# December Money



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

First of all, I'm thrilled for everyone selling a lot of ebooks last month.

I'm also thrilled for those writers who aren't selling many ebook yet, but are showing growth. Rock on.

But while the number of ebooks sold is a nice ego stroke, it really isn't an important number.

If you want to do this for a living, the number that counts is the amount of money you're making.

Now I don't want to get into another debate of 99 cents vs. $2.99. But I do want everyone to be aware that sales figures really don't mean too much if they aren't making a difference where it counts: in your bank account.

In December, on Kindle, I sold over 13,000 ebooks, plus 900 on Createspace.

But because most of my ebooks are $2.99, and my Createspace books are $13.95, I earned more than $24,000 during that month.

If you sold 10,000 copies of a book at 99 cents, congrats. 

But if you sold 2000 copies of a $2.99 ebook, you're actually better off, because you make $4000 rather than $3600.

Now it can be said that 99 cents draws readers in and gets them hooked, so they'll buy pricier books in our backlists. And I know some writers have said they make more money at 99 cents than they do at $2.99. One writer who I've corresponded with makes more at $4.95 than $2.99.

My point is: it isn't about selling a million ebooks. It's about making a million dollars. 

So I encourage everyone, in 2011, to play with prices. Make them higher or lower for a month. Report the results. Maybe we can actually figure out what the best model is to make the most money, which, IMHO, is a lot more important that the X number of ebooks sold in any given month.

It's nice to be proud that you sold a lot of ebooks.

It's nicer to buy a new house with the money you've made.

If we keep our eyes on profit, rather than sales numbers or bestseller rankings, we're better off.


----------



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

My current plan is to keep turning out shorts at 99 cents, but try to sell longer works for more, and to bundle my shorts into higher-priced anthologies.  It works for Selena Kitt.   

I will add what I've said before, that being on a bestseller list isn't just an ego stroke.  I've sold 2000 copies of a short on B&N this month, and as far as I can tell (since I never promoted it at all, and it's not under my usual name), it sold all those copies because it got into the top 30 PubIt books, and up on the paranormal romance list, which is probably what got it rolling.  That doesn't mean it's good for ALL your books to be low-priced, but it does seem that one or two might have a better chance of getting the attention of readers.  As you say, price is something to experiment with.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Excellent post.  Thank you for it.  I agree -- not all sales are created equal.

Personally, I sell my books at $2.99.  I sold two of them for 99 cents during Christmas.  Maybe that was a mistake; maybe I lost a lot of money this way.  But I expected a bloodbath of authors chasing those new Kindles, and wanted to grab many of those new readers.  Right now, my books are back at their usual price.

Going forward, I imagine that I'll mostly stick to $2.99.  I might still offer the occasional $0.99 promo.

I still don't sell many books.  I sold just over 400 last month.  However, I see my sales slowly growing every month.  In the spring, I was selling only 100 books a month.  That grew to about 200 a month.  I don't know if I can sell 400 books in January like I did in December, but I'll try.  I intend to keep writing, release new books, and eventually join the prestigious "1k-a-month club".  I want to do that selling $2.99 ebooks.  It's hard to write and promote while working at a day job, but I'm doing it.  Eventually I'd love to write for a living.


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Here's my meager contribution to the discussion...

I'm in the middle of a pricing experiment. I lowered the price of Out of Time in mid-December from $2.99 to $0.99. The results have been interesting and I think I'm going to let it run for another week or so to try to get some non-holiday numbers.

When I reduced the price, I was selling about 10 a day on average. That means I have to sell 60 or so to maintain the same income. 

In the 16 days at the lower price I've sold 1062 books. That's about 66 books a day. The sales from the 27th skew those numbers a bit, so I'm just about at 60 a day with the new pricing. A push. Or is it?

I've gained nearly 1000 new readers and the book is in a better position to be seen by more potential buyers.

But is it wise to keep it there? I have just the one book so far, so I'm in a different boat than the loss-leader pricers.

I know that the majority of "super-selling" books here are priced at $0.99. But there are those who are selling well at $2.99. Their numbers might not be as eye-popping, but the overall take is as good or better than some of the successful $0.99 books.

My experience has taught me a few things. More sales are fun. And I don't know much more about pricing than when I started.


