as the Indie price, whether we like it or not.  This has become the threshold.  I've sold my White Seed at 99 cents for about three or four months, but I felt really bad about it.  At 492 pages, it's a quality book, every bit as good as something by Follett or Clavell (I know, I'm biased), and I felt like I was giving it away at 99 cents, and cheapening it.  So I bumped it back up to 299 and the sales dropped off somewhat.  Yeah, that part hurt, but I refuse to give the book away for a buck.  However, I am using Calling Crow as the loss leader at 99 cents, to introduce folks to my Southeast series.  At some point that price will go up, probably in April.  

Note that NYC is now lowballing books in the series by some of their house stallions and mares, pricing them at $5.00 mostly, some even at 99 cents.  There does seem to be more competing via price.

If one of the book Gods (Oprah, can you hear me?) were to reach her hand down from the clouds and annoint one of my books, then I could bump up my prices a little.  But for now, they'll stay at $2.99 for the most part.

Best!


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

mattyoungmark said:


> Camille -- I completely agree with your thoughts on marketing and finding an audience for ebooks at a fair price. But I'm not sure I'd say that if ebooks don't pay authors' rents the system will implode. Keep in mind that the vast majority of traditionally published fiction writers have day jobs too.


No, the whole system will not implode, but we're talking about whether an individual writer will be able to sustain their business. If writers don't think about a sustainable business model, we'll have the same kind of churn of new authors you do with Traditional publishing. (Remember that I am not advocating for a particular price point. I am talking about finding a sustainable price point. For some people that will be much lower than others.)

Many entrepreneurs (and this includes the hobbyist level people with day jobs) crash when they run out of saved up resources. This usually happens before they actually develop a lasting customer base. They have sold based on marketing tricks and the expenditure of a lot of money and energy. They set out to "build momentum" but they don't see that they're fuelling that momentum on YEARS of effort, not just current effort. And when they use that up, they don't have sufficient resources to keep it up.

This is especially true of the hobbyist who has been working a day job. Their costs are invisible to them. They think as long as they have the day job, they'll be able to sustain this hobby. Then it turns out the hobby is burning more resources than they thought, then they quit.

"Sunk costs" seem free, and are invisible to most beginners. But that benefit will disappear eventually, and your business model better be able to sustain itself without it.

Some readers are fickle, but for the most part, I believe what they really want is someone who will write great books for a long time. A flash in the pan for 99 cents is fine. They read it, gush about it, and soon forget it. However, I've seen a few informal polls that lead me to believe is what they really want is reliability. They may like one book, but they are really only going to commit to love an author who gives them many books. That's where the gold really is. IMHO, you need to commit to a model that will keep you going.

I am not advocating for a particular price. I'm just saying that you should never let marketing wag the dog on your career.

Camille


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## Rhynedahll (Oct 23, 2010)

I don't have the experience or sales of many of the other posters, but I'll chip in my own limited experience.

My small short story collection has always been priced at .99. I created it specifically as a lead in.

It's not in a hot genre (zombies, vampires, romance, etc) so it doesn't sell like hotcakes.

However, the .99 price, in and of itself, seemed to do practically nothing to encourage sales.

It has only been after I received positive reviews from a LibraryThing giveaway that any interest has been shown in it (not stellar but better.)

I think I could have just as easily priced it at 2.99. 

I would certainly hate to see .99 become the norm; this would probably discourage the mid-rank author.


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## Scamp (Dec 31, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> I want to pause to thank Scamp for being such a strong supporter of indies. (Scamp: I am sure you are personally responsible for selling a lot of my books!)
> 
> And her comments raise another aspect of this ongoing debate, which I've been thinking about a lot more lately.
> 
> ...


Free is a much better tool, I have to agree. Even that is a problem, however, because of a huge number of readers who will jump at the chance to get anything free, whether or not it is a book they will ever read. They don't care who is paying the freight; it does not matter whether the author has to pay out of her own pocket or not (like through the Amazon Gift program). I may be exaggerating - and I seriously hope that I am - but it may be that you are lucky if even 10% of the free books given out are even read. There are people stockpiling freebies from anyplace they can get them. I got really ticked off at a poster yesterday who appeared to be soliciting specific authors' books for a freebie in exchange for "glowing reviews." She said that because of all the freebies she gets she cannot justify adding a $.99 and a $2.99 book to her budget. Then I was told I misunderstood; it was a joke, ha ha. It offended me because there is a growing greed-driven movement to hoard and stockpile free books. To blatantly ask for titles to be given to her just infuriated me. How do those particular authors whose books were named feel reading that? Pressured to give up a freebie or risk looking bad? This poster is offering a "glowing review"? Yeah, sell your soul to the devil to get books that are reasonably priced to begin with.

I'm going to say what authors here may think, but really should not say, that there are massive numbers of readers who wouldn't know a good book if it hit them in the arse. What's more, they don't care. They don't know the difference between eating a leafy green vegetable and a Hershey bar, and they're never going to learn. When a book is priced at $.99, a large percentage of buyers will be candy eaters. Some books survive on the bestseller list on the strength of candy eater sales. But not all books. When a book is really good, readers who genuinely seek quality are going to find them also. These readers are going to be the bread and butter for future books sold at what you are calling a "fair price." A discerning reader, a reader also blessed with common sense, will grasp the reasoning behind a low-priced indie, i.e. low does not equal bad and and high does not equal good. This is the reader who will pay the freight when the sequel comes out. Yes, the $2.99 sequel will see lower sales, but you are going to reach the intelligent readers also, the ones who will recognize the quality and know it is worth. Anybody who says they'll never buy a $.99 book is just as foolish (to me) as the one who says they'll never pay more. Anyone who grasps the indie market at all knows that gems can be found among all price ranges. To me, there are times when you have to draw the candy eaters to get your books noticed, at which time you will be under the radar also of the discerning reader who will be your base. This does not work with all books. I don't know why, exactly. Some authors have reported doing poorly with lowering price. There are unique sweet spots depending on the book or books involved.

Here is unfairness! Another event: After an author (who did NOT deserve it) got a "cease and desist" type of letter from Amazon yesterday for advertising her free offer on the forum - books that she paid for out of her own pocket - there seems to be a growing number of people posting discussing the whole freebie issue. There is chatter now about about how freebies at Smashwords deprive Amazon of revenue. In fact, the author in question was unfairly *accused* of sending reader to Smashwords. (She used the Gift program through Amazon.) Is there some kind of groupthink developing about authors offering freebies through Smashwords now? Honestly, I truly don't know. I do know conversations are taking a different turn. So we have the above-mentioned author who is not a spammer, who is a lovely member of the community, get a major warning about advertising while real spammers continue to thrive and prosper. We have Amazon's rules against authors pricing their books free - not even in a 'pay to play' scenario, which would be quite fair to everyone. You are deprived of the same tools that publishers are permitted. We have a divided bunch of readers, with crusaders on either extreme. A lot of this really isn't fair.

I understand what you are saying about fairness in terms of pricing relative to how long it takes an author to write a book or the writer's perceived notion of the book's worth. If I were an author, I have no doubt that I would have a devil of a time making the decision to sell a book that took me a year or more to write at $.99. I would probably experiment. But if I could sell more at the low price I would do it to become known.

If a lot of crappy books are found to be sold at $.99, this might set up the association that $.99 means crap. The same is true with any price. There are obviously crappy books selling for $2.99 also. If a reader buys and reads enough crappy books for $2.99, then it is likely the same association will be made.

Camille said: >>If you can't maintain a system in an ongoing way, it'll die.<<

See, the arts have always been overflowing with people who don't make a living doing it, but still they do it. I was in the arts for half my life, so I know this first hand. When I discontinued my theater pursuits, the theater business as an industry may have lost a good actress, but there were many more to take my place. It took maybe a day, a week tops for people to stop asking "whatever happened to whatshername." For every author who drops off the scene due to not making enough money, there will be more to take her place. The sheer numbers of people trying to write books argue against the system dying. The expectation of paying the rent or making a good living at writing simply is not going to happen for most authors, trad-pub or self-pub. It never has. I'm not trying to be depressing here. In fact I really truly appreciate good writing because I am writer myself (no, I have not written novels) and especially like to find excellent work among the indies. When I do, I will buy their books. I won't complain and whine that they aren't $.99. Neither will other readers like me. But readers like me need to find you, and sometimes they find you through a $.99 price tag.

Not fair to me is the fact that some of the best work I have found among indie books were among lesser known writers. Not fair to me is seeing bad writing rewarded. (And it is.) That is why I would like to see authors, particularly those who have books in a series, use that $.99 price point. The candy eaters will help boost your coffers while you wait for your base readership to find you.

Of course, I could be all wet... I am sometimes. 

My sincere apologies for rambling. I hope it makes sense.


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

One more thought--all this focus on pricing ignores the very real fact that books aren't interchangeable. That is, I may shop for a box of screws (for example) based on price alone because one box is just as a good as another (unless I have very specific needs), but I don't shop for books the same way. If I see a book with an amazing premise, attractive cover, and compelling sample, I'm not going to pass it over in favor of a less compelling book that happens to be $2-5 cheaper. Even if I've never read the author of the awesome-looking book before. And if I become a fan of a certain author, their books become even less interchangeable with other books. Now I want whatever they put out, because I'm hooked on their style of storytelling.

Of course price is a factor in how many books you'll sell, but the most important thing is that you've produced a quality book that will satisfy your target audience. Also, that you package (cover, editing) and market that book well.

If you do those things, I don't think that a difference of $2-5 between your book and many of the masses will make a big difference. Word of mouth, great marketing, good reviews, and the ability to create demand will sell a $3.99 book just as surely as a low price will sell a $0.99 book. I believe that wholeheartedly. The big difference is that the $3.99 book will need more time to find its audience.

I agree with Camille that the amount of work it takes to produce something is relevant to pricing. Or at the very least, it's relevant to the producer when they're deciding whether it's worth their time and energy to continue producing. Many, many traditionally published authors write as a labor of love, and yes, many of us have day jobs. But as a traditionally published author, I can focus solely on writing (with a little marketing/promotion, too) and not have to concern myself with details like cover design, paying an editor, marketing, distribution, etc. On top of that, I earn more than $0.35 per book I sell. Doing the indie publishing thing the "right" way takes a lot of effort--writing, publishing, and marketing. People have to decide whether it's worth it to them to invest time and money into multiple projects that may never bring them what they hope. We all have different goals and motivations. Money matters to some and not to others. Writing with a day job (especially with kids) is incredibly difficult work and often means sacrificing what little free time you have for friends, family, and community to your writing. You can't blame people for wanting to justify the time spent in the form of some compensation.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

We might want to remember that we still have gatekeepers, very powerful gatekeepers. They have simply elected to leave the gates open. Amazon, B&N, Apple, and SONY can limit supply anyway they choose, and they can set prices where they choose. I expect to see this as the eMarket grows and retailers' profit maximizing supply and price points emerge.


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## Bakari (May 25, 2010)

Unfortunately for authors, genres with a tremendous amount of writers will always have to deal with lower prices. I think most authors would not like to sell their material for so low but they know that in order to reach that "sweet spot" they must play the game. 

All of my books are $2.99 to $4.99 but it is mostly because I write nonfiction and a lot of my books (except for the ones dealing with communication/psychology) deal with genres that have little to no competition (academics and grappling).

As with anything as people start to develop affinities for certain writers ('indies') the prices will continue to go up.


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## Gerald (Dec 11, 2010)

I just wanted to throw something in.

I have access to a reasonable number of online 'friends' who aren't associated with writing at all, but who are Kindle owners, and read a variety of books.

I asked them: how much would you be prepared to pay for:

a) a novel by an unknown author but that looked to be a good read
and
b) a novel by a famous author whose books you have read and enjoyed

The fairly rough-and-ready results were:
a) £2 ($3)
and
b) £4 ($6)

Sounds good to me for a $2.99 indie and a $5.99 trad.

Oh, and champ's point about the "freebie gatherers"? Spot on. I know people who do it, and have literally hundreds, if not thousands, of free ebooks that they'll never get around to reading. I don't want that sort of reader, and if one of them buys my cheap book, either they won't read it or they'll read it and forget it. I want 'proper' readers, who can appreciate the writing, and who will look for the next book with my name on the cover, and the next one, and the one after that ...


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

In examining my own TBR pile -- the books I have on my Kindle now, not just samples -- I've noticed that the books I intend to read first are books I paid more for. I don't know if that's typical, but if I grab a book at a bargain price, it doesn't matter as much if I never get to it. Books I pay more for get read first.


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

I don't spend a lot of time worrying about where other books are priced (okay zero time).  What I have said (probably too often) is that many authors don't take seasons into account when they add up sales.  This time last year (Jan/Feb and part of March) were the highest sales for me (monthly) and other authors seemed to report the same thing.  The sales started ramping in Nov last year.  For me they didn't show much momentum until late Dec this year.  My prices did not change from last year (I have more books this year and one book did change price in Dec).  

So for someone who put their book on sale in Nov, Dec or even Jan, they may have seen a huge sales increase--but how much of that was due to lower price and how much seasonality?  I'd venture to guess it was some of both.  

It doesn't matter to me where another author prices his/her books.  I don't compete with them.  Perhaps to some degree I compete in the reader's mind if I happen to write in the same genre, but the only person I have to worry about is me and what I can affect.  A 99 cent book has more promo threads and a few more forum discussions.  It probably gooses sales for those looking for bargains.  That's a great opportunity for those looking for it!  Use them!

I tend to ignore most of the reporting of sales numbers on these boards.  At first it was educational, but by and large...it's become...well, a bit...too much like bragging for no purpose.  There are tons of individual threads, one or more monthly threads and this doesn't even count the "I reached a goal" thread.  Sales data is important, but for me, it's become embarrassing on this board as authors tout their numbers.  I hope that readers are not turned off by the sometimes blatant displays.  I hope they are not, but I don't see how they can possibly not be.

So, I'll go crawl back in my laptop again.  Carry on.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Many entrepreneurs (and this includes the hobbyist level people with day jobs) crash when they run out of saved up resources. This usually happens before they actually develop a lasting customer base. They have sold based on marketing tricks and the expenditure of a lot of money and energy. They set out to "build momentum" but they don't see that they're fuelling that momentum on YEARS of effort, not just current effort. And when they use that up, they don't have sufficient resources to keep it up.


THIS. This is where I come from. I run my business for profit. For me, it is a matter of maintaining a positive cash flow. Each project has to be able to pay for the next one. I can't wait a year for a book to turn a profit, because I have other projects on tap to be released. Example: as most folks know, I publish a quarterly journal. It's a PAYING journal. I don't mooch free content off of writers on a promise of exposure. I pay them. Combined with cover art, proofreading, editing, design, marketing, etc I dump $300-$500 PER ISSUE.

Now I sell each issue for $3.99 digital and $10.49 print (until this year the print journal was color so it was a high production cost). I sell through various different outlets with different contractual agreements, but on average I make revenue of $2 per sale. At $2 a sale, I need to only sell about 200 copies on average an issue to break even. Everything over that is profit. This is easy. I can guarantee my cash flow at this price point and still make a profit. Once I hit that 200 number, everything else is gravy.
Now could I increase my sales volume by selling the digital version for 99 cents? Sure. But again, due to contractual obligations if I lower my price at Amazon I have to do so everywhere. So now my profit from digital sales plummets to 30 cents to 50 cents per sale. Further, maybe people who may have bought the print book at $10.49 instead of the digital book at $3.99 now decide to forgo the print book and just get the ebook for 99 cents. Now I'm looking at having to sell 600-700 copies a quarter JUST TO BREAK EVEN. That is before I see a penny of profit. And I need to sell those 600 copies _before the next issue _is released if I want to pay my people. Because I can't tell my writers they have to wait to get paid until I sell enough copies. I need to have that money ready for them.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

A few considerations here.

Firstly, I'm not obsessed by price or trying to rehash the same old argument, I'm rather voicing questions that have arisen through seeing the UK store/market grow from scratch. Many of the UK authors don't regularly take part in discussions here, that's why we have the same ones posting their books on multiple threads every few posts, that's why we have some authors who are continually annoying readers (after readers have asked them to back off) out of sheer bloodymindedness, that's why we have some authors who really don't care if other authors suffer so long as they get their 1000 sales that week. They're out for themselves and not part of a community. There are very few authors behaving badly but they're doing it enough that everyone suffers. Because not that many authors are posting in UK yet their behaviour is very obvious.

That's one side of the UK store. Another side is seeing how new customers first get the freebie classics, then the 99c books, then the higher priced ones. This is visible from the 'also bought' and 'ultimately bought' lists.

For a long time I felt more comfortable on the US forums than UK - even though I'm UK.

Anyway, that's maybe a bit off topic.

OK, the sustainable model.

I need one of these because I don't have the luxury of selling books for the joy of people reading them. I have some health problems which mean I can't do a regular full time job (or any job that would earn me enough to live on). Neither do I have enough energy to work, write and promote. Because of UK laws regarding health benefits I have a limited time in which to start supporting myself from selling books. Otherwise I have to withdraw my book(s) from the market. I have to support myself or earn nothing at all. This is made more difficult because there is approx 5 months delay between selling books and the pay clearing into my bank account. Then there is US tax. That 30% makes the difference between what I can live on and what I can't. There is no guarantee how soon the tax will be sorted but it's unlikely to be less than 6 months.

Anyway, the point is, many people, for whatever reason, do not have the luxury of a long transition period or of being 'hobby' writers. They need to be fairly certain of a continued level of sales.

The next part of the sustainable model potentially applies to all authors. Right now most of us are getting away with a DIY job on our books. Readers find it quaint that there are such people as indie authors and forgive us the odd typo or lapse in style. But authors who are thinking seriously of a career as indie writers will be wanting to up the stakes. They will be wanting to employ the same top editors and proof readers who may currently be working for mainstream publishers, such that the quality of indie books becomes indistinguishable from their trad counterparts. And that is going to cost. And I'm not at all sure that 99c or even $2.99 will cover it.

Well past my bedtime now so I'm probably rambling.


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## Gordon Ryan (Aug 20, 2010)

Scamp, hat's off to you for your literary exposition and cogent thought process.  I have been one of those vying for higher prices, having earned a good supplemental income from my writing this last fifteen years.  (As you said, not sufficient to be my primary source of income)  However, one thought I had overlooked in my reasoning.  Each of my former novels, backlist essentially, was dead until I found Kindle and Smashwords.  They now earn additional income which supplements my retirement income.  Excellent, unexpected money in the bank.

As a relatively unknown writer (notwithstanding fifteen years of Top Ten books in their regional market) I have to adjust my thinking.  I like the 6-1 ratio of revenue at .99 and 2.99.  It's hard to make up that level of income while dropping the price.  But you are correct, Scamp, it is the reader I want to reach.  I don't have another two decades to build to that market.  This is truly a Brave New (electronic literary) World.  And good luck to everyone who dives in feet first.

Gordon Ryan


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

I just released book 5 today, and I raised the price from 2.99 for the others to 3.99. Honestly, I was a little worried that readers might be thinking I'm getting greedy or something, but this is a comment I received on Facebook mere minutes ago. I figure since it is from a regular reader, this perspective might be worthy to add.



> An unrelated thought, while I'm sure the publishers probably have more to do with the kindle pricing, your new book comes out at the incredible price of $3.99 and I buy it as soon as I see it. Joe Abercrombie's new book comes out at the inflated $11.99 for kindle and all I can do is shake my head and wait a few months for the price to drop to what I consider reasonable. Thank you David for great books at a great price!


3.99 = incredible price. Not 99 cents. 3.99...higher than most consider viable.

(says the guy with a 99 cent intro book).

David Dalglish


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## SuzanneTyrpak (Aug 10, 2010)

I believe what Joe Konrath says: write more books and you'll sell more. Charge what you think is a fair price. If people feel they've gotten a good deal, you'll build trust and they'll come back.

Write the best books you can. The more books of quality you publish, the more you will sell. It's currently working for me to have my collection of short stories *Dating My Vibrator (and other true fiction)* priced at .99 cents--that allows people to sample my writing. The price of my novel *Vestal Virgin* is $2.99, and I'll keep it at that price unless I decide offer a short promotion (as I did for it's introduction).

As Julie and others have said, it's important to have a long-term plan. What are your expectations and needs as a writer? That will help determine your price.

As Gordon says, this is a brave new world. We're in a golden-age for writers. No one has all the answers.


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

Half-Orc said:


> I just released book 5 today, and I raised the price from 2.99 for the others to 3.99. Honestly, I was a little worried that readers might be thinking I'm getting greedy or something, but this is a comment I received on Facebook mere minutes ago. I figure since it is from a regular reader, this perspective might be worthy to add.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have a feeling that more readers than not probably share this perspective. The concept of $0.99 ebooks is still very new for most readers. Meanwhile, they are being asked to pay $9.99 and up for traditionally published ebooks by their favorite authors.

At this point in time most readers are not going to see $2.99, $3.99, or even $4.99 as hopelessly inflated prices for a book. People have been buying books for substantially more money for a very long time. If your books are good enough to stand on a level with the "big boys" of traditional publishing, any price under $5 will make you look very competitive indeed.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Obviously, it's up to individual authors what they do. And I'm not suggesting price fixing. But I do wonder whether many new authors are thinking beyond the first few months' sales figures and whether they are stopping to consider that they might be pricing out both themselves and other indie authors in the long term.
> 
> I'd be interested to know what others think about this, whether they think it's a problem (or likely to become one) and if so what we might do about it.


Honestly, I don't believe there is a problem. People have proven they are willing to pay more for an ebook if they *really want it*. Just look at the best sellers lists. The problem is making people really want your ebook.

I'm making people want my next one by pricing my first one low to get them to try me out.

Other authors are pricing a little higher and creating that urge to buy with marketing, by word of mouth, or other means.

I don't see anyone conditioning the public to expect too low prices. Otherwise only 99 cent books would be on the best seller list.

Vicki


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Scamp: I don't have time at the moment to give your long post the attention it deserves, so here are a few quick responses to some points I got in skimming. They may not be your main points (and if that's true, I'll get to those when I've had the chance to read more thoroughly) but they do hit my main points:



Scamp said:


> Free is a much better tool, I have to agree. Even that is a problem, however, because of a huge number of readers who will jump at the chance to get anything free, whether or not it is a book they will ever read.


That's not a problem at all. People who wouldn't otherwise buy don't matter. I should also point out that I'm not talking about gifting here. IMHO, it's foolish to spend money on anything but a serious review copy. I'm talking about just plain free. Temporary, or even permanent with a "loss leader" title. Baen Books proved a long time ago that giving away books is a great way to boost sales. Note, they did not offer books at prices below what they felt was fair. They may have sales once in a while -- but when they do, the list price stays at what they feel it ought to be.

The arguments against free are the same as that against the 99 cent price range. The difference is that people don't fool themselves into believing that it's a successful price point to sustain. (Not that I'm against the 99 cent price point -- just against the idea that you can't charge a fair price, regardless of what that price is.) Furthermore, you get book grabbers at 99 cents too. AND when you offer a book for free, people don't expect that to be the fair price -- they know they know they're getting a deal. There are no mixed messages.

In the fall, Amazon offered a bunch of Indie books for free -- and all of those people have benefited from a huge spike in sales and have kept benefitting ever since. I dropped the price on my 99 cent short mystery collection on Smashwords to free, and when it trickled over to Nook, my sales there had a very nice bounce. And though B&N hasn't reported to Smashwords since the price went back up, my ranking at B&N has remained high. And the sales of my others books seem to have picked up as well. It doesn't seem to have affected my Amazon sales at all.

Am I going to offer any books permanently for free? No, just little sales here and there. And as I do, I keep an eye on ways I can use those books to promote my other books -- an excerpt at the end, for instance, or at least a plug in my "about the author" at the end.

That's tried and true business practice. There is no downside to that, as long as you keep an eye on the bottom line.



> I understand what you are saying about fairness in terms of pricing relative to how long it takes an author to write a book or the writer's perceived notion of the book's worth. If I were an author, I have no doubt that I would have a devil of a time making the decision to sell a book that took me a year or more to write at $.99. I would probably experiment. But if I could sell more at the low price I would do it to become known.


I didn't mean emotional fairness, I meant fair as in "fair market value." A business term. You can't stay in business if your prices don't reflect your costs.



> Camille said: >>If you can't maintain a system in an ongoing way, it'll die.<<
> 
> See, the arts have always been overflowing with people who don't make a living doing it, but still they do it. I was in the arts for half my life, so I know this first hand. When I discontinued my theater pursuits, the theater business as an industry may have lost a good actress, but there were many more to take my place.


The system I was referring to was the business plan of the artist/writer. I actually cut my teeth on these business principles in the arts. Those people who don't make a living at it, still have a reasonable return on investment -- they still get sufficient returns to make it worth it. Most people, however, drop out because they squander their resources and burn out, or they simply put too much into it and get too little return, and drop out.



> Not fair to me is the fact that some of the best work I have found among indie books were among lesser known writers. Not fair to me is seeing bad writing rewarded. (And it is.) That is why I would like to see authors, particularly those who have books in a series, use that $.99 price point. The candy eaters will help boost your coffers while you wait for your base readership to find you.


Again, I'm not talking about emotionally fair. That's, frankly, irrelevant. If you're going to go with that, it's seriously not fair that not everyone has talent that matches their desires. It's not fair that not every genre is equally popular or makes equal amounts of money. It's not fair that people are really suspicious of westerns, and that the off-genre stuff I write is really hard to pitch. Them's the breaks.

The thing to remember about the "candy eaters" is that they will be there whenever you lower your price, now or ten years from now. And they'll be all the greedier for your candy if you just give it to them for a month. Don't chase them. They don't matter. They'll gobble up your resources and burn you up. What matters is what is sustainable with your regular audience. UNLESS....

Unless the candy eaters ARE you regular audience. I think that is something that gets overlooked in this discussion. If you can provide a product that they love, and the price is sustainable -- permanent, long-term -- then that is a fair business model. Same thing of ANY enthusiastic audience who has a low price point. If your audience is a voracious but poor audience, and you can provide them with the goods on an ongoing basis.... that can be a very good business model.

But it's got to be sustainable.

There are people who are worried that there will be a "dot com bubble" type reaction to the number of people flooding into this market. The conditions here are very different than an investing bubble -- foolish actions by others will not bring down everyone. However, I do think there will be a shake out soon as people run out of the energy and resources to sustain this. It's going to be like the article-writing market was a few years ago. There will be a lot of pain and tears as people realize that the quick fixes don't last. And when everybody does something, the overall system has to adjust for it.

IMHO writers ought to be experimenting with different business models -- writing different lengths, looking for different audiences, marketing in completely different ways. There is a huge stampede going after the low-hanging fruit. Anything easy will have a ton of competition. Try something more interesting. That's how you survive a bubble.

Camille


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> We might want to remember that we still have gatekeepers, very powerful gatekeepers. They have simply elected to leave the gates open. Amazon, B&N, Apple, and SONY can limit supply anyway they choose, and they can set prices where they choose. I expect to see this as the eMarket grows and retailers' profit maximizing supply and price points emerge.


It's not at all in their best interests to limit what's available. The nature of the new paradigm is that it _hurts_ the bottom line to close the gates. Gate keepers limit profitability. (It _is_ in their best interests to exert control over pricing, though.)

Server space is cheap. If they have a million titles which are only bought by best friends and family members, that is income they would not have otherwise had. That's Amazon's goal, and always has been. To carry EVERYTHING from A to Z. (That's what the little smiley arrow thing is about in their logo.) Same with Google.

You will see shifts, and some of them we won't like, but gatekeeping is an expensive and unnecessary task for the big corporations. SEO is where they put that task -- and they a great and highly invested in it.

Camille


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Interesting discussion to me since I'll soon get out my first indie novel and being able to control the price myself is one of the appeals. I have received strong advice from someone with some degree of success in the indie market that 99 cents is the way to go at least at first. The point isn't to undercut anyone, but to build demand for my own work. I can experiment later with higher prices when that happens.

I will tell you, I have done it myself--bought 99 cent novels and then gone looking for more work from the same author--now willing to pay more. 

So that is how I look at it. Bad for indie authors? I don't know and don't think I'm in any position to figure that out. Frankly, I am having enough trouble trying to figure out how to handle a very rapidly changing publishing industry without trying to figure out how to save indie authors.

If that makes me a bad person, guess that will just have to be the case.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"It's not at all in their best interests to limit what's available. The nature of the new paradigm is that it hurts the bottom line to close the gates. Gate keepers limit profitability."_

I'd suggest the new paradigm isn't well defined enough to make that conclusion. We don't know how limiting supply effects price and total revenue.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> It's not at all in their best interests to limit what's available. The nature of the new paradigm is that it _hurts_ the bottom line to close the gates. Gate keepers limit profitability. (It _is_ in their best interests to exert control over pricing, though.)
> 
> Server space is cheap. If they have a million titles which are only bought by best friends and family members, that is income they would not have otherwise had. That's Amazon's goal, and always has been. To carry EVERYTHING from A to Z. (That's what the little smiley arrow thing is about in their logo.) Same with Google.
> 
> ...


Considering some of Amazon's past performance (remove rankings from gay-themed novels anyone?) I'm not sure I quite believe that they have no interest at all in gatekeeping. But I can't say I have figured out exactly where their interest there lies.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Interesting discussion to me since I'll soon get out my first indie novel and being able to control the price myself is one of the appeals. I have received strong advice from someone with some degree of success in the indie market that 99 cents is the way to go at least at first. The point isn't to undercut anyone, but to build demand for my own work. I can experiment later with higher prices when that happens.
> 
> I will tell you, I have done it myself--bought 99 cent novels and then gone looking for more work from the same author--now willing to pay more.
> 
> ...


Pricing at 99 cents is a marketing strategy. It does not make you a bad person!

It might actually work for you. You won't know if it will succeed or fail until you try. That's pretty much all we are doing. Throwing stuff up and seeing what sticks.

Vicki


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Considering some of Amazon's past performance (remove rankings from gay-themed novels anyone?) I'm not sure I quite believe that they have no interest at all in gatekeeping. But I can't say I have figured out exactly where there interest there lies.


Okay I'll grant you that kind of social gatekeeping. Where there is power there is an opportunity to abuse it. But that was NOT in their best business interests, and it was widely seen as a bumbling move on their part.

Camille


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Okay I'll grant you that kind of social gatekeeping. Where there is power there is an opportunity to abuse it. But that was NOT in their best business interests, and it was widely seen as a bumbling move on their part.
> 
> Camille


Oh, bumbling I'll give you. I'm not trying to be argumentative and I honestly have no idea WHAT was going through someone's mind that day. I'm afraid I use a harsher word than bumbling in that case, but it seems more diplomatic than my reaction. 

Vicki, I hope you're right. Discussing money on a forum is always risky, but necessary here. I do look at it as exactly that. It is a marketing strategy and people use prices as part of their marketing strategy all the time. For that matter, what are books really worth? Not much if no one wants to buy them. I lot if they're in demand. Or that's the best way I can figure it out.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

modwitch said:


> I think there are different kinds of readers. Some have limited time, more demanding for quality, less tolerant of experiments. If that's your primary base, don't charge $0.99. Some readers had more time, or love to read, and consume large volumes of books, more tolerant of reading something non-awesome. Those readers love cheap books. They read more books total when books are cheap. If your book sells to that crowd, a great read at a great price can make you a star. Some readers, once you suck them into a series, would sell a child for the next book. So hook them, then charge what you like. (Yeah, sweeping generalizations here, sorry - I have to go back to writing soon ).
> 
> I think readers are like cats. Tough to herd. Lots of strategies will be successful with book pricing, lots will fail. I'm loving the opportunity to explore the diversity. I have a full novel that will be $2.99. I'm working on the first of what I hope will be some quick novella reads for $0.99. One day maybe I'll write an opus and put it at $24.99.


Sorry, but as a reader I find this slighly offensive. Just because I read a lot of books does not mean I don't demand the same quality of story then someone reading 1 book a month. 
That just isn't true. It doesn't matter how cheap a book is, if its crap its crap. I won't just lower my standards or be more tolerant of not so good books. Why would that make a difference? How does the number of books read correlate to what quality is expected.

Everyone likes a bargain, period. If you read one book a month or if you read 13 a month. 
A bargain is a bargain, a good book is a good book.

I have no problem paying 2.99 for a indy book if I am at least somewhat familiar with the author. Recommendations, reviews, posts and genre play into that. I will jump on it at .99 much more quickly without waffling much. If there are more in a series and I like the first book I got for .99, I will pay 2.99 for the next one, no problem.

I still would be happy for another .99 bargain too.

I don't read a short stories or novellas much, but for 2.99 I would want it to be a full length novel. I wouldn't pay 2.99 for a novella of a well know author often. Thats just me though.

I think the Half Orc has it figured out. Lure them in for .99, then give them more crumbs for 2.99 and by then they hooked like crack and 3.99 is still a good price for the rest of the series


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Well, all I know is that I wasn't selling many books at $2.99.  And I'm selling a lot of books at 99 cents.  It's the price that is better for me, so I'm sticking with it.  Someone else might not have the same results as me.  

But I really don't think what I price my book at changes how the public sees anything.  I don't see there being a stampede for 99 cent books, and all higher priced books are just sitting there not selling.  That's just not true.  

Vicki


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

Victorine said:


> Well, all I know is that I wasn't selling many books at $2.99. And I'm selling a lot of books at 99 cents. It's the price that is better for me, so I'm sticking with it. Someone else might not have the same results as me.


You know what I'm going to say about that. 

The truth is, you can't be 100% certain that your book took off simply due to the price drop to $0.99.

Likewise, you can't be 100% certain that you wouldn't still see steady sales if you raised your price now that your book has taken off.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Interesting discussion. For those of us not yet dipping our feet into epubbing, but planning to, this sort of thread is grist for my business plan mill. Those of us coming along later will benefit from the sussing out by all you pioneers, so for that, thanks.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Well I can say I bought Victorines book when she dropped it to .99. I just went and clicked without much thinking at that point. I had seen it, seen her post and she put it on sale, I pulled the trigger. And I read it. And I liked it  

So her strategy worked on me.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

flanneryohello said:


> You know what I'm going to say about that.
> 
> The truth is, you can't be 100% certain that your book took off simply due to the price drop to $0.99.
> 
> Likewise, you can't be 100% certain that you wouldn't still see steady sales if you raised your price now that your book has taken off.


You're right. But I watch what others do. I see when others raise their prices, and I notice rank. I have been all over the place in rank, so I'm a pretty good guesser as to what people are earning at different ranks.

I'm sticking with 99 cents for this book. I'll come out with my next one at $2.99. That's Amanda Hocking's model, and I think it's working just fine for her. 

Vicki

Edit: PS, Thanks Atunah!! I'm so glad you liked it!! You just made my day.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Atunah said:


> I think the Half Orc has it figured out. Lure them in for .99, then give them more crumbs for 2.99 and by then they hooked like crack and 3.99 is still a good price for the rest of the series


You make me sound like a dealer...


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Ali Cooper said:


> My concern is that more and more authors are choosing to price full length books (often their only books) long term at the cheapest price amazon will allow. I can't help but feel it's putting out the wrong message about the value of books generally and particularly the worth of indie books.


I couldn't agree with you more. I've been saying this for a long time and kind of a "lone voice in the wind". Glad that someone else is thinking along these lines.

My husband's books sell for $4.95 with the latest at $6.95 and we sell 10,000 a month (for three months now).

I don't believe in the $0.99 model - but it's hard to argue with the success that some have found on it (See my post on top 100 books - many of which are $0.99. So I'm in the middle right now of a test - where I put the first book at $0.99 and I'm closing watching effects of sales. It's too early to tell yet but I've seen an improvement of sales but not substantial enough to make up for the losses. I want to give it "amble" time to vet completely and when I'm done I'll post the full results.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Half-Orc said:


> I just released book 5 today, and I raised the price from 2.99 for the others to 3.99. Honestly, I was a little worried that readers might be thinking I'm getting greedy or something, but this is a comment I received on Facebook mere minutes ago. I figure since it is from a regular reader, this perspective might be worthy to add.
> 
> 3.99 = incredible price. Not 99 cents. 3.99...higher than most consider viable.
> 
> ...


My books are $4.95 and I CONSTANTLY receive reviews and emails thanking me for making them so affordable!!


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> I couldn't agree with you more. I've been saying this for a long time and kind of a "lone voice in the wind". Glad that someone else is thinking along these lines.
> 
> My husband's books sell for $4.95 with the latest at $6.95 and we sell 10,000 a month (for three months now).
> 
> I don't believe in the $0.99 model - but it's hard to argue with the success that some have found on it (See my post on top 100 books - many of which are $0.99. So I'm in the middle right now of a test - where I put the first book at $0.99 and I'm closing watching effects of sales. It's too early to tell yet but I've seen an improvement of sales but not substantial enough to make up for the losses. I want to give it "amble" time to vet completely and when I'm done I'll post the full results.


Just out of curiosity, how many would you have to sell per month to call the 99 cent experiment a success?

Vicki


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Victorine said:


> Just out of curiosity, how many would you have to sell per month to call the 99 cent experiment a success?
> 
> Vicki


If I sold 2x books - I would still be "less $" but I would call it a success. I'm not seeing that though. I'm seeing like a 20% increase which is not significant.

Current results: (For CROWN ONLY)

Daily Sales before price drop ($4.95) = 90 books per day = $9,667 per month
Daily Sales after price drope ($0.99) = 110 books per day = $1,012 per month

Overall - losing $8,655 by LOWERING to $0.99.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Victorine said:


> Just out of curiosity, how many would you have to sell per month to call the 99 cent experiment a success?


Since you earn just under 10 times the income on a 4.95 book as on a .99 cent book, I would think that you'd need at least ten times the sales for it to be a positive outcome.

Camille


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

My guess is it will take a month to see a 2x increase.  But it depends on how much you advertise it.

Vicki


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Since you earn just under 10 times the income on a 4.95 book as on a .99 cent book, I would think that you'd need at least ten times the sales for it to be a positive outcome.
> 
> Camille


But if you hook more readers on the first book and see an increase in sales from the other books, she wouldn't have to sell 10x to make that money back.

Vicki


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> If I sold 2x books - I would still be "less $" but I would call it a success. I'm not seeing that though. I'm seeing like a 20% increase which is not significant.
> 
> Current results: (For CROWN ONLY)
> 
> ...


Are you seeing a jump in sales across the board, though? I mean, that's kind of the idea with putting the first one free or .99 - that you're hooking the reader. So if you're seeing that 20% jump across the board then it would be paying for itself, right?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I know I am really bad at math, but how does one make over 9000 $ from selling 90 $4.95 books a month?

Even if royalty was 100%, it would be  $445.5, no?

I must be missing something here.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Victorine said:


> Well, all I know is that I wasn't selling many books at $2.99. And I'm selling a lot of books at 99 cents. It's the price that is better for me, so I'm sticking with it. Someone else might not have the same results as me.
> 
> But I really don't think what I price my book at changes how the public sees anything. I don't see there being a stampede for 99 cent books, and all higher priced books are just sitting there not selling. That's just not true.
> 
> Vicki


The 99 cent price helped you get a bunch of sales in a concentrated period that launched your book into the magical Amazon algorithm genie. Your book gets in front of more eyeballs every hour than most of ours do in four months.

You're selling some of your books because the price is low, but you're selling more because it's on more "electronic shelves."

That's my theory, anyway.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Atunah said:


> I know I am really bad at math, but how does one make over 9000 $ from selling 90 $4.95 books a month?
> 
> Even if royalty was 100%, it would be $445.5, no?
> 
> I must be missing something here.


I think she said 90 a day.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Atunah said:


> I know I am really bad at math, but how does one make over 9000 $ from selling 90 $4.95 books a month?
> 
> Even if royalty was 100%, it would be $445.5, no?
> 
> I must be missing something here.


She said ninety a DAY.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> The 99 cent price helped you get a bunch of sales in a concentrated period that launched your book into the magical Amazon algorithm genie. Your book gets in front of more eyeballs every hour than most of ours do in four months.
> 
> You're selling some of your books because the price is low, but you're selling more because it's on more "electronic shelves."
> 
> That's my theory, anyway.


Not to mention, you wrote a great story that a lot of people want to read -- I know you're a modest person, but I hope you don't think the only reason people buy your book is because it's 99 cents. There are a lot of 99 cent books, ahem, and they don't sell like yours does!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Since you earn just under 10 times the income on a 4.95 book as on a .99 cent book, I would think that you'd need at least ten times the sales for it to be a positive outcome.
> 
> Camille


That is looking at it as only profit. What seems more important to me (speaking from the cheap seats) is building a fan base. If you only have 2 or 3X as many people reading, you are still building a larger fan base to buy more of your higher priced books at a higher price.

Because I know a number of people who will not buy higher priced ebooks from an unknown author. Truthfully, one of the ones I know is me.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

LKRigel said:


> The 99 cent price helped you get a bunch of sales in a concentrated period that launched your book into the magical Amazon algorithm genie. Your book gets in front of more eyeballs every hour than most of ours do in four months.
> 
> You're selling some of your books because the price is low, but you're selling more because it's on more "electronic shelves."
> 
> That's my theory, anyway.


Well, maybe this is counter-intuitive, but my theory is that if people are buying a book it's because they think they will enjoy it, either from the sample or from recommendations.

Crazy I know but that's my theory.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Victorine said:


> But if you hook more readers on the first book and see an increase in sales from the other books, she wouldn't have to sell 10x to make that money back.


That's still a heck of a lot of other books that you've got to sell, and though I think that a temporary sale will increase readership, I am not convinced that it converts at all that high of a rate. I really think that a lot of the 99 cent crowd does not convert. It would take more than just dropping your price on a book for a while to really test that. You'd be better off if you had two mature series, and you tried it on one, but not the other, and you then did the same sort of promotion on each.

I really liked the idea of a loss leader book, but I'm growing less and less attached to it. But part of my reason is personal: my books are scattered all over the place in genre and length. I think consistency is important to a reader -- trust. Prices need to make sense to the reader. If you have one series, all novels of the same or similar length, and you have the clearly marked first book as 99 cents, that sends a clear message that it's on sale. If you have different lengths of works, and they're priced appropriately, then a novel priced lower will not send as clear of a message. Readers might think it's a novelette or collection.

And that's the other thing that I think is relevant to each writer's decision: price is more than price. It's a part of the information presented at a glance -- cover, title and price. It will be in a list with other things presented the same way. What does it communicate? It isn't as simple as the message "this is an indie." It gets mixed up with a lot of conflicting messages. "This is a pro short story" "this is on sale" "this is junk"

That's what Robin is experiencing, I think. In the fantasy genre, 99 cents is often the price of a short story. We need to be watching for the context our works appear in, and looking to find our audience and thinking of what they see.

Camille


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Arkali said:


> Are you seeing a jump in sales across the board, though? I mean, that's kind of the idea with putting the first one free or .99 - that you're hooking the reader. So if you're seeing that 20% jump across the board then it would be paying for itself, right?


Yes, I'm tracking the sales on them as well - and seeing a much more modest uptick in them. Have to analyze the data more but I think it was only like 5% so not enough to make up for the substantial losses.

Waiting 2 months would be too long for my experiment - but I do want to give it another few days.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

JRTomlin said:


> That is looking at it as only profit. What seems more important to me (speaking from the cheap seats) is building a fan base. If you only have 2 or 3X as many people reading, you are still building a larger fan base to buy more of your higher priced books at a higher price.
> 
> Because I know a number of people who will not buy higher priced ebooks from an unknown author. Truthfully, one of the ones I know is me.


But that's just my point...I'm not seeing 2x or 3x people - I'm seeing 20% increase which really isn't having a significant impact on the fan base.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> That is looking at it as only profit. What seems more important to me (speaking from the cheap seats) is building a fan base. If you only have 2 or 3X as many people reading, you are still building a larger fan base to buy more of your higher priced books at a higher price.
> 
> Because I know a number of people who will not buy higher priced ebooks from an unknown author. Truthfully, one of the ones I know is me.


JR - that's not all there is too it. And building a fan base is not always about price. (I'll reiterate: I'm not actually against the 99 cent price point -- I do, however, have a problem with some of the justifications of it.)

For instance a lower price point does not help my books one iota. I mean not one single sale. Why? Well, I'll take _Have Gun, Will Play_ as an example. Of the people who actually buy it, ten percent of them review it (and review it favorably). Nearly every review starts the same way: "I don't read westerns but...." This includes Red Adept's review -- and she gave the book an Indie Book Award. The book wasn't written for fans of westerns. It's a cozy mystery, that happens to have gunfights and gunslingers playing with dolls. But the people who would probably most like it are very leery of westerns. They don't want to try it at any price. Most of my other books don't even have a describable genre. These books have to be hand sold, and they build momentum slowly.

However, you will notice that I have books priced at every price point -- 99 cents, 1.99, 2.99 and 3.99. They are priced by length. And yes, that is a part of my marketing strategy. Cheap and SHORT is often more attractive than just cheap. After all, people invest more in terms of time than they do in money. And a collection of five short stories for 99 cents increases the odds that you'll find something you like.

There is a lot more to marketing and price than just "low price means more sales." It doesn't always, and you also have to ask the question "sales to whom?"

Camille


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## WizardofWestmarch (Jan 12, 2011)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Yes, I'm tracking the sales on them as well - and seeing a much more modest uptick in them. Have to analyze the data more but I think it was only like 5% so not enough to make up for the substantial losses.
> 
> Waiting 2 months would be too long for my experiment - but I do want to give it another few days.


I'm not everyone who's buying it on sale, but I am one of them (though I WAS already planning on buying Crown Conspiracy, but my to read list is so high I was going to wait... but since you decided to put it on sale I bought and moved it to the front ) and I can say I haven't finished the first book yet to decide if I'll get the rest. So it's tricky to measure that due to peoples' time and reading speed (fast reader, but limited time between day job and getting my own writing revved back up).

Not to say you shouldn't re raise the price, mind, just pointing out judging how it will affect the rest of the series is tough.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Because I know a number of people who will not buy higher priced ebooks from an unknown author. Truthfully, one of the ones I know is me.


Actually I meant to respond to this bit more directly: There are a lot of people -- MOST people -- who won't buy books from an unknown author period. It doesn't matter what the price is. You have to become known to them. There are a lot of ways to do that but the most important one is to get read and recommended by people they trust. Those people are not necessarily those who grab up any old cheap book. (They might be, but not necessarily.)

Camille


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Suzanne Adair said:


> Sisters in Crime (http://www.sistersincrime.org/), a non-profit organization that promotes the efforts of women authors of crime fiction, recently commissioned a study of consumer book buying habits. One section of the resulting report dealt with prices of ebooks. Note that the information you see below is specifically about crime fiction: mystery, suspense, thriller.
> 
> The _fairest_ price that consumers reported they'd pay for an ebook was $9.90 for men and $8.46 for women.
> 
> ...


I'm so glad someone broached this topic from a genre stand-point. I got into an argument the other day with a former #1 Kindle author whose book still languishes in the top 10 Paid downloads about price-pointing. He writes paranormal fiction and I write historical fiction/comedy. He's followed Joe's example to success, seeing as how they both write in similar genres, both of which are steaming popular at the moment.

But I don't have that luxury, and have often questioned just how much a genre type plays in pricing. It seems that authors see one person dropping their price and enjoying success at a mere $0.99, so they think their book will garner the same type of success. When in actuality, it may not, since it's not the same genre.

Not seeing very many DTP published historical fiction in the top 10 list of downloads, I played with the pricing on The Gaslight Journal and took it from $2.99 where it began on Thanksgiving to $3.99, still severely undercutting prices set by traditional publishers at an average of $8.99 (I read Robin's guest blog post, too). And while I seemed to get more sales in the week it was changed and I did see many more sample downloads on Smashwords, this "friend" raked me over the coals for shooting myself in the foot for raising the price 
instead of lowering it, which made me feel crappy and so I bowed to pressure. He irked me because he wasn't able to offer coherent reasons as to why his sales were soaring--only that they were and that's all that mattered. About an hour ago since I needed to make some changes to the mss anyway, I just dropped the price to $0.99. I guess we'll see what happens.

But I don't see all these business models as all that viable when their figures deal in only one or two genre types, instead of sweeping comparisons with full statistics. But I'd be interested in hearing other thoughts on this, as I don't think I'm that far afield to suggest this is one vital variable all this pricing talk has neglected.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Hi MYM,
> 
> I take your point on that. But by the time you've sold several thousand books you're building a reputation. You'd think authors would raise their prices above 99c at this point - but most don't seem to because I think they're just too addicted to seeing those books fly off virtual shelves.


And what's wrong with that? Isn't that the goal? To see our books flying off shelves?? 

It's been my experience that "most" keep their book prices low for the same reason they enable lending to the Kindles--because their main goal was never in making money, it was in making their readers happy, and if a $0.99 book does that, what is the harm?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Actually I meant to respond to this bit more directly: There are a lot of people -- MOST people -- who won't buy books from an unknown author period. It doesn't matter what the price is. You have to become known to them. There are a lot of ways to do that but the most important one is to get read and recommended by people they trust. Those people are not necessarily those who grab up any old cheap book. (They might be, but not necessarily.)
> 
> Camille


Sure some won't. _But some will_--like me. Because I have done it. The sample looked good and at 99 cents what did I have to lose?

Not everyone? Sure. Not everyone even likes my genre. I don't expect everyone. Some would be nice though. And I know some do that because I do and I know other people who have told me they do pick up 99 cent bargains after they see the sample.

How well will it work? I won't know until I try. But if they won't try it from me at 99 cents they SURE won't try it at $2.99.

Edit: And if it doesn't work, then I try something else. It has nothing to do with some mysterious addiction. The market is in flux and we have to find out what works.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> JR - that's not all there is too it. And building a fan base is not always about price. (I'll reiterate: I'm not actually against the 99 cent price point -- I do, however, have a problem with some of the justifications of it.)
> 
> For instance a lower price point does not help my books one iota. I mean not one single sale. Why? Well, I'll take _Have Gun, Will Play_ as an example. Of the people who actually buy it, ten percent of them review it (and review it favorably). Nearly every review starts the same way: "I don't read westerns but...." This includes Red Adept's review -- and she gave the book an Indie Book Award. The book wasn't written for fans of westerns. It's a cozy mystery, that happens to have gunfights and gunslingers playing with dolls. But the people who would probably most like it are very leery of westerns. They don't want to try it at any price. Most of my other books don't even have a describable genre. These books have to be hand sold, and they build momentum slowly.
> 
> ...


Of course, cheap isn't the whole thing. I never said it was the only thing--but it is part of marketing.

There is genre. There is a sample that is good and enjoyable. Length is an issue (I tend to write short purely through chance--maybe FINALLY an advantage)

In my case, since I write traditional other-world fantasy, sales to people who like that (now less than booming) genre.

Heck, I don't even know what works but I have friends who have tried that strategy and it worked for them--in a different genre. So I try it. If it works then that's great. If it doesn't, I try something else.

As we say in some parts of the world: Simples. 

I'm not claiming to know what works. I'm a new kid. I am willing to at least try what some people have had work for them, and honestly, I'm not in any position to feel like what I do is going to kill off indie-publishing.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

rsullivan9597 said:


> But that's just my point...I'm not seeing 2x or 3x people - I'm seeing 20% increase which really isn't having a significant impact on the fan base.


I'm not sure that I wouldn't consider 20% significant but you don't. You're not happy with your results, so I can see why you wouldn't keep that price. I don't think that means that other people are doing it because of some addiction. Maybe it works in some situations (length? genre? other factors?) and not in others.

Part of what makes this tough is a total (as far as I can tell) lack of survey information correlating price, genre, length of ms, and sales. I don't know of any way to do it except my own experimentation.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

When amazon introduced the new royalty back in the summer, I thought $2.99 would become the standard for cheap full length books and that many would have a slightly higher price. Quite a number of people cite places to promote as the problem as if this is something decreed by amazon. Of course, it isn't. We simply have to start 'books under $5' threads or whatever.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> My books are $4.95 and I CONSTANTLY receive reviews and emails thanking me for making them so affordable!!


You do have The Crown Conspiracy at 99c though. Is that a temporary sale, or a loss leader?

P.S. You're so kind to share numbers with us -- could you let us know, if it's a temporary sale, how long it lasted and what dropping the price did for sales? When I did the 99c sale, I had an immediate uptick in sales, then it dropped off to pre-sales levels.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

kcmay said:


> You do have The Crown Conspiracy at 99c though. Is that a temporary sale, or a loss leader?


It's a price test. I put it at $0.99 on the 11th and I'm carefully tracking the results. I've been "opposed" to $0.99 but I thought it was necessary to test the premise then just "guess" as to what would happen. To be honest...I kind of thought it might drive it into the top 100 - but it really has not. I'll publish the results of my test.


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

Has anyone mentioned the 'lists' you can get on for books priced at 99c. This is another marketing opportunity.

Some of my reviews have ended by mentioning the price:
"At the price (under a pound),this is a real bargain buy, and great entertainment." 
"Enjoyed the book and at the price worth a read."

Who can resist a bargain  

Yesterday I sold 126 copies of that title at 72p on Amazon UK. More sales equals higher ranking and therefore more exposure (I think). It seems to be working for me. I'm also conscious that non US or UK readers will have to pay extra so I took that into account when setting the price as I am the original for the frugal reader and know how much I would be prepared to risk on an unknown author.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> It's a price test. I put it at $0.99 on the 11th and I'm carefully tracking the results. I've been "opposed" to $0.99 but I thought it was necessary to test the premise then just "guess" as to what would happen. To be honest...I kind of thought it might drive it into the top 100 - but it really has not. I'll publish the results of my test.


Thanks! LOL I was adding this question to my post as you were answering it! Thanks, Robin!


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## NickSpalding (Apr 21, 2010)

My only contribution to this debate would be the following:

In UK Kindle store in December Life... With No Breaks was priced at 69p (discount by Amazon from £1.71 due to it being only 99 cents at B&N...Grrrr) so I only received the 35% royalty figure. Book sold 400 copies that month. This bagged me about 25p a copy. Total earnings of £100.

In January book was back up to £1.49 + tax, earning the 70% royalty. Therefore I earn £1.02 of every copy sold. Thus far I've shifted 208 copies and earned a total of £213.

I'll be leaving the book at the higher price.

I really think the $2.99 / £1.49 price point gives you the best of both worlds. It's cheap enough to entice readers, but still earns you a decent slab o' cash for your efforts. When I get round to actually uploading a novel to the Kindle, I'll be starting at these price points.

Nick


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

It's very difficult to factor out all the variables, eg time of year or, in Nick's case, higher profile because of your blog. But one thing that's coming out of this discussion that's very important is genre. I do feel that when Newbies turn up and ask our advice re pricing we need to give them the full info. To simply say, 'My novel sells 10 times as many at 99c,' is not enough. I think it's particularly important because KB as a community is very biased/skewed towards certain genres. Just because 7 out of 10 authors here find a particular price/form of promotion works for them doesn't mean that statistic will work equally in all genres.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

By the gods, I will say it again.

*ALL AUTHORS ARE UNKNOWN TO A PORTION OF THE PUBLIC. AND ALMOST ALL AUTHORS STARTED OUT AS "UNKNOWN"* 

This is, frankly, the single most ridiculous logic for the 99 cent price there is. The fact that you are "unknown" does not play into any equation.

#5 on the NYT bestsellers list for hardcovers is Kathryn Stockett. Anyone ever heard of her? No? _The Help_ is her first novel. Do you know what her Kindle version sells for? $12.99. Do you know what her rank is? #22 in overall Kindle sales. Not #22 in a micro catagory. Overall. Anyone know the name Abraham Verghese? He's #3 on the NYT trade paperback list. His FIRST TIME NOVEL,_ Cutting For Stone_, is #13 on the Kindle list and is on sale right now for $5 (though it has a digital list price of $15.95). These are folks outselling almost all of us put together, and they are _first time authors_ that most people _do not recognize the names_.

The average visitor to Amazon does not know the difference between Kathryn Stockett and Victorine E. Lieske. They have no way of knowing one is "traditionally published" and one is "indie" _unless the author volunteers that information._ Because the average reader doesn't register the publisher name in their heads anyway. They don't shop by publisher in most cases.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Ali - very interesting post.  I think Victorine is correct - pricing at .99 cents is a marketing tool.  But, as someone who has been in marketing for many years, what works for one product does not necessarily work for another product.  In my short-lived e-book experience (since August) I priced my books at $2.99 because I wanted the 70% royalty percentage.  I have three books out now - two in a series and one stand alone.  My sales have slowly increased from 142 books in August to over 5000 books in December and I've already surpassed 5000 books this month.   If I did the math correctly - If I were selling my books at .99 instead of $2.99 - I would have to have sold over 28,500 books to make the same royalties I will be receiving from the December sales. 

For me - the $2.99 pricing works.  

I don't know if you have to consider genre, size or audience - but I would suggest you test market to find what works for you.  As I said - it took several months to move up in sales, but I'm very happy with the results.

Terri


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## Scamp (Dec 31, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> That's not a problem at all. People who wouldn't otherwise buy don't matter. I should also point out that I'm not talking about gifting here.... <snip> The arguments against free are the same as that against the 99 cent price range. The difference is that people don't fool themselves into believing that it's a successful price point to sustain.


When I talked about the greed involved on the reader side regarding gifting and the likelihood that a small percentage might read, I wasn't necessarily saying the practice was bad. I was guilty of ranting about greed, to be honest.  I'm not sure it won't bear fruit, and I'm not sure that it will. I *think* it might be a worthwhile marketing expense. If you (the general *you*) lowered your price to $.99 before gifting and limited your quantities, you are still going to gain readership, maybe enough to justify the cost. You'll pay $.65 a book (figuring royalties coming back) for a handful of readers. If your books are good, they will get buzz just from the freebie offered ("Did you hear about the free offer?"), not to mention readers who will tell all their friends. Guesswork. The gifting program is so new that I am not sure authors who have tried this have had a chance to evaluate it.

It also bears mentioning that the gifts are considered purchases and do help rankings, at least temporarily.



> I didn't mean emotional fairness, I meant fair as in "fair market value." A business term. You can't stay in business if your prices don't reflect your costs.


In your case, I do see the point you are making. I believe that you are probably more experienced in this business that many indies and have a very clear idea about your own business plan and your longterm goals. Because of your experience and because I personally am familiar with your writing, I would have to say that if you say that you have expended resources on your books to ensure quality (i.e. editing, proofreading, cover design), I am inclined to assume that you didn't bumble around while expending these resources. When an indie says, "my book is edited," I don't always know whether the $500 he paid to his mother really qualifies as professional editing services.  When I read this indie's book, I may be impressed that there are no typos, but still find the book wholly unreadable.

There is an emotional element to some other points I was making. I was referencing authors who feel the time they spent on a book should be a factor in their pricing. In this regard, readers really don't care, nor do I think they should. Perhaps the inefficient, disorganized writer spends five years on a book that isn't half as good as another writer's book that was churned out in six months. Or if a writer says "my book is long" so I should charge more. Then you read the book and think *overwritten* and thus overpriced. Or how about the writer who simply thinks "I should be compensated for my time and effort." That sort of thing. Some of this is very subjective and, yes, emotional. None of this means the book is worth a particular price or that a reader will pay the price. None of it means the book should ever be written, uploaded, and sold.

If you are talking about fair market value relative to expenses being covered, it kind of gets back to the whole idea of start-up costs being necessary when you start any business. Saying 'I can't afford editing' and putting a product out there that asks for real money to read is mystifying to me. You have to be able to expend some money to put out a professional product. If you can't, you shouldn't publish. You have to be in it for the long haul, if you are serious about this business, and set a reasonable deadline for recouping expenses, even in terms of years. Launching a business is always a risk. Compared to other business startup costs, indie books are not terribly expensive.

If you are talking about fair market value relative to comparing your product to similar products on the market and pricing it accordingly, that appears to be a legitimate way to price. But if an indie compares their vampire book to a known trad-pub author's books, it becomes a question of comparing apples to oranges. An indie is not a Brand yet. So comparing indie prices to trad-pub prices can be a sticky wicket.

In the end, the only real test of 'fair market value' is what the market will bear. If a product isn't selling at a particular price, the merchant sometimes needs to reprice it so that it does. Sometimes this helps get the product out there and visible. When the product is good, it will hopefully begin to sell and create a demand for more products by the merchant.



> Again, I'm not talking about emotionally fair. That's, frankly, irrelevant. If you're going to go with that, it's seriously not fair that not everyone has talent that matches their desires. It's not fair that not every genre is equally popular or makes equal amounts of money. It's not fair that people are really suspicious of westerns, and that the off-genre stuff I write is really hard to pitch. Them's the breaks.


Good point. I did rather degenerate into a "life isn't fair" diatribe. LOL

As to your books, I can't help but think that the very things that make them difficult to sell could be a selling point if only people knew how clever you are. When people think Western, they may think 'Gunsmoke' and 'Bonanza' and a host of other stuff that either people grew up on or see in reruns on Nickelodeon. They don't know that they are getting a unique twist on the cozy mystery when they read Have Gun, Will Play, and they don't know that the genre is getting a gentle ribbing in the process or that they will end up laughing about the cliches of Westerns while at the same time completely believing in the setting of the book they are reading. Okay, I didn't say that very well, and I hope you understand what I mean. If you continue this series - and if you aren't rethinking it because of the 'Western doesn't sell' phenomenon - would you consider lowering the price of Have Gun when the next book comes out, publicizing the sequel like crazy, and using the first book as a sort of 'loss leader'? I don't know if this will work for your specific books, so it's just something I'm throwing out there.



> The thing to remember about the "candy eaters" is that they will be there whenever you lower your price, now or ten years from now. And they'll be all the greedier for your candy if you just give it to them for a month. Don't chase them. They don't matter. They'll gobble up your resources and burn you up. What matters is what is sustainable with your regular audience. UNLESS....
> 
> Unless the candy eaters ARE you regular audience. I think that is something that gets overlooked in this discussion. If you can provide a product that they love, and the price is sustainable -- permanent, long-term -- then that is a fair business model. Same thing of ANY enthusiastic audience who has a low price point. If your audience is a voracious but poor audience, and you can provide them with the goods on an ongoing basis.... that can be a very good business model.


If you are playing to the candy eaters (and there is nothing wrong with that), then it can be a very good business model. Assuming that the candy eaters will gobble up what is cheap and will possibly gravitate towards anything a favored candy author offers, I agree that this will work best for the very prolific author, one who writes to a formula that works and who consistently and regularly churns out the candy. Don't overlook the fact that the candy eaters will like good books also, and while some may be too, um, frugal to buy the more expensive sequels, they are often worth the buzz they create about the first in the series. They certainly help pay the freight on the 'loss leader'. When they buy their next book, the will sadly think that they just can't pay that *ridiculously high* price of $2.99 and move onto the next candy.

I still think they are valuable readers/buyers in the grand scheme of things. If you evaluate the sales on your $2.99 sequel, over a reasonable period of time, that is probably your base. The base can then potentially be grown through marketing, reader buzz, and more books.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Terri, it's interesting because you are in one of the 'hot' genres. I think someone younger and with less business experience than yourself in similar genre would have gone for the 99c option just because that's what most others seemed to do.


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## Scamp (Dec 31, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> It's a price test. I put it at $0.99 on the 11th and I'm carefully tracking the results. I've been "opposed" to $0.99 but I thought it was necessary to test the premise then just "guess" as to what would happen. To be honest...I kind of thought it might drive it into the top 100 - but it really has not. I'll publish the results of my test.


As a reader who frequents the Amazon forum, I was planning on adding news of your book to a thread about price reductions. Many people got the second book free during recent freebie offerings and might be very interested to learn that they can get the first book for $.99. I just bought it myself because it dawned on me that I already had the second one. I don't usually buy like that, but I have already gone through the process of evaluating the reviews and sampling the second book, so I feel reasonably confident that I will enjoy the series.

Have you thought about approaching dailycheapreads.com or Books on the Knob about the sale? You may have done so; I haven't read these two sites in a number of days. They are well read sites.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

opuscroakus said:


> I'm so glad someone broached this topic from a genre stand-point. I got into an argument the other day with a former #1 Kindle author whose book still languishes in the top 10 Paid downloads about price-pointing. He writes paranormal fiction and I write historical fiction/comedy. He's followed Joe's example to success, seeing as how they both write in similar genres, both of which are steaming popular at the moment.
> 
> But I don't have that luxury, and have often questioned just how much a genre type plays in pricing. It seems that authors see one person dropping their price and enjoying success at a mere $0.99, so they think their book will garner the same type of success. When in actuality, it may not, since it's not the same genre.
> 
> ...


I'm glad you brought up genre as a factor. I also write historical fiction/romance and that's not a very popular genre. Contemporary romance, women's fiction, paranormal romance, etc., are the big sellers. The authors who work in those fields can price their books higher.

Amanda Hocking researched what people like to read and geared her books that way. We all know the results of that.

I have three full length novels priced at $2.99 and three novelettes priced at $0.99. I'm also writing short stories to go with the novelettes in one anthology. I'll price that at $2.99.

Here's my dilemma. One of my novels isn't selling much at all and I'm thinking of lowering the price to $0.99. I'm concerned that the lower price for a full-length novel is going to hurt the sales of my other two novels which sell steadily at $2.99. I'm waffling between trying to jump start the book by lowering the price and accepting that it's just not going to sell as well so I should be grateful for whatever sales I get. I'll probably stick with the latter option.