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

I think this is a great post because I'm at the point at which I'm trying to figure out which way to go. I have two series, one book in one (2.99) and two books in the other, the first book priced at .99 and the second at 2.99. While the .99 is selling a ton of books which should be expected, it also hugely boosted the sales of my other two books so I'm going to try a price test once the holiday madness wears off and see what happens.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Point well-made, Jack.

I have some KB faves who are doing great numbers, but cutting themselves off at the pocketbook. Their choice, but they could be doing so much better...


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Point well-made, Jack.
> 
> I have some KB faves who are doing great numbers, but cutting themselves off at the pocketbook. Their choice, but they could be doing so much better...


Maybe. Maybe not. I truly, honestly, seriously don't know.

My experiments with pricing have shown me that $2.99 is the sweet spot. But so much depends on the ebook.

In December, Trapped sold about 2700 copies at $2.99. But Disturb only sold about 400, same price. Truck Stop sold 1000 at 99 cents, but it's a short story, not a novel.

I really don't get it. To compound matters, my sales fluctuate, and my bestselling title changes from month to month.

Could I make more money, as others have indicated, by selling at $3.99? Should I drop one of my big sellers to 99 cents in a hope to get on the Top 100 list?

I. Don't. Know.

And looking at my peers' numbers, they don't seem to know either.

So perhaps were should start experimenting and sharing results so we can find any trends or similarities. Because pricing shouldn't be a crapshoot. If we don't find the sweet spot, we're losing potential money.


----------



## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

When you experiment, Jack, do you set a test price for a week? a month? In your experience, what's a good length of time to try out a different price?

BTW, I contacted your cover artist to get a new cover for Venom. I'm excited to see what he comes up with.


----------



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> If we don't find the sweet spot, we're losing potential money.


I think the sweet spot varies from author to author. I raised my novels to $2.99 for a while. Not only did my sales drop precipitously on those novels, but my sales dropped badly on my cheaper novellas as well, as if readers were offended by the fact that I'd raised prices. However, I have a lot of novellas, and all my Ellen Fisher books so far are previously published, so it could just be that readers don't perceive my books as being worth more than that. I don't think you can extrapolate from my experience to anyone else's.

Experimentation for each of us is probably the best way to figure out what works.


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Joe, I still say if you want to_ really_ test $3.99 (which seems worth a shot, to me), then I think you have to put nearly everything at $3.99 for a month (or two weeks, or whatever). If some of your books are still at $2.99 and you put others at $3.99, then you might just be pushing people toward your $2.99 books, which could really skew the research.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> then you might just be pushing people toward your $2.99 books, which could really skew the research.


But that in itself is research, and says something, doesn't it?


----------



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

It's a good thing I'm into readership and not _trinkgelt_. But I'd like to thank all those authors who give their books away to our troops on Operation eBook Drop. Over 2 million eBook coupons made available to our deployed service members around the globe by 555 Indie authors.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

It would be interesting to know the variation in sales between $2.99 and $3.99. And what of $1.99? It's so seldom used.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

kcmay said:


> When you experiment, Jack, do you set a test price for a week? a month? In your experience, what's a good length of time to try out a different price?
> 
> BTW, I contacted your cover artist to get a new cover for Venom. I'm excited to see what he comes up with.


I just hung out with Carl Graves (my cover artist--http://extendedimagery.blogspot.com) a few days ago and he showed me some of the new covers he's done. They're jaw-dropping. The guy gets better every day.

As for my experiments, they were mostly done way back in 2009, and I'm not sure they apply anymore. I went from 99 cents to $1.59 to $1.99 to $2.99 and didn't see any major drops. But my general sales have been on an upswing sing the beginning, so I dunno how much price had to do with sales.

I do know that my $2.99 ebooks outsell my 99 cents ebooks, and my worst seller is my $4.99 ebook.

I know my publisher prices my ebooks at $4.79 and they sell considerably fewer than my own self-pubbed bestsellers--as few as 1 to 6. But they also outsell some of my $2.99 ebooks.

I'm thinking that some titles may sell better at a higher price than others. Pretty much across the board, novels sell better than novellas or short story collections. For me, horror seems to sell better than thriller.

But without being able to do controlled experiments, and without having access to data from other authors, I really can't figure it out.