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## NickSpalding (Apr 21, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> It's very difficult to factor out all the variables, eg time of year or, in Nick's case, higher profile because of your blog.


Actually, the blog doesn't appear to have had much of an effect. Hanging about at the Amazon forums seems to result in better sales.

It's like Bards & Sages says, no-one out there knows if you're self-published or not unless you either tell them, or present a product that looks amateurish. Pricing doesn't really matter much within a certain limit - if you promote well, fairly and give the readers a product they want to buy.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Terri, it's interesting because you are in one of the 'hot' genres. I think someone younger and with less business experience than yourself in similar genre would have gone for the 99c option just because that's what most others seemed to do.


I have found that the sale of the first book generally leads to a sale of the second in the series. So, another consideration if you are selling a series - if someone pays "more" money for your book will they read it sooner and then make that secondary sale?

I think we are all experimenting because this is so new.


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

The beauty of it is that we all get to do what we want to do.  Now that's the really cool part.  In the old days, the publisher controlled it all and the author had to live with it.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

MariaESchneider said:


> The beauty of it is that we all get to do what we want to do. Now that's the really cool part. In the old days, the publisher controlled it all and the author had to live with it.


Or we never even got the chance to sell our books. Excellent point, Maria.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Suzanne Adair said:


> MediaBistro wonders whether $5.00 might be the new go-to price for ebooks, based on what it sees on Amazon-Kindle bestseller lists:
> 
> http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/the-rise-of-the-5-ebook_b21265


Had this conversation with my husband last night - the one who has time to download books and read.  He said that when the price of an e-book approaches what he could buy it for as a paperback - he won't buy it. He'd much rather just buy the paperback.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Scamp said:


> If you continue this series - and if you aren't rethinking it because of the 'Western doesn't sell' phenomenon - would you consider lowering the price of Have Gun when the next book comes out, publicizing the sequel like crazy, and using the first book as a sort of 'loss leader'? I don't know if this will work for your specific books, so it's just something I'm throwing out there.




Darlin' I'm in this indie business so I can write cozy westerns (and anything else I want to write - wait until my serial comes out!)

I've played with prices, I've been watching the success (and lack thereof) of others, and I've also been watching the cozy mystery community, and oddball parts of the sff community which overlaps the kind of stuff I do. I need a much more solid base before I play those sorts of games. I settled on the prices for this year that seem right to me, which are slightly higher than the base level people talk about here, but definitely lower than the target audience is used to. (And what I would pay -- and I am my prime audience, a mystery and old adventure book reader who depends a lot on used and libraries, and doesn't often buy new.) I feel it takes six months to a year to shake out something like that.

I also don't think it's a good time for me to experiment on price, because I've got too much else going on -- I'll be "clearing the bench" this year and getting a lot of miscellaneous works out. They will be different genres, some screenplays, and of course a bunch of Mick and Casey things. One novel, and probably a couple of novellas and a novelette. The shorter works will be regularly priced at 1.99 and 0.99 - so I don't want to confuse the issue by setting a novel at 0.99 and then having people be disappointed in a novelette. If I had a clear way of marking it as on sale that would be different.

Now, of course, the prime audience is also an audience that is more open to shorter works of the right kind, and that is something to take advantage of. Plus I can more freely play with offering those shorter works for free. (One thing I'm hoping is that when Smashwords finally gets its deal with Amazon going, the royalty will be reasonable as it is with B&N, and it will be possible to offer books for free. It may not work that way, but we'll see.)

In 2012 I'll have more data, and a better idea of where I am going with my audience. Maybe when the third or fourth novel comes out, I'll make the first free. Who knows? But knowing my audience, none of this matters at all until I have at least seven titles in a series.

This whole conversation reminds me of an old joke, though: There's this guy standing on the sidewalk, searching the ground. And another guy walks guy and asks what's the problem. "I lost my contact lens, can you help me look for it?" So the second guy starts searching to and they search and they search, and after a while the second guy asks the first. "Now, exactly where were you standing when you lost it?" And the first guy points across the street. The second guy looks at him and say "Then, why the $%&# are we searching HERE!?" And the first guy says "The light is better over here."

I leave interpretation of that as an exercise for the reader.

Camille


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## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> By the gods, I will say it again.
> 
> *ALL AUTHORS ARE UNKNOWN TO A PORTION OF THE PUBLIC. AND ALMOST ALL AUTHORS STARTED OUT AS "UNKNOWN"*
> 
> ...


Sheesh, there are more than 50 posts since I was on here yesterday. I plan to read them all later, but for now this one caught my attention (how could it not? LOL)

I will just say, Thanks for the shout-out Julie...

Sharon


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## John H. Carroll (Nov 26, 2010)

I set my price of $4.99 before I learned about the 99 cent and $2.99 pricing for indies.  I think about the price every day honestly.

I'm keeping it at $4.99 at the moment because . . . well . . . mostly because I want to.  It's been out for less than two months and I'm working on other books and I don't expect lightning in a bottle.  I figure if I write a lot more books, I'll be able to sell more copies.  I'm okay with not selling a lot now.  In a year, I'll probably revisit the price with better knowledge of what the market is going to do and with more books under my belt.

I do have a couple of free short stories, which I like the idea of.  It lets people sample my writing and decide whether or not to get the book.

I think we're all experimenting with a brand new chaotic market and learning as we go.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> It's very difficult to factor out all the variables, eg time of year or, in Nick's case, higher profile because of your blog. But one thing that's coming out of this discussion that's very important is genre. I do feel that when Newbies turn up and ask our advice re pricing we need to give them the full info. To simply say, 'My novel sells 10 times as many at 99c,' is not enough. I think it's particularly important because KB as a community is very biased/skewed towards certain genres. Just because 7 out of 10 authors here find a particular price/form of promotion works for them doesn't mean that statistic will work equally in all genres.


Didn't I say that already?


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

terrireid said:


> Had this conversation with my husband last night - the one who has time to download books and read.  He said that when the price of an e-book approaches what he could buy it for as a paperback - he won't buy it. He'd much rather just buy the paperback.


See, that's a matter of preference, though. THE major reason I got a Kindle was to cut down on book clutter. Seriously. So price of the one format vs. the other has very little impact on which I choose to buy. I'll buy the Kindle version, period, and if that's more than I want to pay for it, I won't buy the book at all. I'll tell you one book that suffered from this - The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. I love Meljean's Guardians series. Those are generally priced at $7. TID came out at $10. Guess what book I still haven't purchased yet?


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Suzanne Adair said:


> For ebooks, the Sisters in Crime report breaks down the too-low price, fair price, and too-high price demographically by age. From selling my books in TPB form since 2006, I know that a huge customer market for me is folks in their 50s and older: retirees who love history and have the time to sink into a well-researched, action-packed historical. For that age group, my ebooks at $2.99 are priced too low. If I'm going to reach my target with ebooks, I must increase my price to at least $4.99.


Is there a place to find the Sisters in Crime report? Or do you have to be a member to access it?

And overall, target market and all that.. one more point: Mystery readers like to jump into a series when there are already quite a few books. One reason is that they feel they can trust the quality better, but there is another much more practical reason for it -- if you read a book that is promising, and it's a year before you see another book, you'll probably forget it, and the second book will have to find you as if it's a first book. If you read a book that's promising, and you have several other books to read right away, you're going to remember everything much much better.

While I'd like to make money now, I really don't mind if most of my readers don't discover me until later, when I have more books in a particular series done.

Camille


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## matt youngmark (Jan 11, 2011)

Being new to the Kindle boards, btw, I really appreciate everyone sharing their perspectives on pricing in this thread. Although my book's been out for a while, I've spent the last year focusing on marketing it as a $14.95 paperback (and with some success -- after a couple of great reviews it peaked at #520 on Amazon's overall print rankings), but I priced the Kindle edition in line with what major publishers are charging for ebooks, and never saw many ebook sales. Dropping it from 9.99 to 5.99 had very little impact, but dropping it to 2.99 three weeks ago has made a huge difference. The reason, I think, is all the work indie authors have been doing to carve out a market for indie ebooks in the whole .99 - 4.99 range.

A lot of people have given a lot of good reasons here for pricing books at 2.99, and Amazon's own terms make a pretty compelling case by themselves. But, from a relative outsider's point of view, I'm just looking at this burgeoning market for indie ebooks, and I think 99 cent books are an important part of that. One of the overall themes on this thread is that "99 cent ebooks are bad for all of us because they lower readers' price expectations," but I'm not sure that tells the whole story. If a reader takes a chance on a 99 cent book and enjoys it, I think that expands the market for indie ebooks, period. I think that reader with the positive indie experience is MORE likely to try my 2.99 ebook, not less.

And I understand the idea that if you give readers a quality book in a professional package they don't care who publishes it (the entirety of my paperback marketing effort has been based on this concept), but we're talking about asking readers to try books they find on the internet that they know absolutely nothing about (all those NYT bestsellers that are topping ebook charts at high prices are also benefiting from the marketing campaigns that made their print editions bestsellers).

My (gut-feeling, obviously uneducated) guess is that eventually major publishers' ebook prices will normalize in the 2.99 - 5.99 range. I for one am glad that 1) I have a chance to try to build a career in this space while the majors are still pricing to protect their print business (once the mass migration from print to ebook happens, everything changes, forever), and 2) other indie authors are pricing their books at 99 cents, so I don't have to.


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> By the gods, I will say it again.
> 
> *ALL AUTHORS ARE UNKNOWN TO A PORTION OF THE PUBLIC. AND ALMOST ALL AUTHORS STARTED OUT AS "UNKNOWN"*
> 
> ...


Julie, I just want to say you've made some great points here. In fact, you made most of the points I was going to make. I just want to say that because often it seems like shouting into the wind around here -- so thanks, great stuff.

Readers don't distinguish between "indy" books (a self-limiting term I hate) and "traditionally" published books unless they have a reason to do so. Unless you make it obvious to them -- say, your book has an amateur cover or blurb -- then you will be judged just like every other book out there, including those by the biggest names. And that's a good thing. Publishers have done numerous studies to see if their brand (i.e. publisher name) has any effect on sales and they have consistently found (to their great sadness) that it generally doesn't.

One last point. I have no problem with authors selling at discount prices (anything below $4.99 is a discount, or bargain table price in my mind, and I've done some of it myself), but remember the math: 100 sales at $4.99 = 1000 sales at $.99 cents. I know lots of established professional writers already pricing their reverted backlists in the $3.99-$6.99 range who are not going to show up on anyone's radar or any of these pointless ranking lists that keep showing up on this board but who are probably making a whole lot more money than people with high rankings selling at 99 cents.

Ah, but I can hear the rebuttal already: "My 99 sent book is making me $2000 a month!" Great, that's awesome, but it only confirms to me that you're priced too low. You have a good book, congrats! The best reason to raise your price is that you create _growth potential_ that I doubt exists for you in the 99 cent range. You're ranked in the top 100 at 99 cents. Where do you go? No where but down. But even if your sales drop by 80% at $4.99, you make more money and your potential audience is much bigger.

That's what's got me so excited lately. As my little publishing company has gone from pizza money to getting closer to paying my mortgage in just three months (I have around 30 titles out there -- novels, short stories, collections -- which changes my focus a lot), I feel like I've barely gotten started and the potential is nearly unlimited.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> By the gods, I will say it again.
> 
> *ALL AUTHORS ARE UNKNOWN TO A PORTION OF THE PUBLIC. AND ALMOST ALL AUTHORS STARTED OUT AS "UNKNOWN"*
> 
> This is, frankly, the single most ridiculous logic for the 99 cent price there is. The fact that you are "unknown" does not play into any equation.


Julie's argument appeals to me on a logical level. If readers don't know I'm an indie, why would they expect my book to be 99c? They wouldn't. There are a lot of readers railing against the $12.99 ebooks, and many who believe that $5-10 is reasonable. If my book is professionally presented and gets good reviews, I don't see why I can't expect to sell it in that range.

From an "I'm so excited about the possibility of making beaucoup bucks as an indie that I'm willing to drop my price to 99c to see how low I can get in the rankings" side, I can see why it's such a tempting proposition. AND I AM TEMPTED, LAWD HELP MEH!!

From a business standpoint, for _my_ books, I don't think 99c is a good long-term strategy. For those who are sticking with it, I hope for your sake it's not a mistake.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

Scott William Carter said:


> Publishers have done numerous studies to see if their brand (i.e. publisher name) has any effect on sales and they have consistently found (to their great sadness) that it generally doesn't.


Yep. The more diverse your products, the less power your corporate brand has. The only time publisher name comes into play is with niche markets. Say the name Harlequin and romance readers' ears perk up. Because that is a strong brand in the romance niche...or rather a very specific type of romance novel. It is a brand that has been honed to a razor's edge. If you are a gamer, Wizards of the Coast is the holy grail of game publishers. You know that you are going to get a very specific type of product from them. But in the majority of cases, publisher name is not even a factor.


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## matt youngmark (Jan 11, 2011)

Maybe when I talk about a market for indie books, I should really say "a market for books with an indie marketing strategy." I do believe that readers don't care much about who published a book, and I'll gladly put my book up against any traditionally-published book out there. But that doesn't mean I'm going to market it the same way major publishers market theirs. What indie publishers are doing is finding new ways to expose their books to readers, and I think pricing them below major publishers' books is an important part of that.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Julie is correct. Pricing is a factor of personal taste and the product you sell, not how known or unknown you are. I believe in a quality product, however, I like the $ .99 book for some of my works and $3.99 for others. What I enjoy even better is a scientific discussion of the topic (NOT) . . . that and the microbial population of the bung hole of the tse-tse fly, another subject worthy of 200,000 words of discussion.    

Edward C. Patterson


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Suzanne Adair said:


> Terri, it all depends on what the paperback costs.  I sure have seen some pricey ones. I wish that the Sisters in Crime survey that I mentioned in an earlier post had reported on the too-low price/fair price/too-high price for _physical_ books. But it did not.
> 
> Folks, from my background in Marketing, I can tell you that you have to know your customers first, then position your price to reach those customers. Price will differ depending on product.


Suzanne and Arkali - I agree with both of you about preferences and costs - e-book vs paperback. And, Suzanne (it's nice to see another marketing person on the board) is exactly right - you need to know your customer. You need to find out what you customer is willing to pay.

How do you find out - test the waters. But, be sure that you are also marketing your book.


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## TimFrost (Jan 26, 2010)

I priced my book at $0.99 in USA and £0.99 in UK (which are by no means the same) and have enjoyed great sales in both markets. 

Then Amazon discounted my UK price to 49p! ($0.77). Sales got even better for a while. But now my US sales are climbing and may soon overtake the UK.

The only sense I can make of it is that an unknown author must rely on low prices and volume. 

I've sold well over 2,000 books in January already so it's no problem at the moment.

Remember, we're also competing with a load of free offerings.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

TimFrost said:


> I priced my book at $0.99 in USA and £0.99 in UK (which are by no means the same) and have enjoyed great sales in both markets.
> 
> Then Amazon discounted my UK price to 49p! ($0.77). Sales got even better for a while. But now my US sales are climbing and may soon overtake the UK.
> 
> ...


Tim - welcome.  Did you happen to read through all of the posts on this thread (because I realize that 7 pages is quite daunting) or did you just respond to Ali's initial question? If you haven't had a chance, I would strongly encourage you to read through the seven pages - you might find that many of us were "unknown" authors (sorry Julie) and have still done VERY WELL when we priced our books higher.

I'm not saying you shouldn't sell your book at .99 cents - that's totally your decision. But, don't think that because you are new - you have to sell them for that price.

Terri


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Arkali said:


> See, that's a matter of preference, though. THE major reason I got a Kindle was to cut down on book clutter. Seriously. So price of the one format vs. the other has very little impact on which I choose to buy. I'll buy the Kindle version, period, and if that's more than I want to pay for it, I won't buy the book at all. I'll tell you one book that suffered from this - The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. I love Meljean's Guardians series. Those are generally priced at $7. TID came out at $10. Guess what book I still haven't purchased yet?


This is a great example of my shift in attitude toward price. First, I WON'T buy paperbacks anymore. The Kindle just makes reading easier on so many levels. But I used to by trade paperbacks all the time. I would pay up to 19.95 and not think twice if it was a book I wanted to read.

The Iron Duke was such a book, and I paid the 9.99 for the Kindle version, and ... I wish I hadn't. It's all psychological. I think I would have had the old "19.95" experience with The Iron Duke if it had been priced at 8.99 -- only one dollar less!

Very strange.


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

TimFrost said:


> The only sense I can make of it is that an unknown author must rely on low prices and volume.
> 
> Remember, we're also competing with a load of free offerings.


Sigh. And hence my point. It really is like shouting into the wind over here, and why as much I love the discussions, I find myself less inclined to visit this forum. Julie and I try to disprove this very thing and someone jumps on and posts something like this as if we hadn't said a word.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Scott William Carter said:


> Sigh. And hence my point. It really is like shouting into the wind over here, and why as much I love the discussions, I find myself less inclined to visit this forum. Julie and I try to disprove this very thing and someone jumps on and posts something like this as if we hadn't said a word.


Don't give up, Scott.


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## TimFrost (Jan 26, 2010)

terrireid said:


> Tim - welcome.  Did you happen to read through all of the posts on this thread (because I realize that 7 pages is quite daunting) or did you just respond to Ali's initial question? If you haven't had a chance, I would strongly encourage you to read through the seven pages - you might find that many of us were "unknown" authors (sorry Julie) and have still done VERY WELL when we priced our books higher.
> 
> I'm not saying you shouldn't sell your book at .99 cents - that's totally your decision. But, don't think that because you are new - you have to sell them for that price.
> 
> Terri


Thanks, Terri! I read a good selection of the posts. Currently I'm just outside the Top 1,000 in the US, and well inside the Top 100 in the UK. Are you really recommending that I increase my prices? Sounds suicidal to me!


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I forgot to respond to Julie's wonderful "All authors are unknown until you know them" post.  I'm glad she put it in gigantic letters.  

The other thing that KCMay's post reminded me of:  the thing about the low hanging fruit strategy (which is what the 99 cents to get attention is) is that it only works well when there are a limited number of people doing it.  When everybody does the same thing, there isn't much low hanging fruit to do around. 

Right now, Kindle and other ebook readership is still in little clusters.  The demographics are skewed -- and they are rapidly changing.  Pretty much everything is a fluke right now.  We can fake it for a while because of growth, but that's not going to go on forever.

Now, I do think there is a valid point in those who want to establish themselves while Kindle is still small.  That is, while the audience is small enough to make an impact.  However... doing this with rankings as your main strategy is like using a lottery ticket as your main strategy for financial planning.  (Did you notice Robin's post about 20 out of the top 100 books were indies?  Most of those were one person.)  There are a whole LOT of famous, and well-established authors who are not in the top 100, and that's a good thing.  The best seller paradigm is part of the old brick-and-mortar model and that was crushing to the variety of the midlist.

That said, there are a lot of very cool things about the top 100 (and it's VERY cool that there are a lot of 99 cent indies making a splash -- if only because it breaks up the old paradigm faster).  But if everybody has the goal of being in the top 100... that's just not gonna happen.

Camille


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

I listen to Julie quite seriously.

I've priced Space Junque at 99 cents and haven't enjoyed any kind of spike in sales. It gets great reviews, blah, blah, blah. 

Eventually, this is where I want to be with pricing:

Space Junque, 27K words, 2.99
Spiderwork, 40K words, 2.99
Blue Amber, 17K words, .99
Bleeder, 85K words, 3.99

We'll see how it goes.


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## TimFrost (Jan 26, 2010)

Furthermore, Stephen Leather sold 44,000 books in December in the UK at £0.75. He also had some books at higher prices, which his publisher wouldn't let him discount, and they sold a tiny fraction of the cheap ones.

I do think the UK is more cost-conscious than the US, and being a British writer I have to be aware of that.


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## Carolyn Kephart (Feb 23, 2009)

LKRigel said:


> I listen to Julie quite seriously.
> 
> I've priced Space Junque at 99 cents and haven't enjoyed any kind of spike in sales. It gets great reviews, blah, blah, blah.
> 
> ...


I <3 Julie's tough love. 

And I'm upping the price of _The Ryel Saga_ to $5.99 in February, simply because offering my book at $0.99 embarrasses me. Seriously.

CK


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

TimFrost said:


> Remember, we're also competing with a load of free offerings.


Maybe you are. My books are not commodities like wheat or oil that are interchangeable. If the whole concept of "free offerings" was really that big of a deal, our public libraries would be thriving and publishers would all be bankrupt.

I go out and find my own customers. I don't depend on the Amazon alogithms to sell my books for me. And this is really where the root problem is. If you are dependent on Amazon for sales, and the only way you get sales are if people "find" you on Amazon, you are essentially screwed. Because yes, then you ARE competing with free offerings and 99 cent offerings and everything else on Amazon.

But me...I go out and advertise and market and spend the time understanding my target demographic and what they want. And then I direct them to my book instead of waiting for them to hunt and peck through dozens of pages of search offerings on Amazon.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Carolyn Kephart said:


> I <3 Julie's tough love.
> 
> And I'm upping the price of _The Ryel Saga_ to $5.99 in February, simply because offering my book at $0.99 embarrasses me. Seriously.
> 
> CK


I understand.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

TimFrost said:


> Thanks, Terri! I read a good selection of the posts. Currently I'm just outside the Top 1,000 in the US, and well inside the Top 100 in the UK. Are you really recommending that I increase my prices? Sounds suicidal to me!


Tim - you know your book and it sounds like you know your market.

Currently two of my books are ranked in the US somewhere in the 300s - 400s - depending on the day. They are just getting started in the UK. My books are priced at $2.99.

During December I sold 5000 books.

So...what I am saying is - you can be a successful author if you price your books at $2.99

Will this work for you? I don't know. But, your initial statement...



> The only sense I can make of it is that an unknown author must rely on low prices and volume.


...has been proven to be incorrect for many authors.


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Carolyn Kephart said:


> I <3 Julie's tough love.
> 
> And I'm upping the price of _The Ryel Saga_ to $5.99 in February, simply because offering my book at $0.99 embarrasses me. Seriously.
> 
> CK


Yay, Carolyn! Some sign of sanity. 

And because you have short works for 99 cents, you still have a cheap way for readers to sample your work. That is an advantage of writing both novels and short stories, which I do as well.

I also want to add: I have no problem with a loss leader strategy. If you have at least three books and you're pricing one cheap or giving it away to get people into a series, great. But pricing the only book you have at 99 cents indefinitely just doesn't seem logical if you're in this for the long haul. Gotta have patience, though, something a lot of new writers don't seem to have in great abundance.

If you're pricing the only book you have at 99 cents in the hopes these people will come back and find your next book when you eventually release it, well, you must know different readers than I do. Most readers won't remember you a month after they finish the book, especially the voracious readers. Why not wait until the second book is out, then do a temporary price drop to 99 cents _with the opening of the second book included_ at the end of the first? That way as soon as they finish the book, and have had a good experience, they go right on and buy your next.

But if it's the only book you have, they go looking for something else by you, find nothing, and say, oh well, let's see what else is out there . . .


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## TimFrost (Jan 26, 2010)

terrireid said:


> Tim - you know your book and it sounds like you know your market.
> 
> Currently two of my books are ranked in the US somewhere in the 300s - 400s - depending on the day. They are just getting started in the UK. My books are priced at $2.99.
> 
> ...


I think what's coming out is that the UK is very different to the USA. But the UK Kindle Store has been open only for 5 months, and already it's generating some really big sales for people, so it can't be ignored. And trust me, Brits don't want to pay $2.99 for an unknown author.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

TimFrost said:


> I think what's coming out is that the UK is very different to the USA. But the UK Kindle Store has been open only for 5 months, and already it's generating some really big sales for people, so it can't be ignored. And trust me, Brits don't want to pay $2.99 for an unknown author.


It's too bad that you can't price your book higher in the US then. I've only sold modestly in the UK - this month I've had 36 sales so far.  So - you are definitely the expert in that market.


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## TimFrost (Jan 26, 2010)

terrireid said:


> It's too bad that you can't price your book higher in the US then. I've only sold modestly in the UK - this month I've had 36 sales so far.  So - you are definitely the expert in that market.


I guess there's no reason I couldn't price at $2.99 in the US and 49p in the UK. It seems a little unfair on my US readers, though, who I love to bits. Particularly as they are so much kinder and more generous with their reviews ... 

Conversely, Terri, why don't you try £0.75 in the UK and see what happens?


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

TimFrost said:


> I guess there's no reason I couldn't price at $2.99 in the US and 49p in the UK. It seems a little unfair on my US readers, though, who I love to bits. Particularly as they are so much kinder and more generous with their reviews ...
> 
> Conversely, Terri, why don't you try £0.75 in the UK and see what happens?


If I understand correctly - if you lower your price in one area - Amazon will lower your price in the other. So, I think I'll keep my books priced where they are for now.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

McDonalds has the McDouble for $1.00 on their dollar menu. If I go to a sit down restaurant, I can buy a burger for $6.00, $7.00 or more. I'll eat the $1.00 burger now and then, but it isn't very good. That restaurant burger is really good. The $1.00 burger doesn't drive out the more expensive burgers, because the more expensive burger offers something better than the $1.00 burger.

The trick is, of course, to make sure that people know the difference.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

modwitch said:


> Not every book reduced to $0.99 will crack the top 500, for sure. Not even most of them. But enough do that it isn't really a lottery type long shot. I think it's valid to see if yours will, even if it's the only book you have out. (Not saying everyone should, but I think a valid business case can be made for trying).


Actually I agree that the .99 price point itself is not a lottery strategy -- because there are other reasons to do it -- but trying to crack the top 100 (or 500) IS by its very nature a lottery strategy. There are a limited number of slots, and a great many of those slots are pretty much locked on big names.

That might be a cool goal that drives you to do your personal best, but it is NOT a good _strategy_. You don't control enough factors for it to be a good strategy. You don't know how many well established writers and great books are being prepared and uploaded. You can't predict the winds of change in the audience.

What you do have control of is the product. You can write.

Camille


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## Abigail (Apr 27, 2010)

My memoir Invisible Tears is priced at 99 cents. Although I understand what people are saying about raising prices I will leave mine for now, being as my book is in the top 500 USA and starting to do better in the UK, I am reluctant to change a thing. If it isn't broke don't try to fix it.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Scott William Carter said:


> I also want to add: I have no problem with a loss leader strategy. If you have at least three books and you're pricing one cheap or giving it away to get people into a series, great. But pricing the only book you have at 99 cents indefinitely just doesn't seem logical if you're in this for the long haul.


Still on the sidelines here, but the loss leader concept makes some sense to me, esp. if you have a series or a lot of books to post for sale. Alternatively, I also like the idea of selling novels at a higher rate but keeping short stories at .99 cents. If readers want to try you out, they can check out the free samples or the cheap short stories.

What I don't understand is pricing something at 99 cents and then upping the price later. Or starting with a high price and then dropping it and then raising it again.

My wife and I tried to brainstorm other industries that give you a teaser price to start off with, then jack the price up later, and the only thing we could think of was drugs. Start with a sample, then get addicted and then you're willing to pay your life for more. But books aren't drugs. The supply is readily available and will never run out.

That's also why I don't understand the focus some writers have on moving numbers of copies and attaining high rankings on some list. I would think the amount of money you're making is more important than number of units or your position on a list, but I know each writer has their own goals to pursue.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

terrireid said:


> If I understand correctly - if you lower your price in one area - Amazon will lower your price in the other. So, I think I'll keep my books priced where they are for now.


They have a little check box that allows you disconnect or connect the prices as you wish. (I think they know there is a problem for UK customers -- the VAT.)

Camille


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

terrireid said:


> Suzanne and Arkali - I agree with both of you about preferences and costs - e-book vs paperback. And, Suzanne (it's nice to see another marketing person on the board) is exactly right - you need to know your customer. You need to find out what you customer is willing to pay.
> 
> How do you find out - test the waters. But, be sure that you are also marketing your book.


I also come from a marketing background, and that's how I price my books. I sell gay-themed books to a non-gay audience (for the most part). To me a reader is a reader - but they must become MY reader. $ .99 will entice a reader to pick up their first gay-themed read, while $2.99 will not. Once they read one of my books, price should not matter. My $3.99 books are not gay themed and are epic novels. The price only counts for the 1st in the series, because if a reader is hooked, price (once again for the rest) doesn't matter. If they hate it, it really doesn't matter. I also have an historical series in 12th Century China - not everyones cup of tea. $ .99 is a price that could entice a reader in. The series has 5 books.

So although at times it appears that I am not marketing my books, but rather finding the lowest price and running with it, I in fact know my audience, what they are willing to pay to become my customer. Since I don't know which book will be the entrance read into my world, I keep my price consistant and stable. I have many five star reviews that begin (paraphrase) "this is the first time I read a gay-themed book" and then goes on to state that the theme didn't matter - the characters, story and writing is what kept the reader in. If I wrote Romance books or detective "dick" stories or vampire genre, I would know my audience there as well. As it happens, each work I produce is unlike its siblings except in one thing - they exude ME. So, bottom line, I don't sell books to readers. I offer ME to an audience, and my audience might pay more, but why should they? Really? Pricing to me is transparent, even for the epic works of 700 pages plus at $ 3.99.

Edward C. Patterson


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

modwitch said:


> I think there's more than one valid business reason for going with the $0.99 model. I'm going to pick on Victorine here . And Monique, who may well be following in her footsteps.
> 
> Not every book reduced to $0.99 will crack the top 500, for sure. Not even most of them. But enough do that it isn't really a lottery type long shot. I think it's valid to see if yours will, even if it's the only book you have out. (Not saying everyone should, but I think a valid business case can be made for trying).
> 
> ...


That would be true only if she has an unlimited supply of readers, which I highly doubt. Let's say Amazon is selling 1000 Kindles a day. Let's say 1 percent of those readers would be willing to buy her book. That's 10 new readers a day. You see my point. It may not happen for a year or so, but eventually those sales will tapper off at that price. There's a bit of Pollyanna thinking going on here among some writers who think this explosive growth will continue eventually. It won't, trust me. It will for a while, and we all benefit, but it will slow down.

That was my point -- by pricing higher, even if you have a lower ranking and lower sales, you still can make more money, AND the long term growth potential for the book is much better. No way I'd quit my day job based on one 99 cent book doing well. Way too risky.

So if you're in this for the long haul, yes, I think it's illogical to leave the only book you have at 99 cents forever. That book is a great example. With all all those positive reviews, I'm pretty sure it could do at least 1/10 of the sales it was doing before. She'd have to be willing to wait a month and not panic, though. Waiting a few days is way too short a time.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> They have a little check box that allows you disconnect or connect the prices as you wish. (I think they know there is a problem for UK customers -- the VAT.)
> 
> Camille


Thanks!


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Tim mentioned Stephen Leather in UK. Without sidetracking too much or getting too controversial I would just say that despite his sales he might not be the best role model.

What he did was to first mention to the UK audience that he was a traditionally published author. This is a very important point because much of UK is very prejudiced about the idea of indie publishing and the UK readership bought into his 'experiment' because of this. He then announced that as a trad author he would sell his books for under £1. But as he increasingly bragged about how much he was earning he seemed to flip and took over the forum with his promotion. But the problem is he is now very disliked by many authors and amazon forum members. He may have got rich quick but at a different sort of cost.

That para was included for the benefit of authors who didn't witness the situation. I will not mention it again and normal service on this thread will now be resumed .


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Scott William Carter said:


> That would be true only if she has an unlimited supply of readers, which I highly doubt. Let's say Amazon is selling 1000 Kindles a day. Let's say 1 percent of those readers would be willing to buy her book. That's 10 new readers a day. You see my point. It may not happen for a year or so, but eventually those sales will tapper off at that price. There's a bit of Pollyanna thinking going on here among some writers who think this explosive growth will continue eventually. It won't, trust me. It will for a while, and we all benefit, but it will slow down.
> 
> That was my point -- by pricing higher, even if you have a lower ranking and lower sales, you still can make more money, AND the long term growth potential for the book is much better. No way I'd quit my day job based on one 99 cent book doing well. Way too risky.
> 
> So if you're in this for the long haul, yes, I think it's illogical to leave the only book you have at 99 cents forever. That book is a great example. With all all those positive reviews, I'm pretty sure it could do at least 1/10 of the sales it was doing before. She'd have to be willing to wait a month and not panic, though. Waiting a few days is way too short a time.


There's an estimated 8 million kindles sold in 2010. I expect that number to go up in 2011.

I've sold almost 30,000 books. I'm pretty far away from tapping even 1 percent of the Kindle owners out there. And even if I do saturate my market... lets say in a year... I'll have at least one more book out, maybe two, by then. I think reaching more people now is better for me.

But to each his own. Really. We all have the ability to chose how we price and how we market. I'm happy where I am. No one is going to convince me that their way is better. And really, no one should be trying. We all should find what works for us.

Vicki

Edited to add: Modwitch - You did a great job jumping into my head! We think alike!


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

modwitch said:


> I'm hardly in Victorine's head, but let me pretend to be her for a moment. I have a book in the top 100. Mega eyeballs. My second book is half done, and will be out by summer (right, Victorine  ). I don't need Not What She Seems to sell forever at the current rate. I only need it to keep me in front of lots of eyeballs long enough for my second (and maybe third and fourth books) to hit the market and share some of the incredible volume of eyeballs my bestseller is getting. Which cuts down hugely on the marketing I need to do for book two, so I can get to writing book three and four.
> 
> It may not be a good strategy forever. But it sure seems like one smart way to ride the wave of right now.
> 
> Okay, it was fun for a moment to pretend to be a bestselling author .


Why not price the first book at $4.99 now and drop it to .99 cents temporarily when the new book comes out (which hopefully would be priced at $4.99)?

Then after a month, raise the first one back to 4.99. That way you've created the perception of value that you are an author readers should be willing to pay 4.99 for -- which, when you get out of this forum, is still a good price for an e-book.

Look, I'm not saying there's one right answer here, and these are tough choices once you put on the publisher hat, but I just find it so sad that there's so many writers that think the main reason people are buying them is because of a low price.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> This is a great example of my shift in attitude toward price. First, I WON'T buy paperbacks anymore. The Kindle just makes reading easier on so many levels. But I used to by trade paperbacks all the time. I would pay up to 19.95 and not think twice if it was a book I wanted to read.
> 
> The Iron Duke was such a book, and I paid the 9.99 for the Kindle version, and ... I wish I hadn't. It's all psychological. I think I would have had the old "19.95" experience with The Iron Duke if it had been priced at 8.99 -- only one dollar less!
> 
> Very strange.


Can you clarify that, LK, please? Do you mean that had you paid $8.99 you wouldn't have been disappointed? That's interesting. I think I would have shelled out for it at $8.99. Ideally, I'd have liked to have seen it at $7.99, but I would have grudgingly paid $9. As it happens now, I'll wait 'til the price comes down. And the suck of it - much like computer games, you have to strike while the iron is hot because there's always a new book or game coming out. Here's what I mean by that.

Let's say I'm looking at a banner / sig / newsletter in my email box, whatever, and I'm playing with the idea of getting your book. I finally decide that I will and get to Amazon, fully prepared to buy. Only - I see $9.99. WHAT? I leave. Now you have to start the wooing process all over again, PLUS you're at a slight disadvantage because I've got in my head that I don't want to pay what you're asking. So somewhere in there is going to have to be a note that there's a sale or a price-drop. Added to that, you've lost momentum. How's that? Well, for the past 3 months, I've been eagerly awaiting your book. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the next book. That's the sound of opportunity lost, folks. HOWEVER! In a series, that can be turned around when the next book comes out, because me interest will be re-engaged.

I'm still thinking indies need to have mailing lists. It's a SURE-FIRE way to get word to people who liked your work well enough to sign up for a newsletter. Seriously. Don't spam it. Don't talk about blog posts, tweets, or anything else, but DO use it to let readers know when your next book is coming out (if it's available for pre-order) or that it has just come out (if it's not available until you hit the publish button). Free sales with next to no effort.


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Victorine said:


> No one is going to convince me that their way is better. And really, no one should be trying. We all should find what works for us.


No one's trying to convince you, Vicki. Of course it's your career. You were only used as a hypothetical example. I may think you're making a mistake, but I fully admit I could be wrong for you and your circumstances. But I'm always open to changing my mind. If I wasn't, I wouldn't even be in this forum. I'd stick with selling books to NY via my agent. But because I was open to other possibilities, I found Konrath, Goldberg, and this forum, which turned me onto the possibilities of mixing traditional and independent publishing.

So I guess I don't see the point in even participating in these forums unless you have an open mind -- I'm always open to being convinced that another way is better. The main reason I'm here is to learn.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Arkali said:


> Can you clarify that, LK, please? Do you mean that had you paid $8.99 you wouldn't have been disappointed?


yes, that's what I mean. Strange, huh? I mean, the difference is only a dollar, so it's psychological. The book was good, but I had been anticipating great. On the other hand, I recently read Lord of the Fading Lands for the first time. I don't remember what I paid, but I think 5 or 6 dollars. I loved it, and if I'd paid 9.99 I wouldn't have been sad. But that's just me. (PS: I know I'm supposed to love The Iron Duke, but something was missing. Tenderness, that's it. I like a little tenderness in my romance.)



> I'm still thinking indies need to have mailing lists. It's a SURE-FIRE way to get word to people who liked your work well enough to sign up for a newsletter. Seriously. Don't spam it. Don't talk about blog posts, tweets, or anything else, but DO use it to let readers know when your next book is coming out (if it's available for pre-order) or that it has just come out (if it's not available until you hit the publish button). Free sales with next to no effort.


I'm with you on this. I have a sign-up on my website, and so far I've got something like 6 people signed up! I need to do a better job of building the list.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

I guess one of the big things I don't like about the 'price your book at 99c and stay in the top 100' model is, as at least one person has already pointed out, that there are only 100 slots there. If it gets to the stage where half the people here are directly competing with one another I think it would be very sad and also very counterproductive. I'm also worried by something Julie touched on, the fact that authors are building strategies or assuming continued success that are almost 100% dependent on how amazon organise the kindle store and the indies' place in it.
btw, there are readers in the UK forum asking for indie authors to be filtered out of rankings because they're so sick of seeing loads of 99c equivalent books in the top 100.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> yes, that's what I mean. Strange, huh? I mean, the difference is only a dollar, so it's psychological. The book was good, but I had been anticipating great. On the other hand, I recently read Lord of the Fading Lands for the first time. I don't remember what I paid, but I think 5 or 6 dollars. I loved it, and if I'd paid 9.99 I wouldn't have been sad. But that's just me. (PS: I know I'm supposed to love The Iron Duke, but something was missing. Tenderness, that's it. I like a little tenderness in my romance.)
> 
> I'm with you on this. I have a sign-up on my website, and so far I've got something like 6 people signed up! I need to do a better job of building the list.


If you don't already, have a note about it in your about the author blurb in the book: 
"LK. Rigel is great, awesome, blah blah blah. You can keep up with her at www.blah.com. Be sure to sign up for her mailing list to be notified of new releases!"

I'ma go sign up for your mailing list


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Arkali said:


> If you don't already, have a note about it in your about the author blurb in the book:
> "LK. Rigel is great, awesome, blah blah blah. You can keep up with her at www.blah.com. Be sure to sign up for her mailing list to be notified of new releases!"
> 
> I'ma go sign up for your mailing list


Oh. I can tell you one problem right now. Put your sign-up link "above-the-fold". That means it (and anything else you want people to see) needs to be RIGHT THERE, no scrolling required. If it's not visible when the site first loads there's a high likelihood it won't get seen. I'd actually recommend putting a short link in your menu - "Newsletter" or some such. Then put a more textie link down below. Seriously, if I hadn't been looking for it (because you assured me it was there) I'd have not found it.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> btw, there are readers in the UK forum asking for indie authors to be filtered out of rankings because they're so sick of seeing loads of 99c equivalent books in the top 100.


That's irritating as heck. Sorry. Get off your (general you, not you specifically, Ali ) lazy ass and sort your search by price. Sheesh.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"there are readers in the UK forum asking for indie authors to be filtered out of rankings because they're so sick of seeing loads of 99c equivalent books in the top 100."_

Interesting observation. For many other products, Amazon has search parameters that allow one to select price range. If they implemented that for top 100 books, then one could get the top 100 between $2.99 and $5.99, or between $7.99 and $10.99. So, they have the tools ready if they choose to use them for books.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Arkali said:


> If you don't already, have a note about it in your about the author blurb in the book:
> "LK. Rigel is great, awesome, blah blah blah. You can keep up with her at www.blah.com. Be sure to sign up for her mailing list to be notified of new releases!"
> 
> I'ma go sign up for your mailing list


There -- I put it in my signature.


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

In order to replace my current full-time job (which is paying me 40% less than the position I was laid off from a year and a half ago, meaning that I can't actually afford my mortgage at my current salary) with a $0.99 book, I would need to sell roughly 15,700 copies per month.

At $2.99, I would need to sell 2,627 copies per month.

At $3.99, I would need to sell 1,969 copies per month.

And this is exactly why the concept of supporting one's self with a single $0.99 title makes no sense to me.

I find it highly unlikely that I could easily sell 13,000 more copies of a book per month by pricing it at $0.99 instead of $2.99. Yes, I'd expect my sales to be slightly higher at $0.99, but I haven't heard much anecdotal evidence that most people who have tried similar price drops have seen that staggering an increase in sales. It could happen, but I wouldn't expect it to happen.

Someone with multiple titles could potentially justify dropping the price on a loss leader to hopefully gain more readers who will pay for higher-priced follow up books, but $0.99 on a single title just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Attention spans being what they are, I think many of the readers who picked up your $0.99 title aren't necessarily going to come back months later to look for a follow-up effort unless you really wowed them. Who knows what percentage of readers that will include? Consider that many people who purchase $0.99 books never read them, that not everyone will like your book, and that even if someone casually likes the book, they may not remember to check back months later.

I dunno. To each his/her own, but I don't personally see the point in setting myself up to need to sell six times as many books at the lower price _just to break even_. Yes, more people bought my book that way. But did I gain more "true fans"? That's very difficult to say.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

To say there's only 100 slots in the top 100 is a little misleading. Sure, you're right, only 100 books can be in the top 100. *But there's no limit to the number of books that can sell as well as the #1 best selling book!*

So you could have 10,000 books selling 25,000 copies each month. You could have 100,000 books selling that well. There is no limit. We are not in competition with anyone. We can ALL sell well.

Vicki


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Arkali said:


> Let's say I'm looking at a banner / sig / newsletter in my email box, whatever, and I'm playing with the idea of getting your book. I finally decide that I will and get to Amazon, fully prepared to buy. Only - I see $9.99. WHAT? I leave. Now you have to start the wooing process all over again, PLUS you're at a slight disadvantage because I've got in my head that I don't want to pay what you're asking.


Actually, most marketing research indicates otherwise. First impressions are usually doubtful -- people have very high resistance. You very very very seldom get a customer on a first interaction. Usually it takes a lot more than that. (I think seven is the classic number.) The "WHAT!?!" reaction is because of surprise as much as anything. When it's no longer a surprise, the other factors have an opportunity to kick in. So you say "What! I'm never going to pay that..." but you remember the book. Then you see a glowing review by a reviewer you respect, and you think "Hunh, they _liked_ it. I guess it must be pretty good, but I remember that book was priced WAY too high, so I'm not going to buy it." But then you hear about it again, and again, and you look again. This time you knew what it costs before you look, and so that price tag doesn't overwhelm all the other info on the page.

I hate to say this, but anything memorable is an advantage.

The other mistake everyone tends to make (myself included) is we only remember our conscious decisions. You don't remember all the free or 99 cent books you did NOT decide to instantly buy. You only remember that one that got you to buy instantly. That makes it sound like a better strategy than it is.

Camille


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> There -- I put it in my signature.


Okay, I just had this vision of you with your lip poked out, arms folded. "FINE!"

Oh - and don't forget to wash behind your ears (blog!)


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Arkali said:


> Okay, I just had this vision of you with your lip poked out, arms folded. "FINE!"
> 
> Oh - and don't forget to wash behind your ears (blog!)


hahaha! bad punctuation. I meant "presto!" voilà !! I put it in my signature!!!!


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Arkali said:


> That's irritating as heck. Sorry. Get off your (general you, not you specifically, Ali ) lazy ass and sort your search by price. Sheesh.


One person started a thread about it but in most of the posts I read, no one was jumping on his bandwagon.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Victorine said:


> To say there's only 100 slots in the top 100 is a little misleading. Sure, you're right, only 100 books can be in the top 100. *But there's no limit to the number of books that can sell as well as the #1 best selling book!*
> 
> So you could have 10,000 books selling 25,000 copies each month. You could have 100,000 books selling that well. There is no limit. We are not in competition with anyone. We can ALL sell well.


Vicki, I've got to say this. This is like your "8 million kindles!" stat. It's not a real number. There actually IS a limit to all of those things. There is a very real limit to the number of people who are the potential customers of a particular book. But because we don't know what it is, we can pretend that limit doesn't exist.

I agree, we can all sell well - that's actually my point. You don't need to have good rankings to make a good living. As a matter of fact, a LOT more people are making a good living than there are people achieving those good rankings. Rankings are cool enough, but they are a lottery, and are not a good goal in an of themselves. You won that lottery, for now at least. That's cool. Enjoy it. But it's not a good reason for us all to run out and buy a lottery ticket.

And yes, before you say that your success was not a pure luck thing, it is absolutely true that you got there on talent. If people want to imitate you, they should look FAR beyond your price. Price didn't make you. You and your talent and a great story made you.

Camille


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Actually, most marketing research indicates otherwise. First impressions are usually doubtful -- people have very high resistance. You very very very seldom get a customer on a first interaction. Usually it takes a lot more than that. (I think seven is the classic number.) The "WHAT!?!" reaction is because of surprise as much as anything. When it's no longer a surprise, the other factors have an opportunity to kick in. So you say "What! I'm never going to pay that..." but you remember the book. Then you see a glowing review by a reviewer you respect, and you think "Hunh, they _liked_ it. I guess it must be pretty good, but I remember that book was priced WAY too high, so I'm not going to buy it." But then you hear about it again, and again, and you look again. This time you knew what it costs before you look, and so that price tag doesn't overwhelm all the other info on the page.
> 
> I hate to say this, but anything memorable is an advantage.
> 
> ...


Apples to oranges. I'm not talking about some book you've never heard of. I'm talking about a book by an author you know and love, a book that you have been EAGERLY WAITING FOR for the past 6 months. That's not going to take seven exposures to sell me on - it's going to take one nudge "Psst - that book is out now." Good post, but you took mine out of context, so we were talking about two COMPLETELY different dynamics.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Arkali said:


> Apples to oranges. I'm not talking about some book you've never heard of. I'm talking about a book by an author you know and love, a book that you have been EAGERLY WAITING FOR for the past 6 months. That's not going to take seven exposures to sell me on - it's going to take one nudge "Psst - that book is out now." Good post, but you took mine out of context, so we were talking about two COMPLETELY different dynamics.


Ah, I've got it.

However in that case, there is no starting over or wooing anew -- the deal is done. There are many books priced higher than I'll pay. If I hear the price is lower, I'll grab it. But as long as they're getting what they need out of the book, my staying away isn't hurting them any. (It's like the fig vinegar at Zingerman's I mentioned -- it's delicious, but I can't afford $35 for a small bottle of vinegar. But they have no trouble selling it to richer customers, and I have plenty of products to buy to make me happy at my own price points.)

Camille


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Ah, I've got it.
> 
> However in that case, there is no starting over or wooing anew -- the deal is done. There are many books priced higher than I'll pay. If I hear the price is lower, I'll grab it. But as long as they're getting what they need out of the book, my staying away isn't hurting them any. (It's like the fig vinegar at Zingerman's I mentioned -- it's delicious, but I can't afford $35 for a small bottle of vinegar. But they have no trouble selling it to richer customers, and I have plenty of products to buy to make me happy at my own price points.)
> 
> Camille


'tis true  And actually, they will get another bite at the apple, so to speak - when their next book comes out. And usually the first book will have dropped a bit in price, and so be in my range at that point, thankfully. But, yeah, I doubt Meljean Brook is crying a river because I didn't buy The Iron Duke


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## TimFrost (Jan 26, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Tim mentioned Stephen Leather in UK. Without sidetracking too much or getting too controversial I would just say that despite his sales he might not be the best role model.
> 
> What he did was to first mention to the UK audience that he was a traditionally published author. This is a very important point because much of UK is very prejudiced about the idea of indie publishing and the UK readership bought into his 'experiment' because of this. He then announced that as a trad author he would sell his books for under £1. But as he increasingly bragged about how much he was earning he seemed to flip and took over the forum with his promotion. But the problem is he is now very disliked by many authors and amazon forum members. He may have got rich quick but at a different sort of cost.
> 
> That para was included for the benefit of authors who didn't witness the situation. I will not mention it again and normal service on this thread will now be resumed .


@ Ali, Amazon deleted every single post of Stephen Leather's and banned him from all forums on 31st December. He is still the highest earning author on UK Kindle by a mile, whatever we may think of him! (and second in the world only to Amanda Hocking, I think). At 75p a book. Are you sure he is doing the wrong thing?

@ Terri: I'm not sure if it's true that you cannot price differentially in different Amazon stores and retain your 70% royalty. Logically, it should be possible, because the two stores are mutually exclusive and it is not easy to shop in both at the same time. It should be possible for a US author like you to do a price promotion at $0.99 in the UK to promote your books, while keeping your US price point and royalty percentage. I just read the notes, but they don't seem to have anticipated this scenario. Perhaps someone should ask Amazon to clarify.

To boil this fascinating thread (for which thanks Ali) down to its bones, some people seem to be saying that books are intrinsically worth more than a cappuccino, others contend that they should be priced the same, and yet others say that a book can and should sell for less than half a cappuccino in some cases.

We authors who are in it for the money (as opposed to some other satisfaction) are doing nothing more than trying to sell our labour for the highest return we can get over time. It is complicated in our case, because unlike a teacher or a doctor, we do not get paid by the hour or month. Instead we labour in advance for zilch, then sell our time in arrears in small instalments to thousands of different customers. And our work can go on earning for our fortunate heirs for a further 70 years after we have expired from the effort.

My sole interest as an author is to maximise my writing earnings over my lifetime + 70 years. In the short term, I don't care whether my readers pay me 49p, $2.99 or anything higher or lower (though I feel a little uneasy about permanent large discrepancies). However, I feel decidedly uncomfortable about sacrificing sales, royalties and ranking now, in the hope (by no means assured) of possibly higher royalties later. I just don't dare do it. A Top 100 or Top 1,000 ranking is a precious thing for an unknown author like me, much to be celebrated and enjoyed, and I for one am sticking to my current prices without shame.

I've enjoyed this lively debate. But for now, over and out!


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

I think that people should keep in mind that we here debating this are writers .... talking to writers.  The only audience that really matters is readers and what they think.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Michael's readers constantly thank him for the "low price" of his books ($4.95 - $6.95) because they are comparing them to the $9.99 to $12.99 of other books in his genre.  Like Julie said, most don't know he's independently produced. They see the publisher is "Ridan" (don't know who that is but then again they don't know who Three River's Press is either) a good cover, well created blurb, and reasonable price and all that adds up to "a quality selection".

The problem with $0.99 and $2.99 is you are branding yourself "indie". You are consciously putting yourself into the "bargin bin" and positioning yourself as "not worthy" of a higher price.  

Stop thinking about this as fellow writers...think about what the readers sees - they don't think that $4.95 is an unreasonable price to pay for an ebook.


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## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

Victorine said:


> There's an estimated 8 million kindles sold in 2010. I expect that number to go up in 2011.


Keep in mind that's just kindles. The Android tablets and iPads out there also have Kindle software, and the selection of books at Amazon is vastly superior to that of the iBookstore.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

Victorine said:


> I've sold almost 30,000 books.


30,000 sales a 99 cents is $9,000
6,500 sales at $1.99 is $9,035
3,000 sales at $4.99 is $10,470

I think you are talented enough and present yourself professionally enough that you could have sold almost the same number of books at a higher price. You have convinced yourself that you sold those books because of the price. And I realize I can't change that. But every ounce of business sense in me tells me you are shortchanging yourself for the wrong reason.

Yes, there is a portion of the buying public that will buy anything at 99 cents. That is why we have Dollar Stores (and hey, I LIKE dollar stores for some things too). But whether or not you decide to cater to them depends on whether you are going for volume or brand loyalty.

I work in contract packaging. One of our clients was a major cosmetics company. They have two brands: a "mass market" brand sold at Walmart, KMart, etc cheap, and their "premium" brand sold at Macy. They sell ten times more volume in the "mass market" catagory than they do their "premium" catagory, but they make more PROFIT in the premium catagory. During the recession, they cut back on marketing and promotion of their mass market brands and focused on their premium brands. Because while the price conscious shoppers at WalMart cut back on purchases, the premium brand customers continued to shop normally.

This is the normal behavior of every business we work with. Because when money is tight, the discount shoppers are the ones that constrict their spending first. While those that have brand loyalty continue to buy from their favored brands.

Again, people are going to do what they are going to do. But I just hope folks will really think through the realities of operating a business if they actually intend to make this a steady source of income.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> 30,000 sales a 99 cents is $9,000
> 6,500 sales at $1.99 is $9,035
> 3,000 sales at $4.99 is $10,470


Pretty sure $1.99 is the lower royalty rate - or am I missing something?


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

I did some quick analysis of Michael's Genre (Epic Fantasy) - here are the current Kindle 25 bestsellers:

What can we see?

Indies are "holding their own" this list
Traditional is lowering its prices - two traditional at $2.99
Both $4.95-$6.95 as well as $0.99 - $2.99 price points are "working"

In this list 48% are indie 48% are tradiational 2% are classic
The list contains just held by just a few (11) authors: Martin, Sanderson, Jordon, King, Abercrombie, Erickson, Hugo, Sullivan, Dalglish, Johnson, Larson
In this list 36% are indie 54% are traditional 9% are classic

Data:


 RANK	 TITLE	 AUTHOR	 PUBLISHER	 PRICE	 1	 A Game of Thrones	 George R. R.Martin	 Traditional	 $5.00  2	 Amber Magic	 B.V. Larson	 Indie	 $0.99  3	 A Clash of Kings	 George R. R.Martin	 Traditional	 $5.00  4	 The Crown Conspiracy	 Michael J. Sullivan	 Indie	 $0.99  5	 Sky Magic	 B.V. Larson	 Indie	 $0.99  6	 Shadow Magic	 B.V. Larson	 Indie	 $2.99  7	 Dragon Magic	 B.V. Larson	 Indie	 $2.99  8	 Blood Magic	 B.V. Larson	 Indie	 $2.99  9	 Best Served Cold	 Joe Abercrombie	 Traditional	 $2.99  10	 Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1)	 Stephen King	 Traditional	 $7.99  11	 The Way of Kings	 Brandon Sanderson	 Traditional	 $12.99  12	 The Dragon Reborn (WOT #3)	 Robert Jordon	 Traditional	 $7.99  13	 The Gathering Storm	 Jordon/Sanderson	 Traditional	 $9.99  14	 The Emerald Storm	 Michael J. Sullivan	 Indie	 $4.95  15	 The Shadow Rising (WOT #4)	 Robert Jordon	 Traditional	 $8.99  16	 A Dance of Cloaks	 David Dalglish	 Indie	 $2.99  17	 City of Rogues	 Ty Johnston	 Indie	 $0.99  18	 Wintertide	 Michael J. Sullivan	 Indie	 $6.95  19	 Nyphron Rising  Michael J. Sullivan	 Indie	 $4.95  20	 Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3)	 Brandon Sanderson	 Traditional	 $7.99  21	 Avempartha	 Michael J. Sullivan	 Indie	 $4.95  22	 Mistborn (Misborn #1)	 Brandon Sanderson	 Traditional	 $7.99  23	 Well ofAscension (Mistborn #2)	 Brandon Sanderson	 Traditional	 $7.99  24	 Gardens of the Moon	 Steven Erickson	 Traditional	 $2.99  25	 Les Miserables	 Victor Hugo	 Classic	 $0.89


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

Arkali said:


> Pretty sure $1.99 is the lower royalty rate - or am I missing something?


I couldn't remember is the cut-off was $1.99 or $2.99. My ebooks are sourced through mobipocket, so I actually have a different contract with Amazon than the regular DTP.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

We seem to be down to repeating ourselves, so I want to throw out one other pricing issue (not a controversial one):

I have been sticking to the x.99 price point because Apple insists on it.  I haven't checked to see if Smashwords has made it a requirement otherwise, but since I don't seem to sell much at Apple (and iPad users can find me elsewhere), I'm wondering about those in between price points.  

Robin uses 4.95 rather than 4.99.  I assume that is to look like a regular retailer and less like a Kindle-Clone, though maybe it has an advantage in a 'sort by price' situation too.

Has anyone else played with 4.49 or 3.50 or 1.79?

Does anyone else have thoughts on those other price points, as maybe even just looking different than the rest? (IMHO, the Kobo used to do us a favor on Amazon by the discounting, but that's over, so I guess we can look at doing it ourselves.)

Camille


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Arkali said:


> Pretty sure $1.99 is the lower royalty rate - or am I missing something?


Yes. The 70% rate starts at $2.99.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I couldn't remember is the cut-off was $1.99 or $2.99. My ebooks are sourced through mobipocket, so I actually have a different contract with Amazon than the regular DTP.


Ah, cool. I'm pretty sure it's $2.99 minimum for 70%. There's been some speculation that $1.99 is no-man's land because of this.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

izanobu said:


> Actually, all of *****'s math is a little off... (sorry *****!)


As I said, I don't deal directly with DTP so I was working from memory. But you get the basic idea besides what I'm saying.


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## JamieDeBree (Oct 1, 2010)

I started Tempest at $1.99 (didn't want to start at the bottom, but it's a novella), and it sold a few copies per month. I ran a sale in Nov. for .99 cents (no other marketing), and sales tripled. Took it back down to $1.99, and sales sank. Back to .99 cents for a holiday sale, and left it there this month...finally sold 100 copies just in January (but I've been marketing more too). I left it at .99 cents because I was releasing Desert Heat this month (today)...and I plan to raise Tempest back to $1.99 next month. Tempest is a 30k novella, Desert Heat is a 50k novel (and starting at $2.99). 

After reading all this and other things on the 'net recently, I'm wondering if I'm not too low, but dang, it's hard to take that leap to raise prices! I wouldn't right now anyways with the new release, but do I have the guts to push my novel prices into "Harlequin" range (these are romantic adventure/suspense novels)? 

It's difficult coming to terms with this concept, even though intellectually I think anything under $5 is reasonable for my genre. I'm definitely starting to sway towards slightly higher pricing, though I may wait until my third book is out this summer/fall. 

Thanks for such a comprehensive discussion - very enlightening all around.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

JamieDeBree said:


> After reading all this and other things on the 'net recently, I'm wondering if I'm not too low, but dang, it's hard to take that leap to raise prices! I wouldn't right now anyways with the new release, but do I have the guts to push my novel prices into "Harlequin" range (these are romantic adventure/suspense novels)?


Not saying anything about your pricing strategy - just a small reality check on your statement about "Harlequin" range - here's a random Harlequin Intrigue (literally typed Harlequin Intrigue into Amazon's search engine and clicked on the one result with a Kindle version) along with several others in the "Customers who bought this also bought..." - EVERY single one is less than $2 - most are in the buck twenty-five range.

So - then clicked on the author and selected Kindle-only offerings (all are Intrigues) and prices are all over the place from $1 - $5. What does this tell me? Harlequin's experimenting, trying to find a "sweet spot", too.

http://www.amazon.com/Elle-James/e/B001H6L1U4/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> I did some quick analysis of Michael's Genre (Epic Fantasy) - here are the current Kindle 25 bestsellers:
> 
> What can we see?
> 
> ...


You're missing some variables which are allowing you to jump to unfounded conclusions: With these traditional authors, exactly *how* many of their backlists are being offered?

*How* many previous books do they have, and are they at the same price-point?

*How* many previous and faithful followers have they had?

*How* much traditional marketing/exposure have/do they had/have to get them these followers?

I just don't think, as I've already said, it can be boiled down to something so simplistic with so many mathematical variables that absolutely determine the final outcome.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

How long does it take for a price change to take effect?


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> How long does it take for a price change to take effect?


My experience has been a maximum of 48-hours, but generally 24.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

opuscroakus said:


> You're missing some variables which are allowing you to jump to unfounded conclusions: With these traditional authors, exactly *how* many of their backlists are being offered?
> 
> *How* many previous books do they have, and are they at the same price-point?
> 
> *How* many previous and faithful followers have they had?


The traditional players on this list really don't have "backlist" as all their works are still in print. Robert Jordon is dead but even so his books are still available on bookshelves in stores across the country. Sanderson has only 5 - 6 novels all of which are still "top selling"- no back list there.

Not sure what that matters or why you were asking.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Reading one or two of the genre stats quoted, I really do hope the mainstream aren't reducing prices to meet the indies. That really would be tragic if the number of low priced books in the top 100 of a genre were forcing prices down. We need to be guided by mainstream prices, not influence them.

Incidentally I have just raised the price of Swing to $3.99. I raised it previously last summer when the royalty rate went up but although sales dropped, I see retrospectively that was likely to be a seasonal change. Also, I've built more of a reputation since then. I'll report back, and yes, I do realise that sales are likely to drop anyway for seasonal reasons so I'll keep an eye on rank rather than numbers.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> The traditional players on this list really don't have "backlist" as all their works are still in print. Robert Jordon is dead but even so his books are still available on bookshelves in stores across the country. Sanderson has only 5 - 6 novels all of which are still "top selling"- no back list there.
> 
> Not sure what that matters or why you were asking.


You are contending that it's nothing more than the sweet-spot pricing that's gotten these authors into the top-25 with your statement: "•Both $4.95-$6.95 as well as $0.99 - $2.99 price points are "working"". That's not necessarily true.

And by backlist I mean books previously-published, which is the connotation I've seen given to the term for DTP. I don't mean out-of-print.

And you still only addressed one of my points: The backlist, when I raised others.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but when someone posts absolutes such as these and then draws conclusions that don't appear to take in all variables, and I'm here trying to figure this thing out (and have been since I began in August, STILL only seeing an average of 1 sale per day across all my books) so I can attack my marketing accordingly, it's important to me that ALL variables be addressed in an empirical manner so I can at least make an informed decision. It already bothers me that in addition to being an artist, now I'm expected to be a market analyst, too, when that's not a language I automatically speak. I was a child prodigy in both fine art and music, NOT marketing. Just seeking a little clarity and better understanding.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> I agree, we can all sell well - that's actually my point. You don't need to have good rankings to make a good living.


Exactly! Without doing the math, I speculate that a book priced at $5 that's NOT in the top 100 but still selling very well could out-earn a 99c top-100 book. Rankings are nice because rankings mean book sales, but being in the top 100 isn't what makes money.


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## JamieDeBree (Oct 1, 2010)

Arkali said:


> Not saying anything about your pricing strategy - just a small reality check on your statement about "Harlequin" range - here's a random Harlequin Intrigue (literally typed Harlequin Intrigue into Amazon's search engine and clicked on the one result with a Kindle version) along with several others in the "Customers who bought this also bought..." - EVERY single one is less than $2 - most are in the buck twenty-five range.
> 
> So - then clicked on the author and selected Kindle-only offerings (all are Intrigues) and prices are all over the place from $1 - $5. What does this tell me? Harlequin's experimenting, trying to find a "sweet spot", too.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Elle-James/e/B001H6L1U4/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


Thanks for that - and it's a good point, except while mine are adventure/suspense, they're more like Blaze novels than Intrigues (which are more "cozy mystery"...mine are spicier, like an action/adventure Blaze). I buy a lot of Blaze, and it seems like most of those are around $3.49 or so (or that's what the last few I bought were at). I do think trad publishers are playing though...I should go research what mainstream "hot" rom suspense are selling at...


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Reading one or two of the genre stats quoted, I really do hope the mainstream aren't reducing prices to meet the indies. That really would be tragic if the number of low priced books in the top 100 of a genre were forcing prices down. We need to be guided by mainstream prices, not influence them.


Boy, do I disagree with this.

In their scramble to cover their bums AND retain their market corner on greed, mainstream publishers have WAY overstepped the bounds of logic with their pricing. With the market still in flux, it just hasn't hit them yet that they would do much better with sales if they would come from the stratosphere and begin pricing their books a little more reasonably (which, if I'm to be honest, is what spurred me to price The Gaslight Journal, my first full-length novel, at $2.99 when it debuted on Thanksgiving Day). We're in a recession, or hasn't anyone bothered to explain this to them? They're still pricing books as if they need to cover warehousing costs, gas for semis, and office supplies that constantly end up missing from secretary's desks, when they don't.

I just don't think publishers are "getting it" yet, and we'd be sorely amiss if we took our cue from that mess.


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## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

kcmay said:


> Exactly! Without doing the math, I speculate that a book priced at $5 that's NOT in the top 100 but still selling very well could out-earn a 99c top-100 book. Rankings are nice because rankings mean book sales, but being in the top 100 isn't what makes money.