----------



## Sean Sweeney (Apr 17, 2010)

The thing is, with more and more ereaders -- not just the devices, the readers themselves -- the research for 2009 may have applied for 2010, but 2011 may be different. It may be different for 2012. 

Until we figure things out, the more fudging we have to do with numbers.


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

There are so many elements we can't control, but I wonder if there might not be some benefit to a group experiment. It would have to be a decent sized group with sub groups by genre, but surely someone can design a pricing experiment that can give us some data.


----------



## kyrin (Dec 28, 2009)

I try not to get too wrapped up in sales numbers and rankings.

I have been paying a lot of attention to how much I am actually making at various price levels.

I had more sales and made more money in December pricing my book at 99 cents but there is no way to know if I would have made more at a higher price. I saw the sale as an investment and marketing opportunity. The more people who like my work in the short run might help the sales of all my future titles in the long run. Hopefully this strategy will pay off for me in 2011.

The one thing I find helpful is to set a goal for myself. Each month, I set a target number and do what I can to reach that goal. Anything I make over that amount is pure profit. So far it's been working out.

Currently, my regular price is $2.99 for a novel. $1.99 for short story collections and novellas. 99 cents for a sales and individual short stories.

Okay, back to writing and figuring out my marketing strategy for the new year.


----------



## Guest (Jan 2, 2011)

I've already played this game with the first book in my series, and 2.99 was effectively turning the faucet off. 

I just changed the price of my Dark Comedy, Loose Lips Sink Ships, to 2.99 from .99. It has amazingly good search results on BN.com, so I hope it can stomach the change better. We'll see!


----------



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

Monique said:


> It would be interesting to know the variation in sales between $2.99 and $3.99. And what of $1.99? It's so seldom used.


I sell at $3.99 and $.99 and do not take the 70% royalty for any of my books. The $3.99 price works well for my 700 page books. Of course, I view pricing as a token for the reader, their time investment being the real payment. I care about their experience, so I maintain a specific principle in my branding. If a reader asks for a book, I give it to them. Writing might be a money making deal, but authoring is a sharing experience. Of course, I'm a single, aging gay bachelor (read; old queer) and have different monetary needs than others. I come from a business background (Marketing) and was successful at it (semi-retired now, although I work full time for whatever they pay me) - but I learned that the quickest way to burn yourself out is to apply ones soul to mammon. I mean, I enjoy a nice windfall of cash, but it generally gets blown on some fritter, so donating it is better way to dispose of it. I mean, most of 2009's royalties I donated to Kindleboards and other places that truly support Indies. I watch my numbers, but the only number I ever wanted was the first one and when I get anxious over a downward turn, I step back and realize that authors must create. The publisher in me - the part of my soul that necessity coopted so I could share my work, is the person I knew when I was a Director - a calculating, logical Dombey or Marley, who must be constantly controlled with posts like this one. So 3.99 .99 - 10.99 - hell I regularly buy books at $ 280.00 (love those Cambridge series - no lunch for a month), it doesn't really matter as long as you treat each sale like your first sale and savor the wonder of your art.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> I sell at $3.99 and $.99 and do not take the 70% royalty for any of my books.


I'm interested in why you're taking the lower royalty on the higher priced books. If you don't mind sharing.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

I've had my book priced at $1.99, $2.99, and $.99.  I'm making more money at 99 cents.  (Ten times what I was making at $2.99.)  Plus I'm reaching a lot more readers who might buy my next book when it comes out.

Could I now raise my price and earn even more?  I honestly don't know, but I don't want to mess with what is working for me.  I watch other authors.  I watch their sales ranks when they go from 99 cents to $2.99.  Personally, I think I'm better off right now at 99 cents.

There's also something else to consider when thinking about price.  I was approached by a foreign rights agent from Tuttle-Mori Agency, asking for a review copy of my book.  I don't think they would have even known who I was if I hadn't had a high rank.  And I don't know if they'll want my book or not, but selling foreign rights does add in to that income that I wouldn't be making had I kept my higher price and much lower rank.

So, for me the 99 cents is my sweet spot.  Of course, everyone has to find their own sweet spot, which I do believe is different for each book and author.  I do agree with experimenting on price.

Vicki


----------



## Cate Rowan (Jun 11, 2010)

This thread is timely. I keep going back and forth about pricing. For almost the entire 4+ months my book as been out, I've priced it at $2.99. I tried a .99 experiment in December but probably didn't leave it there long enough to see what a difference it could make. I had more sales at .99 but nowhere near the 6x I needed to make the same income. Again, though, I may not have tried for long enough.