I agree! Even a book priced at $2.99 with good sales makes a nice living.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

JamieDeBree said:


> Thanks for that - and it's a good point, except while mine are adventure/suspense, they're more like Blaze novels than Intrigues (which are more "cozy mystery"...mine are spicier, like an action/adventure Blaze). I buy a lot of Blaze, and it seems like most of those are around $3.49 or so (or that's what the last few I bought were at). I do think trad publishers are playing though...I should go research what mainstream "hot" rom suspense are selling at...


Blaze is probably the same - note, I said probably  - but I haven't gone to look. I started to think they'd lowered the price of older books, but no - their pricing is all over the place. That says experimentation, to me. Also one to watch - Carina Press (Harlequin eBook imprint). As for mainstream - if you mean like Sherrilyn Kenyon, Marjorie Liu, etc. - they're priced the same as pretty much every other trad. published fiction book; generally $6-10, with the newer ones that are in hardback only being $12.99.


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## JamieDeBree (Oct 1, 2010)

Arkali said:


> As for mainstream - if you mean like Sherrilyn Kenyon, Marjorie Liu, etc. - they're priced the same as pretty much every other trad. published fiction book; generally $6-10, with the newer ones that are in hardback only being $12.99.


Yeah, and as soon as I posted that, I realized there's a fatal flaw in my logic there anyways - my full novels are "short" novels at 50k, mainstream would be 60-80k, so it's not comparable anyways.

*sigh* I'll just stick with mine where they are at the moment, and see what happens. $2.99 seems perfectly reasonable to me for a 50k romance novel, and $1.99 for a novella...but we'll see if readers feel the same or not. Time will tell, I suppose.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> Boy, do I disagree with this.
> 
> In their scramble to cover their bums AND retain their market corner on greed, mainstream publishers have WAY overstepped the bounds of logic with their pricing. With the market still in flux, it just hasn't hit them yet that they would do much better with sales if they would come from the stratosphere and begin pricing their books a little more reasonably (which, if I'm to be honest, is what spurred me to price The Gaslight Journal, my first full-length novel, at $2.99 when it debuted on Thanksgiving Day). We're in a recession, or hasn't anyone bothered to explain this to them? They're still pricing books as if they need to cover warehousing costs, gas for semis, and office supplies that constantly end up missing from secretary's desks, when they don't.
> 
> I just don't think publishers are "getting it" yet, and we'd be sorely amiss if we took our cue from that mess.


No, I'm referring to the ones who are pricing very cheaply. Certainly many are overpriced and we can easily undercut them and still set a good price. But if we were influencing the going rate with very cheap books that would not be good. I do notice that some small presses are reducing their prices - which is realistic if they're not very established and publishing debut unknown authors.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

It's a good thing for us that the traditional publishers are lowering prices here and there.  It keeps our lower price points from becoming an indie ghetto.

Also, I don't think the publishers are necessarily looking for a sweet spot, as we are.  They are used to a multi-price world.  They may very well be doing what I think may become the norm: higher "usual" prices, with occasional drops to attract new readers (and yes, perhaps rank and attention.)  That is one of the things about the lower price points -- the customers who are price sensitive are also alert and tend to leap in when offered a "deal."  So you don't have to offer them a deal all the time. You can do it once a year, or once every couple of years.  

Camille


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## flanneryohello (May 11, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> You are contending that it's nothing more than the sweet-spot pricing that's gotten these authors into the top-25 with your statement: "•Both $4.95-$6.95 as well as $0.99 - $2.99 price points are "working"". That's not necessarily true.
> 
> And by backlist I mean books previously-published, which is the connotation I've seen given to the term for DTP. I don't mean out-of-print.
> 
> ...


I took Robin's point to be that readers don't automatically prefer "cheap" reads, as evidenced by the wide spectrum of prices one can see in the top 25. Which means, of course, that _price is not the only factor involved in whether or not a book achieves high sales/ranking_. Also, that a higher price does not necessarily lead to lower sales.

So I think you're both saying a similar thing, essentially--readers clearly do not consider books over $2.99 to be too expensive to buy, and there are multiple factors at work in any book's success or failure. Authors who assume they must price their book at $0.99 to succeed are not considering those other factors and are in fact demonstrating a real lack of confidence regarding their ability to sell their work based on its other merits.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> It's a good thing for us that the traditional publishers are lowering prices here and there. It keeps our lower price points from becoming an indie ghetto.
> 
> Also, I don't think the publishers are necessarily looking for a sweet spot, as we are. They are used to a multi-price world. They may very well be doing what I think may become the norm: higher "usual" prices, with occasional drops to attract new readers (and yes, perhaps rank and attention.) That is one of the things about the lower price points -- the customers who are price sensitive are also alert and tend to leap in when offered a "deal." So you don't have to offer them a deal all the time. You can do it once a year, or once every couple of years.
> 
> Camille


This is true but the UK market is weird. There are current best sellers in paperback for £4 or less - that's the equivalent of a $4 - $5 ebook once you've added on the tax. I wonder whether it's an attempt by UK publishers to maintain DTBs - especially as they haven't exactly embraced e books.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

flanneryohello said:


> I took Robin's point to be that readers don't automatically prefer "cheap" reads, as evidenced by the wide spectrum of prices one can see in the top 25. Which means, of course, that _price is not the only factor involved in whether or not a book achieves high sales/ranking_. Also, that a higher price does not necessarily lead to lower sales.
> 
> So I think you're both saying a similar thing, essentially--readers clearly do not consider books over $2.99 to be too expensive to buy, and there are multiple factors at work in any book's success or failure. Authors who assume they must price their book at $0.99 to succeed are not considering those other factors and are in fact demonstrating a real lack of confidence regarding their ability to sell their work based on its other merits.


I certainly think many authors automatically assume price is the most important factor (after writing a good book, obviously) in their continued success. I wonder whether to some extent it's an overreaction to the fact that the higher cost of indie print books over mass market has worked against us.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> This is true but the UK market is weird. There are current best sellers in paperback for £4 or less - that's the equivalent of a $4 - $5 ebook once you've added on the tax. I wonder whether it's an attempt by UK publishers to maintain DTBs - especially as they haven't exactly embraced e books.


Agreed, everything is different -- taxes, culture, even economic base. I think you're also suffering from the fact that the whole Amazon DTP developed for a few years over here before debuting over there. You guys are just getting started, and the system is all developed... but not quite right for your conditions.

I expect that a number of things will get sorted out. But perhaps one thing would be to stick to traditional publishing (where possible) over there until indie writers are on firmer ground.

Camille


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

I've done a little price experimentation with my own works and have noticed no change in sales related to price; I'm thinking that it is the same with everything - if someone wants it they will pay whatever is asked, within reason; if they don't want it you can't give it away. Having said that, I am giving one book away and no prize for guessing which book is moving fastest.   Seriously, it's early days and I think things will settle out soon enough.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> This is true but the UK market is weird. There are current best sellers in paperback for £4 or less - that's the equivalent of a $4 - $5 ebook once you've added on the tax. I wonder whether it's an attempt by UK publishers to maintain DTBs - especially as they haven't exactly embraced e books.


That could very well be, but hopefully that will change soon. The big ticket item for Christmas in the UK was a Kindle, so it looks as if you guys are in for an exciting ride soon. Give it a good six-months and then see what happens.

One thing I'm glad someone mentioned previously was the UK bias where DTP publishing is concerned. I know I've found myself fighting this stigma on the HC forums to which I post, and it's nearly maddening the way *some* English will stare down their noses at the authors who CHOOSE to go the way of the DTP. (Sounds like a tribe or a Monty Python sketch. ) It's almost as if they don't understand the idea that one can choose to self-publish and still be successful. I think I finally was able to ***** some of that bias a few weeks ago when I posted evidence that a LOT of previously-traditionally-published authors are now walking away from print deals in favour of complete autonomy in their careers to the tune of multi-thousands of units being sold.

I'm SO hoping this changes soon. I, for one, do not like being on the opposite side of the fence with colleagues who should be supporting each other, no matter what.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> I certainly think many authors automatically assume price is the most important factor (after writing a good book, obviously) in their continued success. I wonder whether to some extent it's an overreaction to the fact that the higher cost of indie print books over mass market has worked against us.


I think the greater problem is simply not understanding the actual book industry, and having no actual hard data on customer behavior beyond their own book. I posted several pages back about the data Steve Weick shared from OBS, which has ten years of digital sales data for hundreds of publishers. I also noted my experience working with major companies that sell both "discount" items and brand items. I'm not stating information just based off six months of a single book's sales. I have the unique benefit of having access to all sorts of information about consumer behavior because of the industry I am in. And I apply a lot of it to my publishing.

So much of it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy. A person is told that 99 cents is a "good price for an unknown indie author" (despite the fact that customers have no clue who is or is not indie if you have a professional looking product). They internalize that advice because the person giving it them says they sold X number of books at 99 cents. So the person prices their book at 99 cents and, lo and behold, they get some sales. They assume the sales come from the price, and become fearful of changing the price.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Agreed, everything is different -- taxes, culture, even economic base. I think you're also suffering from the fact that the whole Amazon DTP developed for a few years over here before debuting over there. You guys are just getting started, and the system is all developed... but not quite right for your conditions.
> 
> I expect that a number of things will get sorted out. But perhaps one thing would be to stick to traditional publishing (where possible) over there until indie writers are on firmer ground.
> 
> Camille


You know, I'm thinking more and more that it's a double edged sword - that UK publishers are taking on less new authors because of the uncertainty of e publishing. Trad publishing for anything other than the hottest genres is not an option over here right now. Yes, there are some small press but they're usually bunches of friends who'd do better on their own if they had the confidence.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> I expect that a number of things will get sorted out. But perhaps one thing would be to stick to traditional publishing (where possible) over there until indie writers are on firmer ground.
> 
> Camille


To be honest, I don't necessarily see this as a bad piece of advice for anyone. There are plenty of niche markets where DTP *might* not be quite as successful. That's certainly been proven for children's and YA books. Kids don't, on average, carry Kindles yet, so to publish your YA tome to DTP would be counter-intuitive.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

To generally answer a few posts. I'm in touch with a large number of fellow UK authors. Only a very few are CHOOSING self-publishing. The vast majority are hanging on to the possibility of a trad deal and see self-publishing as a last resort and an admission that they've failed. Every so often one of them will post on facebook how excited they are because an agent has said they love their book. Yet, though a few have agents, they don't seem to be getting publishing contracts any time soon. I only know of one who has signed a deal with a serious advance and that's in the fantasy genre and was signed and sealed within a few weeks of her approaching the first agent. UK agents are working to a wish list from publishers. They know from just a few sentences about your book whether they will be interested. Other agents take on authors but don't place them. The trouble is, the one in thousands who get a 6 figure deal are shouting so loudly, 'look at me! I got this so you can too.' that others hang on, going round and round in circles. It's all so blinkered, no-one has a clue what's going on here.

Anyway...I'm going off topic!


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> To generally answer a few posts. I'm in touch with a large number of fellow UK authors. Only a very few are CHOOSING self-publishing. The vast majority are hanging on to the possibility of a trad deal and see self-publishing as a last resort and an admission that they've failed.


That's been my experience in a nutshell, as well. Failure. Stigma.



> Every so often one of them will post on facebook how excited they are because an agent has said they love their book. Yet, though a few have agents, they don't seem to be getting publishing contracts any time soon. I only know of one who has signed a deal with a serious advance and that's in the fantasy genre and was signed and sealed within a few weeks of her approaching the first agent. UK agents are working to a wish list from publishers. They know from just a few sentences about your book whether they will be interested. Other agents take on authors but don't place them. The trouble is, the one in thousands who get a 6 figure deal are shouting so loudly, 'look at me! I got this so you can too.' that others hang on, going round and round in circles. It's all so blinkered, no-one has a clue what's going on here.


Interesting to know about the agents and the way things work there. It's helping me to better understand why so many English are holding onto the idea of traditional publishing with a death grip. Seems only logical to me, however, that with the gates so closed to traditional publishing, and inching ever moreso by the day, that with the explosion of the Kindle market there, authors would be able to see the writing on the wall and then scram to the nearest DTP...sorry, KDP (! SRSLY?) dashboard. For me, NOT getting a traditional publishing deal because the cards are stacked severely against you spells more failure than having to resort to KDP.


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## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> To be honest, I don't necessarily see this as a bad piece of advice for anyone. There are plenty of niche markets where DTP *might* not be quite as successful. That's certainly been proven for children's and YA books. Kids don't, on average, carry Kindles yet, so to publish your YA tome to DTP would be counter-intuitive.


Amanda Hocking's books are YA. She's #2 in children's fiction.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

To be honest the myths about publishing in UK are perpetuated as much by authors who do get contracts as agents and publishers.

I was advised very strongly by a trad author to hang out for a proper deal. She told me that the ONLY marketing possibility for me with a trad publisher was for them to publish my debut novel - and if I took that possibility away by self-publishing then I was ruining my chance of having a career in writing EVER.

Seems the publishers are scaring authors by demanding virgins .


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

davidhburton said:


> Amanda Hocking's books are YA. She's #2 in children's fiction.


Um, aren't her books also in paperback?? They are according to her Amazon author page. I can guarantee you that *most* of her audience in the YA age-range are not reading them on Kindles.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

davidhburton said:


> Amanda Hocking's books are YA. She's #2 in children's fiction.


Yes. Because there's a big difference between 'Tommy and Sally climb a tree...' and YA aimed at teenagers but read by adults who sometimes like something entertaining but not too intellectually demanding .


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## Stephanie Golden (Dec 24, 2010)

This thread is really interesting. Especially thank you, Julie, for your long post way at the beginning. 

I'm in a somewhat different position from others, I think. My one ebook was publishing originally by a traditional publisher and went out of print. I got the rights and am bringing it back into print as an ebook. Also, it's a substantial nonfiction title based on a great deal of research and reporting. I priced it at $8.99, which is substantially less than the original paperback cost and only slightly more than someone would pay to get a used copy through Amazon marketplace. (People are still buying it there, and I figure the immediate gratification of downloading it would make up for the extra dollar or two above the used-copy price.) And it already has great reviews from the print edition up on its Amazon page. 

It cost me a lot to make the ebook, since I had to have the paper copy scanned and pay for erights for the cover design, plus put many hours into formatting. So I'm not willing to set a really low price, at least for now. I think it's worth $8.99, and I think people who are interested in the issue it examines will want it. It's only just been posted recently, so time will tell.

I wanted to make one other point, about pricing by traditional publishers. Not long ago an editor pointed out to me that the bulk of their costs for producing books are overhead, including salaries. So although they aren't incurring the costs of physical book production, warehousing, and shipping, they need ebook prices to cover the costs of the people who buy, edit and market them. I'm no big fan of the publishing industry. The hardcover of a  book I wrote as a collaborator with an expert was put on Kindle for $14.95 (hardcover was priced at $20). Now the paperback is out, and Amazon sells it for 11.95. The publisher didn't do a Kindle version of that. So the only Kindle version is more expensive than the paperback! Idiotic. Still, I can see that for publishers, ebook prices have to support their operations.

In all, I do tend to agree with those who favor higher prices. Writing is a skill, a craft, and an art and shouldn't be devalued.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Uh, wait... I'm confused.  So how much should an ebook cost?

*ducks*


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Yes. Because there's a big difference between 'Tommy and Sally climb a tree...' and YA aimed at teenagers but read by adults who sometimes like something entertaining but not too intellectually demanding .


Yup; dat be it.


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## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Yes. Because there's a big difference between 'Tommy and Sally climb a tree...' and YA aimed at teenagers but read by adults who sometimes like something entertaining but not too intellectually demanding .


So why hang on to your YA work and not put it on DTP. What have you got to lose? What's the worst that happens?


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Daniel Arenson said:


> Uh, wait... I'm confused. So how much should an ebook cost?
> 
> *ducks*


Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Good one. 

Vicki


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## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

Oh, and one more thing I should add, my children's book outsells my fantasy novel 3:1 (and my book is aimed at the 9-12 age range, not the older YA range). I wouldn't assume that kids aren't reading on electronic devices. Things are changing very quickly.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Stephanie, there are a lot of authors here in a similar position to you. Daniel who's just posted before me is one of them. Most of them price their books between $2.99 - $4 but there's no reason you shouldn't try higher.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

davidhburton said:


> So why hang on to your YA work and not put it on DTP. What have you got to lose? What's the worst that happens?


What an excellent point. Each time I've mentioned that YA authors should consider DTP, I'm met with the same barrage of excuses: YA don't carry Kindles; Technology isn't conducive to high-end graphics or animations that go along with my book, and any other number of mind-numbing reasons why it *won't* work. Hadn't considered that it was anyone other than the target-audience doing the reading. And me, an avid Harry Potter fan.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> Um, aren't her books also in paperback?? They are according to her Amazon author page. I can guarantee you that *most* of her audience in the YA age-range are not reading them on Kindles.


I don't know, we work with a lot of high school students, and they're reading kindle books on their smart phones and other handheld devices.

You are correct that YA is barely cracking the surface on Kindle yet, though, and a lot of the people reading YA are actually adults. Still, the genre is changing fast (like the rest of publishing) and the audience is starting to get there.

Camille


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## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> What an excellent point. Each time I've mentioned that YA authors should consider DTP, I'm met with the same barrage of excuses: YA don't carry Kindles; Technology isn't conducive to high-end graphics or animations that go along with my book, and any other number of mind-numbing reasons why it *won't* work. Hadn't considered that it was anyone other than the target-audience doing the reading. And me, an avid Harry Potter fan.


And don't forget iPods.... Lots of kids have them!


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

It's refreshing to see the pricing discussion revving up for the beginning of the month, when we're sure to have the next ten or eighteen installments. In the last 2 years, I think I've seen these points made well and firm in rollicking roll and in a length that rivals War and Peace. In fact, if we were enterprising, we would trawl (keeping the rollicking imagery going) across the 972 threads on this same subject, and publish it on the Kindle. The only problem would be . . . how would we price it? By length it would be $500.00.   

Edward C. Patterson


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

Well, I'll share my personal experience for what it's worth.  In October, I changed the price of my books from $0.99 to $2.99.  On average, I was selling 400-600 copies of my historicals with some variation going toward 700 - 800.  My contemporaries tended to go between 800 - 1100.  Every time I published a new book, the sales rose across the board, so I'd have a peak and then go back down.

Yesterday I sat down to compare sales.  From the looks of it, my royalties were in the same ballpack as what I was bringing in before.  I saw no major increase nor decrease in them.  My sales have always had a yo-yo effect (like I said, I have to publish a new book to increase them).

I'll use two titles as an example.  I'd typically sell about 400 books/month for one historical.  For the past three months, I've sold 40/month.  For one of my contemporaries, I'd sell up in the 900/month range.  For the past three months, I've been lucky to hit 100/month.  The same pretty much held true across the board percentage-wise.

This is all based on Kindle sales.

This is a significant drop, in my opinion.  Sure, the money I made was comparable, but the loss in copies sold was disheartening.  I write books to share with people who will enjoy them.   Today I dropped my prices back to $0.99.  I'd rather sell more books.  (I did not do anything less in terms of marketing that I'd been doing before the price change.)


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

> I write books to share with people who will enjoy them.


I love that. I'm going to hang that on my wall. ^ This is one of the major reasons why I'm sticking with 99 cents. Even if I made more $$ in the long run with a higher price, that's not my main goal. (And I still don't know that I would make more $$ in the long run. I've always made more with the 99 cent price. Go figure.)

Vicki


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Victorine said:


> I love that. I'm going to hang that on my wall. ^ This is one of the major reasons why I'm sticking with 99 cents. Even if I made more $$ in the long run with a higher price, that's not my main goal. (And I still don't know that I would make more $$ in the long run. I've always made more with the 99 cent price. Go figure.)
> 
> Vicki


Another measure of your success is 48 reviews, 41 of which are four and five stars.


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## Sharlow (Dec 20, 2009)

Half-Orc said:


> I just released book 5 today, and I raised the price from 2.99 for the others to 3.99. Honestly, I was a little worried that readers might be thinking I'm getting greedy or something, but this is a comment I received on Facebook mere minutes ago. I figure since it is from a regular reader, this perspective might be worthy to add.
> 
> 3.99 = incredible price. Not 99 cents. 3.99...higher than most consider viable.
> 
> ...


Hey David. How's the $1.99 doing for your second book? Has there been a noticeable difference in sales from $2.99 with it?


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

Victorine said:


> Even if I made more $$ in the long run with a higher price, that's not my main goal. (And I still don't know that I would make more $$ in the long run. I've always made more with the 99 cent price. Go figure.)


It's nice to know someone else understands where I'm coming from, and in the long run, this is how it's going to play out for me. I figure the more people buying my books, the more word of mouth will travel. So in the end, the $0.99 price will work for me instead of against me.


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Another measure of your success is 48 reviews, 41 of which are four and five stars.


I agree with this. I wish I could get that many great reviews. LOL But yes, the reviews do count.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Sharlow said:


> Hey David. How's the $1.99 doing for your second book? Has there been a noticeable difference in sales from $2.99 with it?


I actually tried to make it $2.99, but Amazon's discounting it because the Sony eStore is lagging behind prices (all the other stores got the new price). So far, sales don't seem to be affected in the slightest. Which is kind of nice, considering I'm now making 70% of 1.99 compared to 35% of 99 cents.

David Dalglish


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Ruth Ann Nordin said:


> It's nice to know someone else understands where I'm coming from, and in the long run, this is how it's going to play out for me. I figure the more people buying my books, the more word of mouth will travel. So in the end, the $0.99 price will work for me instead of against me.


Ruth, if your signature is any indication, you are someone who can particularly benefit from promotional things. You have other books for your "impulse" buyers to read right away. That is very important toward KEEPING all those new readers. People don't remember a single impulse buy very well if they have to wait a year or more to follow it up.

Camille


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Well, this is fortuitous!

I was going through some of my RoughDraft directories, trying to put some of my historical fiction shorts together into a collection (as a leader to my novel that I can discount for $0.99 as part of my price-pointing experiment), when I saw where I'd saved this article. I'm a contributing author on 1st Turning Point, and Rowena Cherry, also a contributor, wrote an article in two parts about whether to freebie or not, which I thought rather appropos to this discussion.

Part I is here: http://1stturningpoint.com/?p=5239
Part II is here: http://1stturningpoint.com/?p=5270


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## Gerald (Dec 11, 2010)

Daniel Arenson said:


> Uh, wait... I'm confused. So how much should an ebook cost?


$0.99. Definitely. Get the sales. Ebooks in the hands of readers.

No, wait. $2.99. This is certain. Put a decent 'value' on the thing. It's worth it.

No, wait. $0.99.

I think.

BTW, some interesting US / UK points in here. I think there is a definite difference in price perception over here. We're cheapskates.


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## Sharlow (Dec 20, 2009)

Half-Orc said:


> I actually tried to make it $2.99, but Amazon's discounting it because the Sony eStore is lagging behind prices (all the other stores got the new price). So far, sales don't seem to be affected in the slightest. Which is kind of nice, considering I'm now making 70% of 1.99 compared to 35% of 99 cents.
> 
> David Dalglish


Cool. I was just wondering as no one talks about the $1.99 price anymore. Sometimes I wonder if having a tiered price set for a series would make it easier to get into a new series. It just seems like a steep jump of 0.99 book 1 then jump to $2.99 at book 2. Feels almost like a price gouge...  Might just be me.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

I'm not sure if anyone has made this point yet, but there's a down side to enormous sales. (Archer now dons her vegetable-proof suit.)

After a four-month experiment with higher prices, I decided to return to the 'loss leader' strategy. The idea was to encourage readers to try the first book, thereby ensuring that the ones who loved it would buy the other two. This has worked very well for my stuff in the US--not stellar sales, but steady and respectable. Reviews have come in over time--96 reviews on Elfhunter in the US, overall rating is, like, 4.6 or something. Sales in the US have been better-than-average lately (it's the annual Christmas shot in the arm). Win-win, yes?

Well, for some reason, the UK sales went nuts. Prices are the same there--translated into pounds, of course. We've never had sales that good here at home...and I really don't know what to think! The royalties are quite respectable, even at the low price, because a fair number are buying all three books. 

And now, the down side. Those folks are 1-clicking. I just KNOW it! They're not sampling first. The beginning chapters of Elfhunter are not the strongest part of the trilogy and, if one is expecting something different, one might be unhappy. Here's the thing: If a reader samples Elfhunter, reads the reviews with a critical eye, and then purchases it, I am confident that the reader has made a good choice. If, however, readers one-click based on price, title, cover art, or  then I fear the inevitable percentage of disgruntled readers who thought they were getting something else. I don't just want readers...I want HAPPY readers! 

So far, reviews in the UK have been mixed, just as they are here. But the overall percentage of positives, I fear, will be lower. In the US, the books were only available in print until recently. You can bet those folks paid attention before they purchased their $20 paperback!

Time will tell...


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

[btw, there are readers in the UK forum asking for indie authors to be filtered out of rankings because they're so sick of seeing loads of 99c equivalent books in the top 100.
[/quote]

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde is selling for the equivalent of 99c.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Here are some of my thoughts condensed.


The $0.99 price point has been successful getting some quality books noticed and into the top 100
Too many people "low ball" the price of their books because "everyone else is doing it."
Once you have a following (say 5,000 books sold) you should be "off" the $0.99 price point - for god sakes go to $2.99 at least
Once a series has a strong following you can start with a loss leader ($0.99 to $2.99 but past that you should be at $4.95)
Most on this forum are too frightened or self-conscious to try "real pricing" which is $4.95 - $6.95
Not all books can make it at $4.95 - $6.95 but once you've shown a track record you probably can
Yes you still can sell more than 10,000 books a month at $4.95, $6.95 
You do not have to start low and work high - Ridan's books have always been $4.95 and we sell multiple copies over 1,000 each month


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

opuscroakus said:


> Well, this is fortuitous!
> 
> I was going through some of my RoughDraft directories, trying to put some of my historical fiction shorts together into a collection (as a leader to my novel that I can discount for $0.99 as part of my price-pointing experiment), when I saw where I'd saved this article. I'm a contributing author on 1st Turning Point, and Rowena Cherry, also a contributor, wrote an article in two parts about whether to freebie or not, which I thought rather appropos to this discussion.
> 
> ...


Freebies are constantly being given away to draw people in. "Attention shoppers. There will be a presentation in the back of the store for a quality set of knives. All those who attend will receive a free paring knife." A bunch of people show up. If one of them is me, I'll take the free paring knife and be on my way, but probably one out of 20 buy. When you're talking a $100 set of knives, that's a pretty good return.

If you give away a $3 book, you'll probably have a better average because it's easier to decide to buy another $3 book. All this is dependent upon the person getting the freebie actually reading it and then liking it enough to buy.

No matter what we do, how we price, how much we market, etc., it all comes down to the content of the book. It can be a quality book but doesn't sell a lot because it's in an unpopular genre. It can be pure crapola, but sells like hot cakes because it's in a popular genre.

I can see that in my own sales. I have three 99 cent novelettes one of which sells three times as much as the other two combined. I market them all the same, they are all in the romance genre, they are all the same length and of course, the same price. The bestseller is completely different from the other two even though it's still romance. That little story speaks to people and isn't that what it's all about?


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2011)

Archer (the Dinosaur) said:


> And now, the down side. Those folks are 1-clicking. I just KNOW it! They're not sampling first. The beginning chapters of Elfhunter are not the strongest part of the trilogy and, if one is expecting something different, one might be unhappy. Here's the thing: If a reader samples Elfhunter, reads the reviews with a critical eye, and then purchases it, I am confident that the reader has made a good choice. If, however, readers one-click based on price, title, cover art, or  then I fear the inevitable percentage of disgruntled readers who thought they were getting something else. I don't just want readers...I want HAPPY readers!


This is a huge, but subtle, point. There is an audience that buys everything at 99 cents, but they often end up buying things that they actually won't like because they do one-click. And we can all argue all day long that it is THERE FAULT for not being more careful but let's not kid ourselves. If you are pricing your book at 99 cents your whole goal IS to get them to make an impulse buy without thinking about it.

My books sell for between $3.99-$5.99. When someone drops $5 on the book, they are doing so because they actually made a decision to buy it and were motivated to buy it because_ I convinced them to do so_. Not because they went on a 99 cent buying frenzy and now wonder why they bought what they did. It is the Dollar Store mentality. We've all done it. I've walked into a Dollar Store and said "OOo, only a buck!" and bought something only to get it home and say "Why the hell did I buy this?"

The reason I know within 10% plus or minus approximately how many books I will sell per month is because I know my audience. And I know my audience because they aren't impulse buying. They are buying because of what I presented to them and they liked it.


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## Stephanie Golden (Dec 24, 2010)

Daniel Arenson said:


> Uh, wait... I'm confused. So how much should an ebook cost?


Depends on the book, doesn't it? and who wants it and how much they want it. I'm an Amazon associate, and I've found that people clicking through from my website have bought ebooks by established authors as high as 11.95. In those cases the publisher controlled the rights and set the price, I assume, and the people wanted the book, so they bought it.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Stephanie Golden said:


> Depends on the book, doesn't it? and who wants it and how much they want it. I'm an Amazon associate, and I've found that people clicking through from my website have bought ebooks by established authors as high as 11.95. In those cases the publisher controlled the rights and set the price, I assume, and the people wanted the book, so they bought it.


I don't know if you saw my early reply, Stephanie. But firstly there are a lot of authors here who like yourself have acquired e rights to their previously trad published books. Usually they are novels. They generally sell for around $2.99 - $4. However, a non-fiction book is a very different thing. I have a trad published one in print myself (tho it's probably disappeared out of sight because an updated version is being printed) and the whole searching mechanism by which readers find it in an online store is very different from a novel - as are their reasons for buying it.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

As a 'rookie' author who has just published my first novel I feel it's a big ask to expect people to take a punt on it - especially as it's very Brit and may not appeal to readers from the US at all (possibly a bit more to the antipodeans and africans). At the same time, it took me 8 years to write it so I feel it's worth more than 99c. 

My solution is to vary the price. So, I have periods where it's on sale so people can buy and try. I've just come to the end of a 99c promotion and am putting it back up to £2.00 later on today. I'm not sure if it'll make much difference but I've certainly started selling more since I've been plugging it on novel threads and fora.

Personally, my ideal price would be about £2.50 or $2.99. If I had time, I'd probably examine my markets and price accordingly.

For my own part, I am sure that the target market will like the book and recommend it to their mates once they read it. I am equally sure that's the only sure-fire way it will sell. The problem is getting enough of a critical mass of readers who like it to recommend it enough (sounds so easy doesn't it). That's why I think a low price to start is a good idea. Then as sales build I will keep it at the higher price for longer.

So, I guess the long winded answer is that to me, you just have to do what feels right to you.

I don't think that prices will stay rock bottom for ever, especially if Amazon ends up owning everything, which is highly likely, and is able to dictate what we charge for our books and what royalties we get. Also, if a lot of the very cheap self published books are low quality the prices of 'better' books probably will rise a little but equally, maybe people will be more prepared too pay. I'd rather buy two well written and produced books for $2.99 a pop than five poor 99c ones.  I'm sure I'm not alone. 

Cheers

MTM


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Most on this forum are too frightened or self-conscious to try "real pricing" which is $4.95 - $6.95


This one really hits home to me. That's what I see, and that's what I feel... sort of.

The "But I need an audience! I have to COMPETE!" mantra it what makes me bang my head against the wall -- but even if that's the overall "flavor" of what we hear, every single individual has more complicated motives.

So, just for grins, I'm going to defend the 3.99 price point as "real."

Yes, I was a little scared to go to it -- and when you're scared, imho, that's a signal you probably should. So I sat down and thought about whether I should go even higher. And I decided not. I looked over my own buying habits (which, decidedly, is a narrow sample) and I looked over what I knew of the demographics of people like me -- people I'm writing for.

And I realized I have a strong price resistance over four bucks. I, and my audience I think, are big time library users who mostly buy used books. We'll spend a LOT of money on a fine hardback edition. We might even buy multiple editions of something we love. I was once a big time new book buyer, but prices just got beyond me, so I stopped. And I have long suspected that there is a whole demographic like me.

And recently I got a look at a study of the demographics of my genre, and I was bowled over by how...well, how right I was. I mean yes, I probably did read conclusions into it, because the study did not look at used book buying habits. And, imho, it wasn't just price that caused this audience to move away from new books -- what was being bought and the way it was handled by bookstores was a big part of it too.

Hardbacks in good shape go for $5 a lot these days -- but paperbacks are $1 to $4 most of the time.

Should I have more pride in my work? Well, that's why I went to 3.99 for my full length novels. (I will be putting out trade paper eventually and yes, that will be priced higher of course.) To me, pride is not about high value, but about seeing and loving what you are. If others don't love you, so what? Because that pride includes being proud to be low-brow, or high-brow, or middle-of-the-road, or extreme, or whatever dang thing you are.

But to get back to the point I responded to.... defiance isn't pride or courage. If someone makes you feel scared or self-conscious, doing the exact opposite is no better than knuckling under. They control you either way. The key is to break their hold BEFORE you make any decisions. Then make it based on your actual goals -- don't let any razzle dazzle get in your eyes with all the excitement that's going on right now. Look at the long term. Time is on your side (yes it is). You don't have to rush. Save something for later. Build a great foundation of body of work FIRST, and then worry about your audience base. If you get lucky and strike it rich NOW, be happy. If you don't, and someone else does, don't feel pressured -- congratulate them.

After all, things are changing rapidly. None of us knows what the future really holds.

Camille


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

I was just checking my sales and rankings on Novel Rank and used their 'search twitter' and discovered that _Something to Read on the Plane_ had been tweeted by UK Kindle. 
uk_kindle: #9: Something to Read on the Plane: Something to Read on the Plane Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Author) 86% Sales Rank in... http://amzn.to/gg22Q1 (Jan 22 - 5:27am)

It was in Amazon's Movers & Shakers list. This is another advantage of getting into the rankings.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Hmm, I honestly wasn't expecting all these different responses.

OK, I'll share something with you. Over 2 years ago, when I'd just finished the first draft of Swing, I heard about the Harper Collins website, authonomy. It was very new at the time and seemed to be a genuine opportunity to be mainstream published. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, you critique and vote on other peoples' books and at the end of each month HC review the 1st 3 chapters of the top 5 books with a view to publication. When it started several big publishers had new author schemes so there was every reason to suppose they might publish one a month. As far as I know they haven't published a top 5 book yet. Anyway, these days you will probably have to work hard on the site for a year and critique over 1000 books, however good your own book is, to stand a chance of getting in the top 5. Authors constantly think of new tricks and gimmicks to get ahead of each other. Some people have been there constantly for over 2 years. They've become obsessed with whether or not someone has voted for their book. In other words, they've lost sight of what writing a book and maybe getting it published is really about.

And I think to some extent there's a danger of the same thing happening on kindle. I see people obsessing over how many reviews they have, how many tags they have, whether they're in the top 100, whether they've sold 1000 books this month etc etc.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure I've got overly excited at some of these milestones myself. And some of them do have some importance - though not the importance attributed by many people.

Let's put it another way. There are milestones that tell you you're on the right track. But at the end of the day they're just statistics - some of them pretty meaningless. But what I see happening is many authors focusing more and more on these details, giving them some false importance, and more importantly losing sight of the bigger picture.

I see 2 reasons to publish your writing.

1. To share your dream, for your work to be read and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

2. To earn a significant part of your income from your writing.

The first reason is all well and good providing you have enough income from other sources and enough time and energy to write.

The second becomes more important if you are the main or only wage earner in your household.

Anyway, that's putting it very simplistically but I think eventually, those are what it comes down to. And unless you are lucky to be supported by a high earning partner or have boundless energy to write after a full time day job, the choice tends toward the second.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Hello there Ali

This morning I got an e-mail from somebody which said this.

"Can't wait for September. Can't you burn the midnight oil? Fancy leaving your fans on a cliff - hanging for 9 months! "

That's why I write! If it earns me anything, I'll be happy... although I'll have to try and earn a lot because I really and I mean REALLY want to see my characters as action figures... so I can play with them... because I'm a geek and I never grew up either.

Cheers

MTM


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"And now, the down side. Those folks are 1-clicking. I just KNOW it! They're not sampling first."_

Take heart. I have purchased hundreds of books on Amazon and never once scrolled down to reviews or looked at a sample. I read the blurb, knew there was stuff below it, but never went there. There are lots of different consumer behaviors.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> _"And now, the down side. Those folks are 1-clicking. I just KNOW it! They're not sampling first."_
> 
> Take heart. I have purchased hundreds of books on Amazon and never once scrolled down to reviews or looked at a sample. I read the blurb, knew there was stuff below it, but never went there. There are lots of different consumer behaviors.


Yup. Exactly how I found Jeffrey Archer. Liked the blurb for "And Thereby Hangs a Tale," downloaded the short-story for $0.99, was *absolutely* blown away by the guy's storytelling and writing ability, and when I got a coupon for Audible.com, made sure to download book one of his prison diary. Now that I have a few bucks, in a second I'm going to purchase the entire book for "Hangs a Tale" and then eventually get book II of the prison diary. He was unknown to me, and since my money is always at a premium, I never would've tried him (especially with short-stories) for more than $0.99. Seemed a fair amount to pay for something I doubted would be garbage, but knew there was a slight chance it could be.

Some have suggested that if I use this strategy with my own marketing, it makes me a coward. NOT TRUE. It makes me smart enough to know not everyone's buying habits are the same, and since I'm not bound by a mainstream publisher's paradigm, the beauty is, I can change it anytime I wish. I don't see why there are some getting their knickers in a twist over ANOTHER author's decision to low-ball books on an experiment. It's no skin off their noses.

And, let's be honest: When all is said and done, do you *really* think indies have that sort of power presently to influence even what mainstream publishers will price? No. The market is still in flux and no one really knows how it's all going to shake out. So I don't see the need for energy being expended in order to run around screaming, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" if someone deigns price a book at $0.99. With respect. 

I think we've all agreed that perhaps it's not *the* best course for the long-run, but I don't see what it can hurt for now.

This certainly has given me much to think about, however, and for that, I'm grateful. I feel a little less stoopit than when I began reading. But only a little.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

I'm interested that the 'life' of a book has been mentioned. I've seen that a couple of times elsewhere, too. 

Surely, the delight of an e-book is that its life is pretty much eternal. Isn't that why so many people are acquiring rights of previous works and putting them on line.  

If you're writing at a certain type of person, then surely, it follows there will be some of them about whenever. On-line you have a bigger market a wider market and presumably, even a niche, gets a lot bigger, when you're looking for it across the entire world, then just at home.

So, I write comic fantasy. I've been reading it since the late 1980s, it's never been mainstream trendy but it's never gone out of fashion either. There are alway geeks who like something Adamsian. Isn't that true for all of us? Even when the vampire tsunami passes, there will still be a group of people who want to read and have always enjoyed vampire books yes?

Thinking about it, doesn't that mean you should just set the price at whatever you think you would pay and leave it at that? 

I'm another 2nd hand book buyer. I think I've splashed out when I've paid over £1 but then again, ten years ago, I used to visit a lot of airports and nearly always ended up with ten minutes or so to browse the book shops there. I usually came away with a book. Often at full price (although I never went for hardbacks until they started discounting them).

I choose my reading by flipping through the pages and reading the blurb. I don't get to browse in shops these days (something else to rediscover when junior goes to school more often) but looking at my previous habits, I suspect I am someone who will buy the book if it looks interesting whatever the price. If I have an outer limit for a paperback, I reckon it used to be about £12. For an e-book, I think I'd baulk at over £5. I would understand and appreciate a price of £6 but for that money, I'd go buy a dead tree copy (I still find them easier on the eye than my screen).

In the light of this, I'll probably continue with my tart's knickers (up down up down) approach to pricing. 

There you go, just a few more thoughts.

Cheers

MTM


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Hmmm...so an interesting things happened on my way to "quit my test price". I changed The Crown Conspiracy from $0.99 to $4.95. It "processed through (became LIVE in KDP). But the price on the page now says:[br][br]Digital List Price: $4.95[br]Kindle Price:*$0.99*[br][br]So I think Amazon is discounting my book but paying me at the $4.95 price point because they have lowered it?


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## Gerald (Dec 11, 2010)

Over on Amazon UK, the price is up again to £3.55, Robin.


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## Abigail (Apr 27, 2010)

I was beginning to feel rather guilty at having a book priced at 99 cents until I went to Asda last night (Walmart but UK version) and saw shelves upon shelves of books priced at £1 with a lot of customers looking, I am talking hundreds of books. Not many people were looking in the aisle of higher priced books but several were in the Non fiction higher priced section. It would be interesting to see the stats of prices of books sold in supermarkets, where a lot of books get sold these days. But I just wanted to mention that this £1 section took over the book section and contained a lot of well known writers.


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## Gerald (Dec 11, 2010)

That's interesting. Were they 'current' books? Did they look like they were old books regurgitated?

I always used to say that I would consider myself a "proper" writer when my books were on sale in the local supermarket. This mean being priced at 3 for £10 or whatever. I've changed my mind recently, though. But £1 is very, very cheap for print books.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

Gerald said:


> That's interesting. Were they 'current' books? Did they look like they were old books regurgitated?
> 
> I always used to say that I would consider myself a "proper" writer when my books were on sale in the local supermarket. This mean being priced at 3 for £10 or whatever. I've changed my mind recently, though. But £1 is very, very cheap for print books.


But a pound is better than a land-fill, where thousands upon thousands of unsold print copies end up every year. (Yet another plus for e-books).


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Hmmm...so an interesting things happened on my way to "quit my test price". I changed The Crown Conspiracy from $0.99 to $4.95. It "processed through (became LIVE in KDP). But the price on the page now says:[br][br]Digital List Price: $4.95[br]Kindle Price:*$0.99*[br][br]So I think Amazon is discounting my book but paying me at the $4.95 price point because they have lowered it?


If the 99c price was still in effect at BN or Kobo or anywhere else, Amazon would match it. It took me about a week to get them to re-run their checking process when I went back to $2.99 because I made the mistake of not waiting until the price was updated at BN before changing it on KDP.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

Abigail said:


> I was beginning to feel rather guilty at having a book priced at 99 cents until I went to Asda last night (Walmart but UK version) and saw shelves upon shelves of books priced at £1 with a lot of customers looking, I am talking hundreds of books. Not many people were looking in the aisle of higher priced books but several were in the Non fiction higher priced section. It would be interesting to see the stats of prices of books sold in supermarkets, where a lot of books get sold these days. But I just wanted to mention that this £1 section took over the book section and contained a lot of well known writers.


Reminds me of the bargain bin in the DVD section. You can pick up lots of the older movies for $4-5 that way, but the new releases and movies still in higher demand go for full price. Just depends on what you want to watch.


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## Abigail (Apr 27, 2010)

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/large-selection-of-books-1-each-asd/586522

I am not sure if your allowed to add links on here but I did a google and someone had taken a picture in their local store. Ours had a lot more than shown in their picture. Some good names, yes it probably is clearance but a lot of customers don't know that. They just want a bargain read well known or not, because it is cheap doesn't mean its rubbish.

I liken it to what has happend to the music industry. Buying CD's in shops at top prices still happens, but those that are cyber savvi very often use itunes and vouchers to get the same song a lot cheaper.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> So I think Amazon is discounting my book but paying me at the $4.95 price point because they have lowered it?


They will pay you 70 percent of the discounted price (what the customer actually pays minus carrying charges) not of your list price.

Camille


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

kcmay said:


> If the 99c price was still in effect at BN or Kobo or anywhere else, Amazon would match it. It took me about a week to get them to re-run their checking process when I went back to $2.99 because I made the mistake of not waiting until the price was updated at BN before changing it on KDP.


Yep, I know that but I didn't lower on the other sites. In any case it has been corrected now and is back to my old $4.95 price.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

For those that follow my blog - I've finally posted my long promised entry on pricing

Click here


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Hmmm...so an interesting things happened on my way to "quit my test price". I changed The Crown Conspiracy from $0.99 to $4.95. It "processed through (became LIVE in KDP). But the price on the page now says:[br][br]Digital List Price: $4.95[br]Kindle Price:*$0.99*[br][br]So I think Amazon is discounting my book but paying me at the $4.95 price point because they have lowered it?


Yes, that's what I've seen from other authors. Because Amazon discounted it and you didn't, they still will pay you the royalty on the original list price.

And that's exactly what's happening on my Zen In The Art of Absurdity. About three months ago Amazon lowered the price from my original $1.99 to $1.79, but according to my royalty reports, I'm still getting the full 35% royalty at .70 and not .62 on $1.79.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Over Christmas, the biggest unit sale period, I had one of the two books in my Kindle experiment reduced to 99c and the other to $2.99. After New Year I put the 99c book back up to $4.99. two thirds of the price of a paperback. Sales initially stalled in the UK but picked up in the States. The $2.99 book sold steadily in both markets. The six weeks royalty statement shows that the big unit numbers attracted by the 99c price accounted for less than 10 percent of royalty income. I'd rather have the long slow build, with a comfortable income, than the flash unit sales with almost no income. Also, after a hiccup, sales of the novel now at $4.99 has recovered in the UK to run at half the rate of the US (which is weird for a book about an Alaskan snow race). Sales at $4.99 have picked up in the States over the 99c price; I am convinced some bookbuyers at least associate that 99c price with inferior quality books.

That 99c price doesn't appear to be good for anything except brief promotions, and even there I'm not sure it did anything useful for me. Frankly, if it is a case of a loss leader being required, I'd rather give away one book absolutely free than sell it for a silly price which implies either that it is rubbish and I know it, or that the author has a shortfall in the confidence stakes.


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

Okay.  Something interesting has just happened, and must share.

Before I went to bed last night I had this gnawing feeling in my gut about my $0.99 pricing on Gaslight Journal.  And remember, I *did* say it was an experiment after this "friend" had reamed me out for jacking my price to $3.99 from $2.99.  But I also wasn't happy about it, yet willing to experiment, since not very many write in my genre and have practical experience to offer as my barometer.

Last week for the few days at the $3.99 price, I noticed that my sample downloads on Smashwords were suddenly increasing in numbers.

During the 5-days I had the price at $0.99, I had a total of ONE sample download.

At 3 a.m. this morning before going to sleep, I put my book back at the $3.99 price on both Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.  An hour ago my sample downloads on Smashwords had gone up by 5 in 8-hours.

I've always said that there is a psychology to marketing:  Price your product too high and no one will be able to afford it.  But price it too low ($0.99), and people will wonder why you're peddling crap.

Co-inky-dink?  I think not.    Now hoping this new-found wisdom will lead to some sales.  Keep everything crossed.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> Okay. Something interesting has just happened, and must share.
> 
> Before I went to bed last night I had this gnawing feeling in my gut about my $0.99 pricing on Gaslight Journal. And remember, I *did* say it was an experiment after this "friend" had reamed me out for jacking my price to $3.99 from $2.99. But I also wasn't happy about it, yet willing to experiment, since not very many write in my genre and have practical experience to offer as my barometer.
> 
> ...


It may be a co-inky-dink, but I've had the same experience. I haven't been able to exactly replicate it all the time, though.

As for Andre's experience -- I am seeing something like that over at Barnes and Noble I think. (Except it was a free book now at .99) Because I pub through Smashwords it will be a long time before I know what's going on for sure. When Pubit gets fixed, I may have to publish something directly to them just so I can track data and SEE how rank and sales interact.

Camille


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> When Pubit gets fixed, I may have to publish something directly to them just so I can track data and SEE how rank and sales interact.
> 
> Camille


Is there a known problem with PubIt!? I've tried to upload an updated mss for Gaslight for the last week and each time I do, it gives me some rotten error message. Yet, as a PubIt! customer, I've received no notification that there were any active problems.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

opuscroakus said:


> Is there a known problem with PubIt!? I've tried to upload an updated mss for Gaslight for the last week and each time I do, it gives me some rotten error message. Yet, as a PubIt! customer, I've received no notification that there were any active problems.


The only problem I've heard about is sales reporting -- they can't seem to push the sales reports to the users properly.

Camille


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## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

modwitch said:


> This thread has REALLY made me think. (See, there are some benefits to rehashing price every month).... Just wanted you all to know that for at least one newbie writer with two books in the hopper, this thread has changed what I plan to do.


Good for you, Debora. Good luck!

Sharon


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## opuscroakus (Aug 7, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> The only problem I've heard about is sales reporting -- they can't seem to push the sales reports to the users properly.
> 
> Camille


I think they finally fixed that bug yesterday, as my sales are now coming to me and quicker than ever. Shortly after you posted this, I checked again and my data from January 9 was showing. Today, data from my latest sale through BN.com on the 23rd is now there.

However, I checked out the PubIt! forums and saw where others are having trouble uploading/editing mss, so hopefully they'll fix that soon.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

I would much rather readers look before they buy. And if you start out with a full length book priced 99c and leave it there (because once you've got used to a monthly sales figure and a rank, you feel like you're failing if either drop) you'll never know whether it's just selling because it's cheap or indeed whether buyers actually read it.

I've looked at very low priced books that were published to the UK forum the same time as mine and tho they've had vastly higher sales, they haven't had the corresponding higher percentage of reviews.

Also, a friend who's read some 99c books said she'd recommend some of them for 99c but not for more. So the expectation is lower or at least the standard some readers will accept is lower.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

BTW, I decided to lower my price just in the UK on my novella.  (Not selling anything now, so no harm in leaving it there, too.)

Camille


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Ali Cooper said:


> Also, a friend who's read some 99c books said she'd recommend some of them for 99c but not for more. So the expectation is lower or at least the standard some readers will accept is lower.


Some of us went to grad school to learn that important lesson. But Amazon teaches it free of charge.

But even more important is the corollary:

If you price your book at 99c, people will expect it to be worth only 99c. If you price it at $2.99, people will expect it to be worth $2.99. If you price it at $4.99, people will expect it to be worth $4.99.

It is very difficult for your average person -- and your most desirable book buyer is a very average person -- not to realize her expectations. It takes an experienced critic to say, Ooh, this piece of cheap cr*p isn't actually either cheap or cr*p, it is a true gem that I've discovered.

So when people buy a 99c book, they expect, and normally realize, at least in their own perception (which is _all_ that matters), a 99c value. But if they pay $2.99, unless the book is blatant rubbish, they will, in aggregate, perceive a $2.99 value.

There are even common sayings to cover this psychological bias on the part of buyers of anything, not just books, and like most common sayings they express a universal truth. No such thing as a free lunch. Pay peanuts and get monkeys; only monkeys work for peanuts.

Yes, it is true that the higher you price, the greater the possibility of disappointment in the perception of the reader. But isn't your book good? (I'm not talking about your book, Ali, I'm just picking up a subtle and widely misunderstood point you've raised.) If it is good, price it higher and see if customers won't agree.

If you're in this _business_ (note the emphasis) to earn a living, then price your books accordingly.

If all you want is to for someone to read you, set up a netsite or a blog and give your books away free of charge.


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## Rick Chesler (Jul 17, 2010)

My ebook just got reduced by my publisher from $6.39 to $2.99 (after being out for 8 months), and it has seen an uptick in sales since. Paperback is $7.99.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

I definitely found that when I gave stories away for free - to build up a readership - I got stacks of downloads. The thing is, I didn't get many readers. I had my book on promotion at 99c over Christmas. I have just raised the price to $2.99 or £1.50, depending where you are and I'm thinking of putting the UK price up to £2.00. I've had more sales at 99c but what's the point if, like the people who downloaded my free shorts, many of the people who buy never actually read it (except one guy in Scotland who wrote me a lovely review).

So yeh, I think if the price is high enough for your readers to think and care, that is probably a good thing. Also if you have a small budget to market your book, you're relying on word of mouth anyway. That's the most effective sales tool so in theory, if your price is realistic and fair, it shouldn't matter.

Cheers

MTM


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## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> Some of us went to grad school to learn that important lesson. But Amazon teaches it free of charge.
> 
> But even more important is the corollary:
> 
> ...


Well said, Andre...

Sharon


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

iamstoryteller said:


> Well said, Andre...
> 
> Sharon


Ah, that's the warm glow of appreciation I need! Now I can start work.


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## Gerald (Dec 11, 2010)

M T McGuire said:


> I definitely found that when I gave stories away for free - to build up a readership - I got stacks of downloads. The thing is, I didn't get many readers.


This is a key issue. If something's cheap, they'll pick it up whether they want it or not. How many items do you see in the £1 shops (in the UK) that you think "ooh, I could do with one of those."? You didn't go out to buy it, but since you're there, you might as well put it in the basket.

Do you want sales to achieve rankings? If so, give the thing away free or at a minimal price. But beware, many of those cheap downloads will sit on a Kindle somewhere, unread and unloved. And when your next novel comes out at $2.99 or $3.99? Those purchasers will still be chasing the cheap reads. I'd rather have a reader and a fan, who will see a new product announcement and think "I liked the last book, I'll buy this one too." $2.99 or $3.99 or even $4.99 doesn't make any difference. You have a reader, not a downloader.

There's an interesting post on Robin Sullivan's blog today about pricing. And I've commented  http://write2publish.blogspot.com/2011/01/crunching-some-numbers.html


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

@ Andre, good point... However... are some downloads better than none at all?

I'm just starting out and I have very little time to market my book (because I'm a stay at home parent with a two year old). This month I blew my monthly sales target out of the sky - sold 12 copies of my book in the first two weeks (please don't mock my numbers, I'm a time poor rookie and all big things have small beginnings). This was on top of 4 in the first month and 7 last month, all in the last week, after I'd reduced the price. 

As soon as I put the price up to £2.00 again ($2.99) all downloads appear to have ceased. I'm still posting in forums, still promoting. 

So, while 30% of 72p is not much, 70% of 0 is even less. I'd like to hold out but it looks like the price will have to go down regularly if I want to shft any copies of my e-book at all. 

Alternatively, how's this for my latest cunning plan?

Giving away the e-shorts isn't working, as a marketing tool, the way it can - and does - in other markets. I'm wasting them. So, if I sell the e-shorts, which are currently free, for 99c/70p a pop, the 70p crowd would buy because they're cheap and the £2.50/$3.99 crowd would perceive the price as fair rather than cheap because it's a short. Now, these are people who might actually read the short they've bought and if they like it they might go on to buy the novel. 

I know you can't be all things to all people but maybe I could be something to a larger group with this technique. While I do the best with what's available, I have very little time to push my wares so ideally, I need my pricing structure to be bringing 'em in, too.

Here's my burning, slightly off topic (sorry) question then... Has anyone else tried an approach like this and if so, how did it go?

Cheers

MTM


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Monique said:


> It's such a tough decision. I'm one of those who lower the price to $0.99. How much would I be selling/making if I were to raise the price? I don't know. What I do know is:
> 
> I'm selling about 13 x the number of books I was at $2.99. Sometime tomorrow, I will surpass the number of books I sold last year in the first three weeks of this month. I'm (hopefully) developing a good reader base who will be interested in the next book ($2.99 or above) and all that come after. I'm thinking VERY long-term.
> 
> ...


This.

I will put a novel out soon at 99 cents which I look at as a loss leader to build readership. While I tend to think pricing ALL of one's novels at that is a mistake, I don't think that is a bad pricing strategy.

Compare this to what Baen's Book does which is GIVE AWAY substantial portions of its backlist on Baen's Free Library where Eric Flint is convinced that the give aways have substantially increased his sales. They don't believe that giving the novels away indicate that the novels have no value.

I think buyers understand this mentality. But then again, I could be wrong. I've been wrong on most of these changes in the publishing industry. That is just my best guess and my observations.


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## Laura Lond (Nov 6, 2010)

I am still relatively new at the e-publishing, I've been learning a lot from these boards - about pricing, marketing, everything. So far, I can say this about my pricing choices:

I have a short story out at $0.99, and I feel good about the price. It's a well written story, but it's definitely a short. It wouldn't be right to price it any higher. Buyers seem to agree, I haven't had any complaints about that. I also have a freebie short story out, a _very_ short one that I don't think I could charge even $0.99 for. I am happy to have it out as a promo.

I also have a fantasy trilogy that I have priced $0.99 for book 1 and $2.99 for books 2 and 3. After reading and learning some more here, I am not comfortable with that. The promo price of $0.99 makes book 1 look cheap, insubstantial. It's not; it's a novel I worked hard on. It is a little shorter than the other two, but I still think the price of at least $1.99 would be fair. Right now, I've got several banners out advertising the book that mention the $0.99 price, so I'll keep it there for a while. I will raise the price though as soon as the banners stop running.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Laura Lond said:


> After reading and learning some more here, I am not comfortable with that. The promo price of $0.99 makes book 1 looks cheap, insubstantial. It's not; it's a novel I worked hard on. It is a little shorter than the other two, but I still think the price of at least $1.99 would be fair. Right now, I've got several banners out advertising the book that mention the $0.99 price, so I'll keep it there for a while. I will raise the price though as soon as the banners stop running.


Don't worry about it. I have 2 books in a 5 book epic at $ .99 each and they sell well and get great feedback. They also took 37 years to write. Let your readers decide whether the book is good or not and not the mouseketeers . . . I mean, the marketeers. If there's one thing you should have learned from this thread and many others on pricing, don't believe what you read - not even from me. We can't find a fart in a can of beans no less the divining rod to wave over prospective readers to see whether they'll like our books or not. Breathe easy. Three years ago you would have been denied the decision of pricing althogether and would have waited two years for your books to get from contract to ink. Enjoy the readers that buy your books and don't lose sleep over those who won't because your work costs less than a medium size latte. 

Edward C. Patterson (Barista in Cheif)
Still looking for those magic beans


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## Laura Lond (Nov 6, 2010)

Thank you Edward. I love reading your posts.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

Daniel Arenson said:


> I know how you feel. There are three Starbucks within a five minute walk from my apartment. There are about twenty other coffee shops on the same stretch. All these places are PACKED all day. Most have a dozen people in line at any given moment. They buy $3-$6 drinks which are gone in an hour. I confess I'm one of these people.


I like the comparison to a Starbucks cup of coffee. Now there you have something that truly is overpriced. I agree, our books are worth way more. I'm happy to pay $2.99 and $3.99 for an eBook. I won't pay much more than that simply b/c it doesn't cost anywhere near as much to create them as it does a paperback, and if I'm going to pay more I'll buy the paperback. Having written that, I do appreciate the same amount of work goes into the eBook. To balance the scales, I do buy more eBooks b/c they are so inexpensive, and the lower price encourages me to support more emerging authors. As for $0.99, I'd expect a short story to be priced for that, not a full length novel or a novella.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"I like the comparison to a Starbucks cup of coffee. Now there you have something that truly is overpriced."_

At this very moment, I am sitting in a coffee shop using their WiFi, sipping a $2 Americano, and have been doing it for the last hour. Starbucks' financials tell us they are not overpricing the whole package. So, this shop gives me a convenient place to surf the net for an hour each day after the gym.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

M T McGuire said:


> Alternatively, how's this for my latest cunning plan?
> So, if I sell the e-shorts, which are currently free, for 99c/70p a pop, the 70p crowd would buy because they're cheap and the £2.50/$3.99 crowd would perceive the price as fair rather than cheap because it's a short. Now, these are people who might actually read the short they've bought and if they like it they might go on to buy the novel.


That's a brilliant plan. (Scrabbles through bottom drawer. Now where did I put those short stories?


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## Valerie Maarten (Jan 14, 2011)

*raising hand as a Newbie*  Great thread.  I will admit that I came into the epub world with a pricing structure.  I quickly learned that if ppl didn't know who the heck you were, you can give the book away and it wouldn't matter.  So, I spent the better part of my first month as a published author developing a "readership", etc.  In the end, I had to give away books, lower pricing and run sales events (during Black Friday, Christmas Holiday, etc.) in order to generate sales.  So, though I understand the philosophy that ppl think if you have it at $0.99 it's only worth $0.99, as a Newbie if you have your ebook at $3.99 they'll also think "Who the heck you think you are...Nora Roberts?"  Just chiming in.  I would love to know right combination to this pricing issue as well, but I only have my experience to go by.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

M T McGuire said:


> Giving away the e-shorts isn't working, as a marketing tool, the way it can - and does - in other markets. I'm wasting them. So, if I sell the e-shorts, which are currently free, for 99c/70p a pop, the 70p crowd would buy because they're cheap and the £2.50/$3.99 crowd would perceive the price as fair rather than cheap because it's a short. Now, these are people who might actually read the short they've bought and if they like it they might go on to buy the novel. ....
> 
> Here's my burning, slightly off topic (sorry) question then... Has anyone else tried an approach like this and if so, how did it go?


A number of people use that approach -- mostly pros. Like Dean Wesley Smith who doesn't see it as a sales strategy so much as just plain old fair pricing. He's having fun writing lots of short stories, many of which of twistier and stranger than will fit in a commercial market, and he's happy to have a place to sell them.

Me, I'm thinking something like you. However, I feel that anything below 10k words is a little too short for a 99 cent price, so I'm making mini-collections, or writing novelettes and novellas to hit those lower price points.

Like Dean, though, I'm also doing because I enjoy writing at that length. It does seem to help break down resistance to my off-genre novels too, but it's too early in the process to know much. Ask me again next year at this time....

Camille


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

@ Andre and Camille.

Thanks. I'm only 3 months in so I don't have much to go on either. Most of my shorts are 3,000 to 4,000 words. However, I think, bundling them in two's or three's might be the answer. 

I have to say, my original plan, before I had a clue what I was doing, was to sell them at about 20c/10p a pop and the novel for £2.50. I still think that would be the answer. Oh for a site that would let me do that.

I like the coffee analogy. I think putting that in somewhere might be a good sales technique. As a student I saw everything in terms of how many cups of coffee it cost.

Cheers

MTM


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

M T McGuire said:


> @ Andre and Camille.
> 
> Thanks. I'm only 3 months in so I don't have much to go on either. Most of my shorts are 3,000 to 4,000 words. However, I think, bundling them in two's or three's might be the answer.
> 
> ...


I now think in terms of 'how many books will I need to sell to buy that cup of coffee!


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

M T McGuire said:


> @ Andre, good point... However... are some downloads better than none at all?
> 
> I'm just starting out and I have very little time to market my book (because I'm a stay at home parent with a two year old). This month I blew my monthly sales target out of the sky - sold 12 copies of my book in the first two weeks (please don't mock my numbers, I'm a time poor rookie and all big things have small beginnings). This was on top of 4 in the first month and 7 last month, all in the last week, after I'd reduced the price.
> 
> ...


Hi MTM,

I just replied to this in the UK forum.

A short story collection, maybe totalling 10K - 25K words is very different from underpricing a novel. It's a taster and a bit of fun. I was on the verge of doing it myself but decided I didn't have enough high quality stories and in the time taken to add more I could probably finish and publish the next novel.

Unfortunately I suspect a lot of the reason you can't sell in UK is because too many authors started off underpricing to get attention, carried on with it for too long and now 70p is the expected price.

There seems to be a mental block at around £2 in UK so I suggest you try pricing your book at £1.49 (the lowest accepted 70% price) and tax will increase it to just under £2.

Incidentally, my book is being discounted to £1.99 and I've done lots of searches but can't work out why. It isn't being discounted in US.


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## markbeyer (Jan 9, 2011)

I agree with you absolutely. I began a post yesterday titled "If it's free, how good can it be?" 

Your point is well described, and, frankly, I don't know what writers are thinking about when they put so much work into their stories and then sell it short, as if they've just made Chinese T-shirts. 

However, perhaps these writers DON'T put much effort into their writing. A lot of POD books read poorly; the stories are often a mere 20,000 words. Even the full-length novels show a lack of imagination, not to mention a need for rewriting. 

This says a lot for, in fact, THE NEED FOR EDITORIAL MARSHALING. Makes me think of the saying: just because it can be written, should it?


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

markbeyer said:


> I agree with you absolutely. I began a post yesterday titled "If it's free, how good can it be?"
> 
> Your point is well described, and, frankly, I don't know what writers are thinking about when they put so much work into their stories and then sell it short, as if they've just made Chinese T-shirts.
> 
> ...


Absolutely! I can't imagine why anyone would publish a full length novel (mine's just over 100,000 words) without getting it copy edited, proof read (and extensively beta read where possible) first.

However, I think, maybe, some people do.

I've a theory as to why. Writing is a solitary pursuit and if you're like me and not the most gifted at literary criticism, you may spend a long time puzzling over why something isn't working. You know it's wrong but you can't see why. I still get this. I can see how some people might decide to put it on line and take a punt. At the least, they might earn a bit AND if they're lucky somebody, somewhere, may point out what's wrong.

This is exactly what I did with the first novel I wrote (back in 199. It was shockingly bad. I managed to persuade 4 agents to read it - more for feedback and advice than anything (they'd do that sort of thing in those days of course). I was incredibly impatient to get the whole novel writing thing cracked and I really and I mean really wanted it to be THE ONE, the novel that would work even though I knew in my heart that it might not be. I was hoping the agents would say "my my yes, what potential, tweak it here, and here and you'll have a masterpiece" I was lazy and impatient, I suppose and hoping for a kind of scales from the eyes moment which would get all that pesky learning done in a few months and allow me to become the next Adams or Pratchett. I didn't. It wasn't. When I finally wrote something publishable it was four novels down the line! It is, I'm sure, the reason why I've had the bum's rush from the agents over Few Are Chosen (it's a small world).

The thing is. If I'd been able to self-publish that first dire novel as easily and cheaply as I can today then would I have had the self control to wait. I might have done but I can't guarantee it.

So... I'm also beginning to think I'm not the only one. Maybe my desperation, my headlong flight towards 'doing it properly' and my exasperation and complete lack of patience with the fact that I couldn't for some time is a common phenomenon (I thought it was just me). In short, perhaps the ease of today's DIY and e-publishing means a lot of people are publishing that first book, before they're ready.

If that's so, it will bring the quality and the price down until some new, more dynamic, less risk-averse gatekeeper comes along to replace the publishing industry. We probably won't know until the marketplace is better established and there are more figures available.

Hmm... does that make any sense?

Cheers

MTM


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

M T McGuire said:


> Absolutely! I can't imagine why anyone would publish a full length novel (mine's just over 100,000 words) without getting it copy edited, proof read (and extensively beta read where possible) first.
> 
> However, I think, maybe, some people do.
> 
> ...


Makes perfect sense. I have seen so many writers pay out huge amounts to get their books edited when what they really need to do is take a writing course that will help them with all their books. An editor can't change your telling into showing or bring your characters to life. If you read the interview with Amanda Hocking it is worth noting that she has been writing for many years and has also taken writing courses.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

markbeyer said:


> I agree with you absolutely. I began a post yesterday titled "If it's free, how good can it be?"
> 
> Your point is well described, and, frankly, I don't know what writers are thinking about when they put so much work into their stories and then sell it short, as if they've just made Chinese T-shirts.
> 
> ...


I'm not sure that we can assume a simple equation between the price and quality of a book - after all most of the classics are currently free on Kindle. Likewise I don't see size (or length) as a measure of worth. I have just read R.L Stevenson's Jeckyll and Hyde - a classic by anyone's standards - and it is barely novella length. Like it or not, the trend - certainly in England, where I am - is for Kindle readers to expect low prices and, indeed, to be inclined to boycott publishers fixing high prices. Interestingly enough (and perhaps, quite reasonably) readers still expect quality from their cheap or free book. Even free books that disappoint are rewarded with poor reviews from disgruntled readers who feel that they have wasted their time. My own experience of reading a host of books for 70p or less on Kindle is that the quality is mostly high. But I agree that it is a pity that writers who work so hard can, in general, expect little financial reward.


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2011)

M T McGuire said:


> So... I'm also beginning to think I'm not the only one. Maybe my desperation, my headlong flight towards 'doing it properly' and my exasperation and complete lack of patience with the fact that I couldn't for some time is a common phenomenon (I thought it was just me). In short, perhaps the ease of today's DIY and e-publishing means a lot of people are publishing that first book, before they're ready.


The beauty of POD/digital books is that anyone can publish.
The horror of POD/digital books is...well...ANYONE can publish.

Self-publishing has always been around, and those that carry a chip on their shoulder (or have a service to sell to unsuspecting authors) like to rattle off the names of famous self-publishers. But what they fail to note when rattling off those names is that those people didn't self-publish in a void like many authors do today. Virginia Woolf self published...BUT her family was deeply involved in the publishing industry and her circle of friends included professionally published writers. If you actually LOOK at the histories of people who self-published, you will find one or more of the following is true:

A. extensive professional training or previous publishing credits through traditional formats
B. A highly literary background with close friends and family already successful in the business who can provide guidance.
C. Extensive financial resources that they can afford to pay to bring professionals in, or can afford to spend thousands of dollars on promotion (Paoli's parents took a year off from work and spent thousands of their own money promoting _Eragon_).
D. Significant lack of competition in the existing marketplace of the time, or lack of actual publishing houses (Ben Franklin self-published because he was essentially the only publisher in town!)
E. High impact name recognition in another field that carries over into print projects.

These are major variables a lot of people dismiss. Most self-publishers come into it with no money, no resources, no name recognition, no knowledge of the norms of the industry, and no support network of skilled individuals. Sure, there are plenty of people to offer "emotional support" and be cheerleaders, but they haven't cultivated any practical support from people that won't just tell them "you can do it" but rather "you shouldn't do this YET".


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The beauty of POD/digital books is that anyone can publish.
> The horror of POD/digital books is...well...ANYONE can publish....
> 
> ....Sure, there are plenty of people to offer "emotional support" and be cheerleaders, but they haven't cultivated any practical support from people that won't just tell them "you can do it" but rather "you shouldn't do this YET".


Amen to that. What's more, like anything, luck is involved as well as talent. Sure you can make some of your own luck, write a good book, work at getting it reviewd, work at maintaining an on-line presence so people get to know you. There's still that last bit of fluke though, that gets you stratospheric.

I think a big back catalogue helps, too.

Cheers

MTM


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

markbeyer said:


> I agree with you absolutely. I began a post yesterday titled "If it's free, how good can it be?"
> 
> Your point is well described, and, frankly, I don't know what writers are thinking about when they put so much work into their stories and then sell it short, as if they've just made Chinese T-shirts.
> 
> ...


There's a certain amount of fear driving these low prices. The best writers are sensitive; a key piece of advice for young writers in the gladiatorial arena of trad publishing used to be to thicken their skins. The constant difficulty is that the writing process which distinguishes a good writer from a bad one is the repeated questioning of every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, section, subplot, plot element, character. The very process seems to undermine confidence. You need years of practice and a supportive environment (not cheerleaders, people who know the difference between literature and manure who still believe in you) to understand that instead this destructive process BUILDS confidence.

So a writer, naturally thinskinned, without experience in marketing, whose self-confidence is depressed by the very process of her craft, sees all these writers pricing at 99c and doesn't believe that her book is any better, so how can she ask for more money? It is a natural human reaction.

The answer is to use the parts of the existing system that work for you, and dismiss the rest. If 99c works as an introductory offer, a pump-primer, use it for that. Just don't get lazy and leave your book there. If sales plummet in the UK market because you then raise the price to what you think it is worth, the hell with them. Sales of worthwhile books never quite die, and once the pump is primed, they will grow, possibly painfully slowly, but they _will_ grow over time. The ebook space is unique in that your book is on the shelf forever. You don't need to grab a few bucks and run; you can wait for word of mouth to spread, a long time if necessary. Also, in ebooks you have access to all markets. I have already described how raising the price of one book cut sales in the UK to a third but actually increased sales in USA, while another book was never reduced to 99c, though I had planned to do so, because it was moving well in both markets at $2.99 (perhaps because it stands alone in its niche). These are experiments that were impossible in trad publishing.

What do I mean by a worthwhile book? I mean a book that offers readers something different, often called a unique selling proposition, a USP. Your book can offer clever plot twists, better writing, unique settings, the list is endless, and you should take care of all the details (grammar, spelling, tight structure, cover, blurb, etc). You book's USP might be that you're breaking new ground. Or that you're appealing to pent-up demand -- the efflorescence of vampire readers isn't something new, it was always there but missed by the trad publishers.

Above all it should be a story that you're burning to tell for itself, not because you want to be "an author". Those stories you burn to tell always always find readers; the readers may be few or they may be many, but enough pioneers eventually find your stories, then tell others. and over time a reader base builds.

The most impressive comment in this entire long thread is the one about distinguishing between downloaders and readers. On the UK forum when IDITAROD was priced at 99c/72p, a wellmeaning person, a sportsman who works with children, directly in my target market for a story about a sled dog race told in a manner to have YA crossover potential, told me he bought my book -- and put it among many others to read many months hence on a yachting adventure. I politely, even enthusiastically thanked him, but I've been on such ultra-endurance yacht races (the end of one is described in the humourous piece "Fame at last 1: I'm mistaken for myself" at http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/archives/39, and I know he'll never have time to read my book. In any event, mine will be just another title among the hundred or so he bought, and months from now his eye could just glide past it from familiarity. If he had paid $4.99/£3.51, my novel and I would stand a better chance of being remembered and being read, and selling more of my books because I know from experience that once read, no one ever forgets one of my books. It has been argued by some people that I got fabulous reviews out of my 99c run for that novel; I checked, and those particular priceless reviews came from bookbuyers who aren't in the least price sensitive, and had bought the novel when it was first launched at $5.99 to set a baseline to be "reduced from".

This entire *routine* 99c pricing venture is damaging an entire new industry even as it tries to get off the ground.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

*hands out towels all around for those weeping and wailing*


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I wish we could go to $ .50. I just love scuttling an industry that I help launch.  

Edward C. Patterson


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> I wish we could go to $ .50. I just love scuttling an industry that I help launch.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


I don't think you'll get the choice, Edward. Quite the contrary. See http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,50837.0.html


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I was making a joke as one of the indie old timers who actually DOES know sugar from shinola. Carry on troop.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Hello there everyone

For what it's worth, this seems as good a way as any to get round the expectation of something for nothing without devaluing the entire industry!

Finally I've decided to quit messing about with the pricing of Few Are Chosen. The price is now: £1.50p plus VAT on Amazon.co.uk and $3.00 on Amazon.com and Smashwords.

HOWEVER... for the something for nothing brigade, or those who would like to try before they buy, I've decided to give away the pdf format for free. Yep. Nothing to pay.

If it worked for Joe Konrath, I'm hoping it'll work for me. More about it on my blog http://hamgee.co.uk/blog/pricing-my-e-book-again/, if you're interested.

Cheers

MTM


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

Please don't forget the rest of the world when setting your prices. Unless you are in the UK I believe you have to buy through Amazon.com. You also have an extra $2 dollars added to your e-book purchase to pay for whispernet (this might have changed for Australia).
Your reasonable $2.99 will cost me $4.99. At the present exchange rate that will be approx R37.00. I can buy a MacDonalds beef hamburger for R8 and a cup of coffee for R7.95. A larger hamburger would be R18.95. 
So I can buy two large hamburgers or your $2.99 ($4.99) e-book. 
I'm sure other countries have a similar exchange rate disparity.
I expect the majority of e-books are bought in the US, but there must be a sizable proportion from the rest of the world and this will probably increase.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Eek! We're finding lots of different topics to deal with here.

1. The urge to publish rubbish books. Yes, I understand this. My experience is very similar to MTM's, writing for years, sure each book was the one. Luckily the self-publishing opportunity came up when I had a book which had very very nearly been published mainstream so I had absolute confidence in it and opted for publishing myself (with expert input) rather than put it on hold for years while more presses considered it. There's a generation who've worked and studied for years and are now producing very good work. And there's the generation who are like they were at the beginning. There are of course authors who write their first ever book within a few weeks, do a quick revision and it's a hit. But I suspect these are very rare exceptions.

2. From what authors are telling me, it isn't that they're too lazy to move their book off the 99c price. It's that they can't bear to see the rank and sales drop - it feels like failure. People who published fairly recently got the huge Xmas/new year bonanza early on. I know again from what authors have told me that many 99c books were selling 10 times as many as comparable $2.99 ones, meaning that the authors were earning twice as much as if they'd priced their books higher. Kindle veterans know that usually you'd be lucky to sell 5 X at the lower price. If sales return to 'normal' ratios then authors of lower priced books may be tempted to raise the prices.

3. How do we change things? This may sound very silly but for a lot of authors, their reason not to price above $2.99 is lack of places to promote. amazon forums are full of threads for $2.99 or less. I'm not suggesting that a simplistic solution will work overnight but I've just started a $3.99 and under thread. Maybe others will start similar ones in their genre areas. If we gradually introduce $3.99 as the upper price limit on cheap books then the more people see it the more they are likely to gradually come to accept it. I think we've been - and are continuing to - limiting ourselves with price. It's a start.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2011)

I don't watch my sales rank.

I watch my _bank deposits._

Sales rank fluctated day to day. My bank deposits are relatively consistent each month.

I can't pay my bills with sales rank.

I can pay my bills with my deposits.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I don't watch my sales rank.
> 
> I watch my _bank deposits._
> 
> ...


Yes, Julie, I remember your saying this before and I agree with you. But the point about the past couple of months is that many 99c books have earned double the amount they'd have done at a higher price. Authors who've published a year or so ago know this is unusual, new authors don't.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Please don't forget the rest of the world when setting your prices. Unless you are in the UK I believe you have to buy through Amazon.com. You also have an extra $2 dollars added to your e-book purchase to pay for whispernet (this might have changed for Australia).
> Your reasonable $2.99 will cost me $4.99. At the present exchange rate that will be approx R37.00. I can buy a MacDonalds beef hamburger for R8 and a cup of coffee for R7.95. A larger hamburger would be R18.95.
> So I can buy two large hamburgers or your $2.99 ($4.99) e-book.
> I'm sure other countries have a similar exchange rate disparity.
> I expect the majority of e-books are bought in the US, but there must be a sizable proportion from the rest of the world and this will probably increase.


Hmm... I can appreciate that's pretty rubbish. What if I tried lowering the price on Smashwords? Would you guys be able to get hold of it there - very sorry I don't have a kindle so I've no idea how they work or about the huge bills for wi-fi downloads - clearly that's where Amazon makes its money.

This is especially relevant to me because I write very british stuff so it's more likely to appeal to you guys and the antipodeans than in the US. The book is £1.50 in the UK, are you guys allowed to use Amazon.co.uk - that would bring the price down some.

Cheers

MTM


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

M T McGuire said:


> Hmm... I can appreciate that's pretty rubbish. What if I tried lowering the price on Smashwords? Would you guys be able to get hold of it there - very sorry I don't have a kindle so I've no idea how they work or about the huge bills for wi-fi downloads - clearly that's where Amazon makes its money.
> 
> This is especially relevant to me because I write very british stuff so it's more likely to appeal to you guys and the antipodeans than in the US. The book is £1.50 in the UK, are you guys allowed to use Amazon.co.uk - that would bring the price down some.
> 
> ...


That's the problem. We can't use Amazon UK as a sign pops up to tell us that it is for UK customers only and we must go to Amazon.com. It doesn't even show the price of the books on the openig page. I doubt if there are huge numbers of e-readers here yet (waiting for the prices to go down), but it's worth bearing in mind.


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> That's the problem. We can't use Amazon UK as a sign pops up to tell us that it is for UK customers only and we must go to Amazon.com. It doesn't even show the price of the books on the openig page. I doubt if there are huge numbers of e-readers here yet (waiting for the prices to go down), but it's worth bearing in mind.


I really sympathise with this. When I first published to kindle, UK got the same treatment via the US site. There are 2 big problems. The first is that we can only see the pricing for our own country (or for US if we're devious). The second is that for any customers other than US, UK, Canada, we get paid half the royalty. The point is, amazon is a US company. The way it works is very advantageous for US customers and authors and very disadvantageous for anyone else. And as such the way any author is most likely to be successful is by aiming their writing, marketing and pricing at the US customers. Obviously there will be exceptions but that's the general rule. If we're going to offer an alternative to Oz/NZ customers then I guess the best option would be smashwords.

Jan, had you considered being a smashwords affiliate?


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

Ali Cooper said:


> I really sympathise with this. When I first published to kindle, UK got the same treatment via the US site. There are 2 big problems. The first is that we can only see the pricing for our own country (or for US if we're devious). The second is that for any customers other than US, UK, Canada, we get paid half the royalty. The point is, amazon is a US company. The way it works is very advantageous for US customers and authors and very disadvantageous for anyone else. And as such the way any author is most likely to be successful is by aiming their writing, marketing and pricing at the US customers. Obviously there will be exceptions but that's the general rule. If we're going to offer an alternative to Oz/NZ customers then I guess the best option would be smashwords.
> 
> Jan, had you considered being a smashwords affiliate?


I think it was Smashwords that pays via PayPal and that's a problem if you're in a number of countries that don't allow you to receive money via Paypal (tax evasion problems, I think) But we can now receive US dollars if we bank with a certain bank - which is not my bank and would involve a costly change. Just not worth it.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> I think it was Smashwords that pays via PayPal and that's a problem if you're in a number of countries that don't allow you to receive money via Paypal (tax evasion problems, I think) But we can now receive US dollars if we bank with a certain bank - which is not my bank and would involve a costly change. Just not worth it.


Blimey, Jan, you guys are stiffed every which way. I will have to look into this.

Cheers

MTM


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> But the point about the past couple of months is that many 99c books have earned double the amount they'd have done at a higher price.


That statement falls into the same trap that those who use the 99 cent price in the first place use: this assumes those books *would not have sold at all * at the higher price.

Thousands of new Kindle owners went to Amazon with their new Xmas presents to shop, accustomed to paying $15-$25 for print books. They didn't come into this with a pre-conceived notion of what the ebook price SHOULD be. They would have been just as enthusiastic about their new toy if those books were $2.99 or $3.99 because IT WOULD STILL BE LESS than buying paperbacks or hardcovers. Maybe they would have only bought ten books at $3.99 instead of twenty or thirty at 99 cents, but damnit *HAVE THE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR WORK THAT YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE TEN BOOKS*! Don't price your book on the assumption that you might not have made the cut if the customer was buying fewer books at higher prices.

There are some amazingly talented folks on these boards who I really feel shortchange their gods-given talent by thinking they can't sell at higher than 99 cents. It's like having a beautiful and kind friend who stays with a deadbeat boyfriend because she doesn't think anyone else would want her.


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> It's like having a beautiful and kind friend who stays with a deadbeat boyfriend because she doesn't think anyone else would want her.


Love that analogy, LOL


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Thousands of new Kindle owners went to Amazon with their new Xmas presents to shop, accustomed to paying $15-$25 for print books. They didn't come into this with a pre-conceived notion of what the ebook price SHOULD be. They would have been just as enthusiastic about their new toy if those books were $2.99 or $3.99 because IT WOULD STILL BE LESS than buying paperbacks or hardcovers. Maybe they would have only bought ten books at $3.99 instead of twenty or thirty at 99 cents, but damnit *HAVE THE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR WORK THAT YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE TEN BOOKS*! Don't price your book on the assumption that you might not have made the cut if the customer was buying fewer books at higher prices.
> 
> There are some amazingly talented folks on these boards who I really feel shortchange their gods-given talent by thinking they can't sell at higher than 99 cents. It's like having a beautiful and kind friend who stays with a deadbeat boyfriend because she doesn't think anyone else would want her.


This is exactly the reason why the Joe Konrath approach appeals to me. I'm pretty sure I said it earlier on this thread but I gave stuff away for free and I got lots of downloads but seem to have come away from it with precious few readers. Giving away the whole book in one format free, (hopefully) suggests that a) my gift has worth and b) if Mr Konrath is to be believed, people may well buy a copy in a different format anyway. That said, I want to find a way to make my prices transpose at the same level outside the US maybe not on Amazon... google books? Who knows.

Oh and the dead beat boyfriend line. Class.

Cheers

MTM


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

I'm playing around with price now while my tax gets sorted out.

A couple of weeks ago I raised my price in US from $2.99 to $3.99. The first week sales dropped a bit. Now they've plummeted and so has my rank and so have my earnings. Do I think the book is worth $3.99? Yes. Am I in a hurry to raise the price? Not yet. But if the rank drops much lower I will be because I'm worried it will look to customers that no-one's interested in it.

I think the perceived upper limit for an indie book is $2.99 and that authors have caused this with all the $2.99 promotion threads. I'm beginning to introduce $3.99 promotion threads and hope other authors will do the same. But at the moment nearly every author posting on the thread is advertising that their book is $2.99 or 99c.

There are lots of people saying that pricing your book at 99c doesn't hurt anyone else but I think it very definitely does - especially if it's a very high quality full length book. It's perpetuating the idea that indie writers are an underclass whose books - however good - are practically worthless.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Ali (and everyone):

Do you have more than one or two books to play with? If you don't, I suggest leave it where you feel comfortable. Don't let anyone else convince you to mess with prices prematurely. Churning doesn't help anyone. Conversations like this should be for thinking about things in the background, _before_ setting your price. Think about it in the background.

(That's why, even though I think Vicki would do better at a higher price, I do NOT think she should change her price. She's got a plan, and she's sticking to it. Sticking to your plan is a GOOD thing. Discuss and consider changes, but don't make the until you are ready to commit to them for good or bad.)

IMHO, nothing is going to work great until you have an actual body of work. Look at Joe Konrath -- he just posted about how he can't predict his own books. One book will do consistantly well for months, and another hardly sell, and then suddenly they'll swap places. He made no change. Books just do that. It's easy to understand and deal with if you have a bunch of books.

Camille


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

I found this gem in my email. This is a new publishing company that appears to be doing very well. This is what they say about prices:

_We're focusing soon on shorts. 10-15 thousand words at $2.99._

Kinda puts a different spin on things, doesn't it? I'm trying to get my head around this. We sit here on Kindleboards, debating $.99 novels, and these people are talking $2.99 for short stories.

I reduced my book to $.99 - until August.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> There are some amazingly talented folks on these boards who I really feel shortchange their gods-given talent by thinking they can't sell at higher than 99 cents. It's like having a beautiful and kind friend who stays with a deadbeat boyfriend because she doesn't think anyone else would want her.


Well, my dead-beat boyfriend is paying me over $7,000 for January sales. And over $3,000 for December. I'm pretty happy with my dead-beat boyfriend. Sure, I *might* get paid more if I change him for a brand new not so dead-beat guy, but there's a chance the new guy will pay me less. (Shockingly, it's happened to other people who changed in their dead-beats.)

Sorry if you all feel sorry for me, sticking with a loser boyfriend.  (I actually really like that analogy. And I'm not being snarky at all.)

Vicki


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Ali (and everyone):
> 
> Do you have more than one or two books to play with? If you don't, I suggest leave it where you feel comfortable. Don't let anyone else convince you to mess with prices prematurely. Churning doesn't help anyone. Conversations like this should be for thinking about things in the background, _before_ setting your price. Think about it in the background.
> 
> ...


Hi Camille,

One book up and the second being prepared. But as I can't go self-employed until US tax is sorted out and as that is likely to take a few months yet, this is an opportunity to play with pricing. It's also a good time to do it so I can plan any sort of strategy (such as the introductory price) for my second book.

I previously raised the price to $3.99 last July. The sales dropped and the rank did a bit but not nearly as much as they have now. When I raised the price before I didn't know about the August slump and the expected lower sales figures. I also know people who were getting a lot of sales at $3.99 last Spring but have dropped the price during the past few months due to falling sales and earnings.

I know it's only a couple of weeks but my honest opinion is that, due to so much underpricing, we're all now on a slippery slope and that readers now expect lower prices than they did a year ago. Authors previously doing well at $3.99 are now having to reduce their price to get the same sales - for the same great books and even with the benefit of extra good reviews.

If anyone has evidence to the contrary please say so because I'd love to be proved wrong.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

K. A. Jordan said:


> Kinda puts a different spin on things, doesn't it? I'm trying to get my head around this. We sit here on Kindleboards, debating $.99 novels, and these people are talking $2.99 for short stories.


Well, it's like William Goldman said: "Nobody knows nothing."

Some say .99 cents is too low, some say $9.99 is too high. Truth's somewhere in the middle. Where exactly? Pick 'em.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> I think the perceived upper limit for an indie book is $2.99


Which of course circles back to the point that nobody will know you are "indie" unless you actually tell them. If you have a professional looking book with a professional book blurb and presentation, the average consumer won't know whether or not you are "indie" or "traditionally published. And really, most people don't even know what indies mean when we say things like "traditionally" published. They don't draw that line in the sand. WE do that. There are really only two groups that use the term "traditionally published" on a regular basis, indie authors and people who spend too much time on author sites.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

Perhaps, rather than 'indie author', we should substitute 'new/unknown author'. Reader feedback indicates reluctance to take a chance on an unknown for a high price. Casual examination of sales rankings for newbies charging $9.99 indicates that their sales are almost nonexistent.  

I have definitely formulated a strategy: I view the trilogy as a unit rather than as three separate books. The first one has been 99cents for a while...the other 2 are priced higher. It's my intention to leave it that way, as I can introduce readers to my style/story without their investing too much. Those who love it will cheerfully pay more to finish the tale. When my new series debuts, I should have little difficulty selling the first book to the readers who have followed me from the beginning. Not sure what the price will be yet, but it will probably be higher than 99cents.

A few of the most active 'fans' of the series have confided that they would not have tried it had the price been higher. That convinced me, as they have since recommended and increased sales. I would have missed out had I not enticed them to try my work.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Okay. I'm coming out of the closet. I'm an Indie. 
"It's no sindy to be an Indie. Get over it."
(I still like the I'm hear, I'm queer, better, but hey!)

Will you come out of your Indie closet today?  

Point Given - Edward C. Patterson
Never live the lie


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

one of the "romance" genre e-publishers has a listing on their site of what price relates to what length of e-book. When I got some of their books, I found the pricing structure to be fair. I'll see if I can find them again, it's been a couple of years. If I can I'll post their pricing structure.

--
ok structure breakdown
    NOVELLETTE: 10,000-15,000  $1.99

    NOVELLA:    15,000-30,000 words $2.99
  
    NOVEL:    30,000-55,000 words  $3.99
  
    FULL NOVEL:    55,000-80,000 words  $4.99
  
    PLUS NOVEL:    80,000-100,000 words $5.99
  
    SUPER PLUS NOVEL:    100,000-150,000 words $6.99
  
    HUMONGOUS NOVEL:    150,000+ words $7.99


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

How do I find out what the word counts mean in real life use. I would like to know where the books I usually buy fit in, but wordcount is pretty useless to me  . I finally got used to locations and for me if I get 4500-5500 thats about a good size book. At 7500 its a nice size book. I get some that are just under 4000 and they still ok as far as full novel for me. 

Then of course there are those Outlander hefties with 19000 locations  

Just curious is there is any other way to convert the wordcount. I usually only see authors talk in wordcount, doesn't really help me as a reader much though. 

Is there a way to count the words in a kindle book?


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

BTackitt said:


> one of the "romance" genre e-publishers has a listing on their site of what price relates to what length of e-book. When I got some of their books, I found the pricing structure to be fair. I'll see if I can find them again, it's been a couple of years. If I can I'll post their pricing structure.
> 
> --
> ok structure breakdown
> ...


Wow. My structure is simpler. Humongous Novel - 185,000 words plus - $ 2.99
Everything else - $ .99

Edward C. Patterson


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

BTackitt said:


> NOVELLETTE: 10,000-15,000 $1.99
> NOVELLA: 15,000-30,000 words $2.99
> NOVEL: 30,000-55,000 words $3.99
> FULL NOVEL: 55,000-80,000 words $4.99


Pretty close to my own business plan in progress, except that I added a section for short stories up to 10,000 at .99 cents each and left the upper limit of 4.99 novels open beyond 80k words.


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## mathewferguson (Oct 24, 2010)

The market wants what the markets wants - and if that's books mostly costing $2.99 max then that's the way it will go.

If you've got a really great book but put the price up high (say $9.99) then I'd expect to see sales and a lot of piracy.

Reduce the price and I'd expect sales to rise and piracy to decrease.

Somewhere in there is the optimal price point.

To worry about 99 cents books becoming the psychological fixed price point is futile. You can't control the market. There is really no way to form price-fixing cartels online because the creative destruction sweeping through dissolves their power. The big traditional publishers are currently trying without success to price-fix and it is worthless. Piracy is hammering them and will continue to do so until they bend to the demands of the market.

I know writers want to value their books at what they think they are worth but it is the market that decides the value of your work. Yes, that hurts, especially when the market decides your work is worth next to nothing but it is something we must accept.

In my work as a freelance writer I found myself competing with stay-at-home US mothers taking a break from teaching English to raise their kids. They have partners who work and so they undercut me significantly. On one project I quoted $2000 AUD. The US schoolteacher quoted $200. The client went with her, obviously.

I might want to argue about the value of my work but the market has decided that a website full of copy is worth $200. At that level I'm out of the market. No more writing websites. So I move on to other more lucrative pursuits and a whole lot of other writers take my work. This is a very good thing! At $200 we'll see many more clients entering the market to buy writing. While I'm not going to be playing in that space there will be many other writers happy to take that money.

In my first freelance jobs I charged $0 for my work. I was quite happy to gut any other writer out there on price so I could take the job and get Penguin on my resume. Later on as a paid freelancer I myself was gutted by new writers. Hooray for competition! 

I think the best strategy is to experiment with price. Start at $2.99 for a full length novel. See how it goes. If you're selling well, leave it alone. To push ranking, reduce to 99 cents. Once you climb ranking boards and get those "Other customers bought" recommendations happening then perhaps go back to $2.99.

Or publish via Smashwords distributing to Amazon et al and put the book out at zero as a loss-leader. 

Some maths:

To make $2000 in royalties per month at the $0.99 cent level requires 5772 sales.
If you increase to $2.99, you can stand to lose 4816 sales per month and still make $2000 in royalties. You'd now be selling 956 books per month.

For every dollar you increase after that there is a diminishing number of readers you can stand to lose and still hold earnings steady.

$0.99 sells 5772 books per month
$2.99 sells 956 books per month, can lose 4816 sales per month
$3.99 sells 716 books per month, can lose 239 sales per month.
$4.99 sells 573 books per month, can lose 144 sales per month.
$5.99 sells 477 books per month, can lose 96 sales per month.
$6.99 sells 409 books per month, can lose 68 sales per month.
$7.99 sells 358 books per month, can lose 51 sales per month.
$8.99 sells 318 books per month, can lose 40 sales per month.
$9.99 sells 286 books per month, can lose 32 sales per month.
$10.99 sells 260 books per month, can lose 26 sales per month.
$11.99 sells 238 books per month, can lose 22 sales per month.
$12.99 sells 220 books per month, can lose 18 sales per month.
$13.99 sells 204 books per month, can lose 16 sales per month.
$14.99 sells 191 books per month, can lose 14 sales per month.
$15.99 sells 179 books per month, can lose 12 sales per month.
$16.99 sells 168 books per month, can lose 11 sales per month.
$17.99 sells 159 books per month, can lose 9 sales per month.
$18.99 sells 150 books per month, can lose 8 sales per month.
$19.99 sells 143 books per month, can lose 8 sales per month.

You can see that if you're at the $2.99 price point and are thinking of moving up to $3.99 then you can't stand to lose more than 239 sales per month before it affects your earnings. If your price increase loses you more than this then it is better to return to the $2.99 level.

Of course, earnings aren't everything - you might put a book up at $0.99 to attract new readers and price the rest of your books at $2.99 to make the serious money.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Atunah said:


> How do I find out what the word counts mean in real life use. I would like to know where the books I usually buy fit in, but wordcount is pretty useless to me ...


Both page count and locations vary WIDELY -- which is why it's good to get used to word count. Generally speaking, a normal paperback will have something between 250-400 words per page. (Usually in the 300-350 word range.) The best way to guestimate a particular book is to pick a random page, and count the number of words in two or three FULL lines. (You can do this on a couple of pages.) Figure out the average number of words in a full line. Then count the number of lines on an average page.

In print publishing, you consider white space to be as important as the words themselves, so even pages with a lot of white space are supposed to be counted as if they are full of words.

A standardized manuscript page is supposed to have 250 words (including white space). That, btw, seems to be what Apple uses to estimate it's page count in the iBookstore.

Since word count is closer to standard than any other measure (except maybe character count), that's really a good one to use, and you start to get a feel for it after a while.

Camille


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Actually, Apple uses the actual page count for the Kindle product pages if you have a paperback version available on Amazon, which generally is based on Trade sizes (330 words per page)

Edward C. Patterson


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> Actually, Apple uses the actual page count for the Kindle product pages if you have a paperback version available on Amazon, which generally is based on Trade sizes (330 words per page)


They were definitely using 250 for my books.

Camille


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

daringnovelist said:


> They were definitely using 250 for my books.
> 
> Camille


Maybe they are using that as an estimate. But if they have a page count from another Amazon page, they use that (just as they use the YOUR SAVE price). My books are trade and POD through Amazon, so they don't estimate. However the Trade estimate (set by Sai King is 330, a good estimate for works in progress going to Trade size). Sorry for taking off my assigned jester's hat for a moment and putting on my technical hat. Jester's hat back on. 

Edward C. Patterson


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Doomed Muse said:


> It was Samhain, but they changed their website recently. Basically they were pricing novellas (10,000-30,000 words I think) at 3.49 and novels at 5.50 or so. I checked their new website, but couldn't find the pricing guide anymore.


From Samhain's MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/samhainpublishing

Short Stories: $2.50 - 12,000 to 18,000 words
Novellas: $3.50 - 18,001 to 35,000 words
Category: $4.50 - 35,001 to 60,000 words
Novel: $5.50 - 60,001 to 100,000 words
Plus Novel: $6.50 - over 100,000 words


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## Midnight Writer (Jan 4, 2011)

NadiaLee said:


> From Samhain's MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/samhainpublishing
> 
> Short Stories: $2.50 - 12,000 to 18,000 words
> Novellas: $3.50 - 18,001 to 35,000 words
> ...


They've changed their pricing structure over time, and this looks to be the latest. My novel with Samhain, Starkissed, is a tad over 80k, and it's priced at $5.50. It's discounted to $4.24 in the Kindle store. Reasonably priced, I say as a reader. Sales picked up nicely last month, and remain steady (as far as I can tell until I get my royalty statement).

Lanette


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

I recently posted the results of two of my pricing tests on my blog

For those that don't know I typically price books at $4.95 to $6.95. But I tried some $0.99 promotion and a "free book" promotion

The Gist of the Matter:

$0.99 test showed a loss of income of $9,665 a month
free book test showed a loss of income of $7,072 per month


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

@ Matthew - I had a similar experience with freelance writing but my bugbear was a larger outfit which had joined a government scheme that meant if people used them the government paid half. All my potential customers said "we want to use you but only if you can charge half the going rate". Most of the wanted design services as well - so it only covered the cost of my suppliers. The scheme was supposed to encourage small businesses but I had to achieve a turnover of over 100,000k to get on - which is difficult when someone is undercutting you by 50%. I gave up on it because charging so little for something that cost a lot of time and effort was making me bitter and I've better things to do with my time than get twisted! 

More generally, yes, everyone, I agree that the market gets what the market wants and yeh, I'm unsure about the freebie route. I'm thinking about pulling the short stories or at least charging 99c a pop - do you know I think I'll probably get a very similar number of downloads. I don't know but I'm not sure people differentiate much between the lengths of the things they're buying, I'm pretty sure it's just what can I get for 75p? Right, I'll start there. 

If I could turnout two good pulp novels a year, I'd be supremely unfazed about charging 99c for them. Trouble is, I write on 4 hours a week so I can't do two a year, one every two years is a major achievement for me. I would have However, I'm happy trying the Konrath experiment to see although to be honest, I think, with Amazon, there is evidence to suggest that it's critical mass of sales that gets you places, that once you break through a certain ceiling you will always be on the best seller list and people will always be buying your book. 

Well, I'll try my experiment and see. The free pdf has already been downloaded more times in the last 24 hours than the excerpt it replaced has in two months. Don't get excited though, we're not talking vast numbers here. The big question, now is whether, in a month or so, any of those downloads turn into sales, elsewhere.

We'll see, if not, I'll try the 99c and live with being bitter and twisted about the difference between my perception of my worth and the market's. 

Cheers

MTM


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## nigel p bird (Feb 4, 2011)

It seems to be a sticky wicket.

If I were paying above $6 for an e-book, I'd be looking into getting a hard copy.  Keeping in mind that the kindles aren't cheap in the first place and that one can also download real classics for free, we need to be careful.  Throw in to the ring the fact that many haven't been through the traditional gate-keepers of agents and publishers and may well not have had the benefit of word of mouth or quality reviews, keeping things cheap doesn't seem unreasonable.  I paid £5 for Simon Logan's 'Katja And The Punk Band' and less for Emma Donoghue's The Room.  I also have a collection of work by Chris Holm for 71p and Allan Guthrie's novellas at 71p each - they're superb pieces and I couldn't justify charging more than that.  
My thought when I priced was that, until a wide range of people I don't know have offered me reviews, the 99 cents tag will make it more likely someone will take the chance.  Once they have it, I know that the quality will give them a lot of pleasure and they'll have the satisfaction of knowing they got themselves a real bargain.
If my novels get up to scratch and I feel they're worthy of publication, I hope my reputation has grown to the point where readers are looking our for it and that I can give them another bargain in the process.  
Eventually all these things will find balance, but for now I'm happy to be in the bargain basement.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Can we agree selling 100,000 copies is pretty successful?  That's 1 of every 3,000 Americans. Probably 1 of 6,000 English speakers.

I know the factor changes when we limit consideration to readers and the total number of Kindles, Nooks, Androids, iPhones, etc. We can also note not everyone reads. But it's still just a sliver of the market.

We don't have to satisfy everyone. We can't. No reason to try.


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## Stephanie Golden (Dec 24, 2010)

I'm a bit distressed to see prices for books and stories quoted by volume, as though they were pounds of potatoes or bars of soap. A lot goes into writing that can't be quantified that way. Research. Revision. Thinking. As magazine writers like to say, it's harder to write short than long because of the additional effort (and skill!) needed to compress information into a tighter space. 

Of course a 100,000-word novel will be more work than a 50,000-word one, but still equating length with price in such a cut-and-dried way fails to recognize the kind of craft that writing involves. Am I just being old-fashioned?


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## mesmered (Feb 2, 2011)

I launched the fantasy The Stumpwork Robe a few days ago at 99 cents and if I pause to think - yes it does make me feel that all that work might have been cheapened. But amongst a plethora of e-book publications, one has to start somewhere and like @Monique, if I can establish a good reader-base, then I will increase the price on the sequel to $2.99.
I prefer to think of the lower price as an opening special. If it gives readers a chance to purchase that they may not have had then I am content. If the writing is considered good, a readership will follow. Readers know what they like and even a low-priced book is as capable of being cast aside AND reviewed as badly as a more expensive one. The risks are the same.

The bottom line must surely be that if a cheaper book encourages readership, is it not doing its primary job as a book?


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2011)

Archer (the Dinosaur) said:


> Perhaps, rather than 'indie author', we should substitute 'new/unknown author'.


Everyone is unknown to a very large portion of the buying public. Nobody knew who Stephenie Meyer was when her first book came out. Nobody knew who Stephen King was until his first story was published. If you are worried about being "unknown" then go make yourself known to _your target market_. That is what I did before I started Bards and Sages. I made myself known to the people I wanted to sell. I published short fiction in various markets. I got involved in horror and RPG communities online. I freelanced. I ran demos at conventions. I don't need to be a household name. I just need to reach gamers and people who read horror.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

(from me, yesterday) Perhaps, rather than 'indie author', we should substitute 'new/unknown author'.

That comment was made in response to the statement that 2.99 is perceived to be the upper limit for an indie book. While I agree that no one is going to know if we're indies unless we tell them, my point is that many readers seem unwilling to pay much more for an unknown, indie or otherwise.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

'tis better to be relatively obscure than totally obscure, even if your name isn;t Jude.  

Edward C. Patterson


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Stephanie Golden said:


> I'm a bit distressed to see prices for books and stories quoted by volume, as though they were pounds of potatoes or bars of soap. A lot goes into writing that can't be quantified that way. Research. Revision. Thinking. As magazine writers like to say, it's harder to write short than long because of the additional effort (and skill!) needed to compress information into a tighter space.
> 
> Of course a 100,000-word novel will be more work than a 50,000-word one, but still equating length with price in such a cut-and-dried way fails to recognize the kind of craft that writing involves. Am I just being old-fashioned?


Speaking as a reader, I wouldn't pay more than a buck for a short story (sub 10k). If it's that hard for a writer to write a short story, then s/he is welcome to write something longer. But for something that I can read under an hour, I don't see why I should pay more.

If it's about the hours / effort per work, then you can also argue that somebody who writes slowly should be paid more per copies v. somebody who's very prolific. Readers really don't care. It's about what they perceive to be valuable, and in general, to THEM, one short story is worth less than one full length novel, provided that both are well-written.


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

mathewferguson said:


> To worry about 99 cents books becoming the psychological fixed price point is futile. You can't control the market. There is really no way to form price-fixing cartels online because the creative destruction sweeping through dissolves their power. The big traditional publishers are currently trying without success to price-fix and it is worthless. Piracy is hammering them and will continue to do so until they bend to the demands of the market. I know writers want to value their books at what they think they are worth but it is the market that decides the value of your work. Yes, that hurts, especially when the market decides your work is worth next to nothing but it is something we must accept.


Exactly! People will pay what they think your book is worth. That's the key. It doesn't matter what you think a book is worth. If people aren't buying it, they are telling you otherwise.


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

NadiaLee said:


> Speaking as a reader, I wouldn't pay more than a buck for a short story (sub 10k). If it's that hard for a writer to write a short story, then s/he is welcome to write something longer. But for something that I can read under an hour, I don't see why I should pay more.


I agree. I won't pay more than a buck either. There are too many books out there to choose from, and unless I know and love the author already, I'm stingy about what I'll spend money on. This is why I'm one of those readers who seek out the $0.99 indie books or free reads to find the next author I'll love enough to spend that $2.99 or more on their next book. I've found a couple of great authors this way and happily paid the $2.99 or more on their next book. When you're new, a lower price can work in your favor, and when you've gained enough momentum, you can publish your next book for a higher price. That's what I'm planning for my next book.

BTW, I rarely buy traditionally published books because they are too expensive for my taste. But I know some people who won't buy anything under $2.99. It takes all kinds to make the world go around.


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## mesmered (Feb 2, 2011)

I so agree with Ruth Ann Nordin and mathewferguson. As with anything, people WILL only pay what things are worth to them. Look at e-bay, real estate, anything really. And if that's what the market dictates, then we not likely to change it. Lovely Buddhist saying: 'Don't try to bend the river.'


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## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

Victorine said:


> Well, my dead-beat boyfriend is paying me over $7,000 for January sales. And over $3,000 for December. I'm pretty happy with my dead-beat boyfriend. Sure, I *might* get paid more if I change him for a brand new not so dead-beat guy, but there's a chance the new guy will pay me less. (Shockingly, it's happened to other people who changed in their dead-beats.) Sorry if you all feel sorry for me, sticking with a loser boyfriend.  (I actually really like that analogy. And I'm not being snarky at all.) Vicki


Yeah, my loser boyfriend paid me a lot more too. That's why I went back to him. Each author has to do what is working for him/her. This is not a black or white issue.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Ruth Ann Nordin said:


> Exactly! People will pay what they think your book is worth. That's the key. It doesn't matter what you think a book is worth. If people aren't buying it, they are telling you otherwise.


Actually, the key is that it's a mutual deal. If either party is dissatisfied, the deal is off. You don't have to sell it.

But the biggest thing is that for books, there are much much more important factors than price (as long as the price isn't outrageous). If people aren't interested in paying what the book is worth, maybe they're not your audience. The thing people really hate to waste the most is their time. No price is low enough to get people to buy a book they're not interested in.

Camille


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

To piggyback on Camille's comment: 
The other 'down' side to inexpensive books is that, while our sales will undoubtedly increase (mine sure have), we fall victim to the dreaded 'one-click finger' syndrome. Some readers will one-click on inexpensive books without sampling, without reading reviews, and they may be disappointed in their purchase. Readers who sample _Elfhunter_ first will know exactly what to expect from my writing--if they buy it, they'll probably enjoy it. But the one-clickers may buy it expecting something completely different. They get upset that their expectations (based on limited information) are not met--and the next thing I know there's a bad review on my book page.

Well, since the point is not only to have readers, but to have happy readers, I will have missed the boat. I just have to realize that massive sales equals a greater chance of dissatisfaction. So far, the happy readers still outnumber the unhappy ones...thank goodness! But I'd really prefer that anyone interested in purchasing my books sample them first. Then everyone should be happy.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Which of course circles back to the point that nobody will know you are "indie" unless you actually tell them. If you have a professional looking book with a professional book blurb and presentation, the average consumer won't know whether or not you are "indie" or "traditionally published. And really, most people don't even know what indies mean when we say things like "traditionally" published. They don't draw that line in the sand. WE do that. There are really only two groups that use the term "traditionally published" on a regular basis, indie authors and people who spend too much time on author sites.


I think pricing yourself at $0.99 or $2.99 screms "indie".


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## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> I think pricing yourself at $0.99 or $2.99 screms "indie".


And this is a bad thing? It hasn't seem to hurt the 8 indies sitting in the Top 10 of the Mystery category.


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

Bloggers have been talking about the 'New Age of Pulp Fiction.' which makes sense to me. The reader will buy at what they feel is the right price for that work.

So if my first work sells best at $.xx, I leave it there. Book two comes out at $x.xx - if it sells well, I leave it there. If not, I drop the price until it hits it's sweet spot. If my work consistantly sells at 'Pulp Fiction' prices, I get busy and write more.

Some people are going to be able to sell at 'Slick' prices (or even 'Pro' prices, lucky dogs!) from there first book. I may have to work my way up, or maybe I never get there. The reader decides.

I'm all in favor of pricing by length - as it seems fair to the reader. See this blog for my conclusion if you'd like.

I'm experimenting now with the Icy Road short story collection. I suspect they will sell very well at 'Pulp Fiction' prices.

I may even tag them 'Pulp Fiction' just to give them a tag. Some way to tell the reader what to expect.

Some people may not like the tag. I think it's better than "dead beat boyfriend" pricing. But I have a dry, twisted sense of humor.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

karencantwell said:


> And this is a bad thing? It hasn't seem to hurt the 8 indies sitting in the Top 10 of the Mystery category.


She was responding to the worry that readers won't pay more for an indie author.

How do I put this? When you say "I have to price low because people won't pay more for an indie" it makes no sense. It's circular reasoning. The only way they know you're an indie is by your price. (Assuming that you have a good cover, etc.)

If you don't think it's bad to scream "indie" and that's not why you are pricing low, then the issue is moot.

Camille


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Here's a great site for the $ .99 crowd with a Buy One, Get One FREE program.

http://excusememissptd.blogspot.com/p/99-cent-ebooks.html

Edward C. Patterson


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

I think the way to look at it is as an opportunity. When you launch a book you can play around with the price and find one that suits. At the moment I'm trying giving one format of my e-book away and charging for the rest. This may not work, I've chosen a nice short month to see if anything happens. If it doesn't, I know what to do (lower the price). 

I don't know this market but I used to be one of two marketing managers at a UK household name so I do have a reasonable handle on marketing, generally. The only way to learn is to jump in and try different things until something works. So, at the moment it looks like my pricing isn't working, although people are definitely downloading the freebie of my book. I will probably keep my US price up and bring my UK price down. All my UK sales have been achieved at 99c apart from the first month (which was probably friends and family). 

I think whoever said the market decides is bang on. It may be that we have to be 'real' or see a 99c tag on our first books as an apprenticeship price. It may also be that we should start looking for other ways to make money from our books. I use Zazzle, a kind of lulu for artists to create postcards of characters and the like. If readers buy for 99c and like my work enough to buy the merchandise, that support might make the low price of the book worth it. Kind of the same as the way many mid list authors make their bucks doing talks and visiting schools (where appropriate) rather than from the actual books.

Cheers

MTM


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

We might want to look down the road a bit and think about world pricing. 

Suppose we had Amazon India that was similar to Amazon UK. Let's say one can make a total annual profit of 10 on Amazon India selling an eBook at $5, but one can make a total annual profit of 100 selling at $1. It may be revenue is maximized by selling at $5 in the US and $1 in India. Perhaps there are different points for US and UK right now. Amazon China might have another price.

There will be different demand curves in each economy, so it's rational to set different eBook prices for each economy.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> We might want to look down the road a bit and think about world pricing.
> 
> Suppose we had Amazon India that was similar to Amazon UK. Let's say one can make a total annual profit of 10 on Amazon India selling an eBook at $5, but one can make a total annual profit of 100 selling at $1. It may be revenue is maximized by selling at $5 in the US and $1 in India. Perhaps there are different points for US and UK right now. Amazon China might have another price.
> 
> There will be different demand curves in each economy, so it's rational to set different eBook prices for each economy.


I believe there are different demographics within the U.S. alone for which this is true. That's why I think that the model will be setting a list price higher, and having sales.

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"I believe there are different demographics within the U.S. alone for which this is true. That's why I think that the model will be setting a list price higher, and having sales."_

We certainly have different market segments in the US. However, we don't have the ability to channel them to different retail outlets and keep them there. So we're stuck dealing with a single demand function for the whole economy, and it's the sum of the demand functions for the segments you cite.

However, as we see with Amazon UK, it is feasible to channel nations to a unique retail outlet. It might not be reasonable for each individual nation, but can certainly be done on either a national or regional level.

We have a current model for this in varying drug prices in different nations. Much of that is due to protectionist legislation, but much is also due to marginal costs of production and the wealth levels of national economies. The same drug sells for widely varying prices across the globe.

We really can't tell if a high or low price will max revenue in the US because we simply don't have either sufficient data or a sufficiently developed customer base. Maybe we will see prices vary with season.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> _"I believe there are different demographics within the U.S. alone for which this is true. That's why I think that the model will be setting a list price higher, and having sales."_
> 
> We certainly have different market segments in the US. However, we don't have the ability to channel them to different retail outlets and keep them there. So we're stuck dealing with a single demand function for the whole economy, and it's the sum of the demand functions for the segments you cite.


Except we DO have the ability hit those different demographics. It's a well established marketing practice -- price high, have sales, coupons and specials so you hit the more price sensitive demographics.

That's why I think using 99 cents as a "loss leader" is not as good an idea as it sounds. (It's not a bad idea, just not as good as all that.) Sure there are some people you will lure into reading your more expensive books, but most of the 99 cent crowd is a 99 cent crowd. Also, they say it often takes more than a couple of books to "hook" a reader.

If you start with your price higher -- i.e. where you think it "ought" to be -- then you get the higher spending crowd first. Have a sale on Book 1, and you get two groups joining in, those who are reluctant to try at a higher price, and those who never buy at a higher price. After that some of the reluctant ones will go to Book 2, but not all, and none of the lower price people will. So after a while have a sale on Book 2 -- capture the still slightly reluctant crowd and the crowd who never pay more. Repeat for Book 3.

That is something electronics and furniture stores do all the time. (Actually, it's very common in retail generally.)

This is similar to windowing -- where you start your price high and lower it over time -- except that you're doing it with sales rather than a permanent price drop. (Although some retailers combine the two -- premium prices for new releases, then lower the prices for older merchandise and also have sales off an on with an even lower price.)

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

All those things you mention are available. However, they are all dealing with the same demand curve. They just move along that demand curve. Each price point corresponds to a different sales quantity. That's reasonable.

Your other suggestion is "sliding down the demand curve." This is an attempt to capture all the area under the demand curve. If some people are willing to pay $20 for a book, yet it sells at $15, that's $5 in lost opportunity costs.

The best example of slidig down the curve I ever saw was in Saudi Arabia when cell phones were introduced. They came out at $10,000. Yes - ten thousand. Then they gradually lowered costs until they came into line with the rest of the world.

We are talking about two different situations. You deal with a single demand curve by positioning along it. I deal with different demand curves isolated from each other by internet connection. Each tactic you recommend would be used on each of the demand curves I cite.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> All those things you mention are available. However, they are all dealing with the same demand curve. They just move along that demand curve. Each price point corresponds to a different sales quantity. That's reasonable.
> 
> Your other suggestion is "sliding down the demand curve." This is an attempt to capture all the area under the demand curve. If some people are willing to pay $20 for a book, yet it sells at $15, that's $5 in lost opportunity costs.
> 
> ...


Except that I don't believe that there is a demand curve in the Publishing 2.0 (I am invoking Web 2.0 because I really think there is going to be a convergence, not just to be hip).

Yes, when a best seller comes out with a new book, there will still be a spike in demand, but for most authors, and for the backlist, the demand curve is likely to remain more steady. Remember that the so called "demand curve" is partly a result of marketing -- of use of shelf space. That is, the retailers have a limited shelf space, so they need churn. And that's been something of a modern phenomenon (especially in book retailing).

However, if you stop thinking in terms of new models replacing old, and you just look at price points, there isn't a curve. That is, your appliance section of your store has the $250 DVD player, the $129 player and the $79 player and then they have each on sale at different times. The actual models come and go -- and for that matter the technology itself comes and goes. Those price points are very similar to what there was for VCRs, and now DVRs and BluRay are filtering into those price points. They aren't REALLY a demand curve, they're just different price points for different people. The items move around, the demographics don't.

Until ebooks came along, publishing hit those price points via hardback, trade paperback, mass market paperback, discount table, premium used, discount used, and library/lending.

Those audiences are still there, and they won't change their price points. And in the meantime, unlike before, shelf life is NOT limited. So discounting and discounting until "clearance" is not an option. Instead you might do that for the first tier (hot new item) and move to the regular mid-level price -- but then you stay there. You have sales to cover the rest of the market. Furthermore, you always have some titles on sale, and always have some at the premium. You simply rotate them. That's how you hit all demographics at once.

That is, that's the strategy. I'm not particularly recommending it. I expect that's what the big publishers will do. (Actually, that's what they ARE doing more and more.) It's the only way they can expand their market to the people they used to ignore (the used market) and keep their margins.

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

I don't know what Publisher 2.0 means, so I can't discuss the existence of a demand curve for it.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I don't know what Publisher 2.0 means, so I can't discuss the existence of a demand curve for it.


Sorry -- I was using it facetiously, as a short-hand for the shift from retail to e-tail. Web 2.0 has changed a lot of things fundamentally with how information, marketing and commerce works.

What I'm really talking about a complete revolution in distribution, and the way it turns so many old world models on their heads. When you get into the virtual world, there is no such thing as supply and demand. All demand and all supply are out there at all times. The physical barriers which used to drive the old practices are gone. Some of the theory still applies, but a lot of it has been shaped by the physical limitations for so long, that they aren't recognizable.

The idea of a demand curve is partly driven by the limitations of physical distribution. You have to ship the items to a store, and the store doesn't want them to sit around, so you advertise the heck out of the stores customers and try to saturate the market as fast as possible, and once you've covered the most likely buyers, you lower the price to hit the less likely buyers and then you go on clearance to get the products OUT of the store in any way you can.

That need of the brick and mortar retailers drives an artificial demand curve. The demand is created by the retailer to make it easier to move stock.

In e-tailing, the limitations of physical distribution are gone, or are going fast. There is no need for the demand curve, and from the shifts that have gone before us, there is no reason to think there will be one. Generally, how things work on the web are the longer something is around, the more successful it is. Google rewards old web pages with higher ranking, for instance. There are fluctutations, but they are based on something other than simple market saturation concerns. (I.e. fashions are in or out, certain items are obsolete, etc.)

Every manufacturer has access to every customer, which means the limitations are no longer shelf space but mind space. Your customers can't take in all the choices they have at one time. Therefore instead of being in a hurry to get your product in front of them NOW (when they may not be paying attention) and then abandon the product, you keep the product around waiting for when the customer is ready.

You could say it's more zen approach: _when the customer is ready, the product appears_.

So your thoughts about different countries being different channels is a great one, and totally fits the new paradigm, but I'm saying we have to think more creatively and go further with it. We have to think of every customer as a channel.

Now, one more thought on how you do that, when you only have one Amazon price, and all your other U.S. prices are supposed to match it by contract. I've said this before, but in a different context: customers don't browse Amazon the way they browsed old bookstores. They can't. The new equivalent of the bookstore is the blog or website.

Word of mouth is the new Walmart. Seth Godin calls these influential people "sneezers" because they spread the idea virus of your product. We need to start thinking of them as channels too. Where and how you advertise and promote should be dictated by what audience you're trying to reach. So if you're offering a book for free or 99 cents, you alert Books on the Knob or post in a free or 99 cent book discussion on Amazon. When the book is full price, you market it differently. This is like having different prices in different channels -- yes, they are separated by time, but time doesn't matter in the new paradigm. You can do them in any order, or more likely, in a cycle.

And each of those virtual channels tends to have just enough turn over to make your marketing fresh if you stay away from them for a while while marketing to other channels.

I don't know if I helped you understand what I'm talking about or not. You might want to read some Seth Godin. He's very much the next wave marketing guru. (I recommend "Small is the New Big" and the one about the "purple cow" -- though they are both out of date, they look forward to a lot of the shifts in models and attitudes we are seeing.)

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Demand exists in virtual worlds as well as the physical. So do demand curves.

A demand curve is simply a set of points that indicate how many units will be purchased at any given price point. They don't have to be physical units. For example, at a price of Y, the number of units sold will be X. The units could be paper newspapers, internet Wall Street Journals, itunes tracks, or shovels. People have a willingness to buy based on price. It doesn't matter what they are buying. It could be physical, a service, or a digital file. They are paying money and getting something.

Demand and demand curves are based on consumer willingness to pay. Consumers are asked to pay for both physical and virtual items. They have a willingness to pay in both cases. How many they will buy at different prices gives demand curves in both cases. 

Supply curves, not demand curves, are partial functions of supply distribution. 

We can't really talk about the need for a demand cuve. It exists regardless of what we need or want. The consumer behavior that places monetary value on goods does not change because we are using computers. 

Aks 100 people what they are willing to pay for the Kindle version of the latest James Patterson eBook. That willingness to spend money for a good exists. We can plot a demand curve from that. That's all it is. We can look at our data and determine how many eBooks will be sold at $2. How may at $3. How many at $4...


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Demand exists in virtual worlds as well as the physical. So do demand curves.
> 
> A demand curve is simply a set of points that indicate how many units will be purchased at any given price point. They don't have to be physical units. For example, at a price of Y, the number of units sold will be X. The units could be paper newspapers, internet Wall Street Journals, itunes tracks, or shovels. People have a willingness to buy based on price. It doesn't matter what they are buying. It could be physical, a service, or a digital file. They are paying money and getting something.
> 
> ...


Okay, I see what you're talking about (I misunderstood, more below) but it seems to be a distinction without a difference, in terms of the approach to marketing to different price points when you are limited to one price point at a time. Or maybe I misunderstood that point too. What are you objecting to there?

Even if you have multiple demographics right this second, you don't have to address them all now right this second. In the old paradigm, you did, but now, you don't. As a matter of fact, in the new paradigm, you probably can't because of the attention deficit issue. It's non-linear. You can start high or low or whatever way you want.

The thing that's different is that the 'retailer' (i.e. Amazon) is not really the channel any more. I mean, yes, they are one channel, but they're also a warehouse, a link, a drop shipper for others. The problem is the single price at a time, but if you can't separate the channels by geography, you can separate them by time. And I'm not talking windowing (although that is one technique). I'm talking about a larger technique where the prices rotate but are stable.

Maybe that's the part of what I'm saying you don't understand/agree with? The idea that "demand" becomes stable? Here's what I'm trying to say on that (once more into the breech...) In the old paradigm, demand fluctuates, as you saturate the audience in any channel. People have been worried that you will just reach saturation faster in the new paradigm because you can potentially reach everyone at once. However, what they've found is that at any one time only a portion of the audience will be at all interested in the product. They'll have their fingers in their ears, yelling "lalalalalala!" because they don't want to be interrupted when they're busy with something else. So you never actually reach the whole audience at one time, even if you do manage to get your product in front of them all at one time.

So of those hundred people you ask about Patterson's books? Most of them aren't interested at the moment you ask, at any price. Some of them will be later. And others later yet. In the meantime, new people enter the audience pool, old people leave it. With the everything-always-there nature of the new market, that demand tends to be a lot more stable. (That's what I misunderstood you as meaning with "demand curve" the audience saturation factor -- I don't remember from my economics what that was called.) So you have all the time in the world to play with hitting this element of the audience, and that element, and the third element and back to the first.

That's not a new tactic, but it is more powerful in the new paradigm because there is no time urgency.

I'm probably just re-explaining the same stuff, but I honestly don't understand the problem you have with that strategy.

Camille


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Sorry -- I was using it facetiously, as a short-hand for the shift from retail to e-tail. Web 2.0 has changed a lot of things fundamentally with how information, marketing and commerce works.
> 
> What I'm really talking about a complete revolution in distribution, and the way it turns so many old world models on their heads. When you get into the virtual world, there is no such thing as supply and demand. All demand and all supply are out there at all times. The physical barriers which used to drive the old practices are gone. Some of the theory still applies, but a lot of it has been shaped by the physical limitations for so long, that they aren't recognizable.
> 
> ...


Right with you on this. I read the Ideas Virus a few years ago and my whole approach is based on word of mouth, selling my books to sneezers. All you need, to do that, is time and a good book. BUT I downloaded The Ideas Virus for free as a pdf - you had to pay for other formats, so I'm also giving away my book in that format. People only have to pay for the convenience of using other formats. The challenge is to find out what, if anything, they are prepared to pay.

Re the different markets, I, too, agree on this one and my main beef with Amazon right now is that, with the high cost of downloading stuff elsewhere in the world, the rest of the world demographic seems to be more in line with the lower .co.uk price. Unfortunately, the rest of the world only gets to buy from .com which means I either go for world sales and exclude the US or go for US sales at the expense of the rest of the world. My book is Brit, brit, brit - like Dr Who - so I think I will probably have to bring the dollar price right down and ignore or at least, take less acount of, the US market.

I do like that I have time to play with prices and see what works. And I also like that my product has no shelf life... I know it's a decent book, all 4 and 5 star reviews so far (mostly from people I don't know) so... one day, when enough people have sneezed... ;-)

Cheers

MTM


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Aks 100 people what they are willing to pay for the Kindle version of the latest James Patterson eBook.


Speaking of James Patterson...

Mike and I were visiting his family Saturday and his sister started going on and on about this new fantasy book she was reading that she picked up at the library. It is set in an alternate reality where magic is real and America has been taken over by something called The New World Order. The story follows a witch and a wizard as they are fighting against this evil regime. She says to me "This guy is so good I hope he writes more books!"

She was reading _Witch and Wizard_ and talking about James Patterson. She had NO CLUE who he was. NONE.

So if you had asked her blindly before she read that book what she would pay, she probably would have said nothing because she didn't know who he was.

Supply and demand applies well in commodities, but often all bets are off when we talk about non-commodity items.

I use to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners. They sell for almost $2,000. I would walk into a house to do a demo and almost every person would begin the conversation with a variant of _"You can show it to me, but I'm not spending that much money on a vacuum!"_

At the end of my demo, *one out of three people bought the machine*. Now maybe they didn't buy it for $2,000. We had negotiation room. Some bought it for $1600. Some bought it for $1300. But on average they still paid _three to four times more_ for the machine then they would have normally thought they would spend on a vacuum.

The point is that absolute price often has very little to do with purchasing decisions when it comes to non-commodity items. Perceived value means more to customers than absolute price. Other factors come into play. Emotional attachment to a brand, perceived prestige by association, peer pressure (or keeping up with the Joneses). There are a host of factors that have absolutely nothing to do with absolute price.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"Or maybe I misunderstood that point too. What are you objecting to there?"_

I really didn't object to anything, and I haven't commented on strategy. I just made an observation that we might be dealing with different price points on different demand curves defined by Amazon's different national outlets.

Beyond that, I'd say we are dealing with the same economic fundamentals we have always had. Technology may present new ways of dealing with them, and it may present new ways of exploiting them, but it's still the same basic consumer behavior.

We do have quite odd looking supply curves when marginal cost of production approaches zero, but supply and demand still intersect like they always did.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"The point is that absolute price often has very little to do with purchasing decisions when it comes to non-commodity items. Perceived value means more to customers than absolute price. Other factors come into play. Emotional attachment to a brand, perceived prestige by association, peer pressure (or keeping up with the Joneses). There are a host of factors that have absolutely nothing to do with absolute price."_

All those factors do come into play, and when aggregated over millions of people we get a demand curve. Consumer reasons for paying don't matter in defining demand. Their aggregated behavior defines demand.

The James Patterson example was simple a tool to help in explaining a concept.


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## Rick Chesler (Jul 17, 2010)

My first book, thriller Wired Kingdom was published by a small press. The paperback is $7.99, and the e-book started at $6.39 but after 8 months was reduced to $2.99. There was an initial bump in sales after the price drop, but now it seems to me that sales are about the same as before.

I kind of think that the price isn't as all-important as writers think. If a reader wants a book, they'll pay for it--2.99, 9.99, whatever. I see many high priced books out there by indie authors doing quite well. You never know what's going to hit.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

karencantwell said:


> And this is a bad thing? It hasn't seem to hurt the 8 indies sitting in the Top 10 of the Mystery category.


Not a bad thing at all - its positioning and there are benefits to positioning yourself as a "scrapper" as it were - people like rooting for the "little guy". The point was in response to someone saying no one will know if you are indie if you don't tell them - and I was just pointing out, that for the most part, the price you set your books (unless for a short term promotion) does indeed make it easy for people to determine you are independent.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

"I kind of think that the price isn't as all-important as writers think."

Price is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Another necessary condition is people have some reason to click on your book page.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> "I kind of think that the price isn't as all-important as writers think."
> 
> Price is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Another necessary condition is people have some reason to click on your book page.


Very true and now that the Christmas 99c flurry is over and they are all digesting their 200 99c e-books, people - less people certainly - still seem happy to buy mine. This month, price is definitely not having any effect on the numbers.

Cheers

MTM


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## Rick Chesler (Jul 17, 2010)

My new thriller kiDNApped has a Kindle price of $4.99, set by my publisher. My first book, Wired Kingdom, originally had a Kindle price of $6.39, but is now priced at $2.99. There was an uptick in sales following the price decrease, but now it seems like it's leveled off to about where it was before.


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