If I knew that I could get 6x the sales at .99 I'd choose that, since it also means more readers. But since I didn't see that, it's a gamble. So I continue to waffle...


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Cate Rowan said:


> This thread is timely. I keep going back and forth about pricing. For almost the entire 4+ months my book as been out, I've priced it at $2.99. I tried a .99 experiment in December but probably didn't leave it there long enough to see what a difference it could make. I had more sales at .99 but nowhere near the 6x I needed to make the same income. Again, though, I may not have tried for long enough.
> 
> If I knew that I could get 6x the sales at .99 I'd choose that, since it also means more readers. But since I didn't see that, it's a gamble. So I continue to waffle...


See, it was an easy decision for me, because right away (the same day) I saw more than 6x the sales. And it's not like I hadn't tried to get sales before I lowered my price. I had done some major promotions and still sales fell flat. And I don't think I had a day where I didn't sell more than 6x my previous sales. For me, it was a no-brainer.

But I can see if I had lowered my price and hadn't seen 6x the sales, I might have increased it again. I don't know. I also see that it takes time to snowball, so maybe I would have taken more readers to more money in hopes that word of mouth might have helped with future sales.

Vicki


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I just was referring to folks who price-cut to $0.99 if they don't reach 100 copies in the first month, or their numbers dip for a week. Short-term thinking.

Ultimately, I think long-term thinking is better; price stability is better. I have no problem paying $2.99 and, as you posted, it pays a lot better than $0.99 on a full-length work. I know some folks want to get to 10K readers ASAP, but getting there quick while making less? There's a point at which a person needs to loss-lead... but at some point, one needs to trust that they can get there at $2.99, y'know?

I've bought several of your books (not all) and to be honest, Jack, it's the concept that leads me to hit "Buy," not price.

I mean, if I'm looking at ENDURANCE at $2.99, or TRUCK STOP at $0.99, what makes me choose? Not price... I pick the one where the book blurb interests me more. (I will admit that I made the error of buying both TRUCK STOP and SERIAL UNCUT, realizing only later on that all of TRUCK STOP was contained in SERIAL, LOL)...

That'll teach me... 



Jack Kilborn said:


> Maybe. Maybe not. I truly, honestly, seriously don't know.
> 
> My experiments with pricing have shown me that $2.99 is the sweet spot. But so much depends on the ebook.
> 
> ...


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Cate Rowan said:


> If I knew that I could get 6x the sales at .99 I'd choose that, since it also means more readers. But since I didn't see that, it's a gamble. So I continue to waffle...


This is where it gets weird.

In an unlimited potential fanbase, you could keep selling forever. And since ebooks are still in their infancy, one could bet that the market will continue to grow to the point it can never be saturated.

But can it be saturated?

If there are 1 million potential readers of your book, perhaps you'll reach all of them at 99 cents. But then, sales will slow down or stop completely.

But if you were $2.99, you might not sell as many ebooks as quickly, but each one you sell is 6x the money, and you may sell for a longer period of time. Perhaps your book will sell for five years, rather than two. And though you don't saturate the market, you may hit 400,000 or 500,000, It just takes longer, because people prefer the lower price.

So 99 cents may be trading quick sales today for more lucrative sales tomorrow.

Or not. I dunno.


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

I'm not sure what impacted the huge sales number difference I had between Nov and Dec but I really think the fact that I dropped one of my books to .99 was probably the biggest reason. 

In Nov I sold about 5,000 books (had two books at the time). 

Then in Dec, I came out with a third book (it was the second in a series) and I dropped the price of my first book to .99 and ended up selling nearly 23,000 books total. 

I can't help but think the .99 price tag was really the main reason I did so well. I mean, sure, it definitely helps when you put out another book and the holidays had a lot to do with it too, I'm sure. 

I guess the point is that there were just too many variables so I can't really say it was any one thing. 

I will definitely be doing a price test in the near future though so if someone wanted to organize a mass price test, I am game!


----------



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I suspect that every book has its own sweet spot and that probably different genres and authors also have different best prices. If a lot of us experiment and share info it may help, but I bet there will always be that individual difference.

While I'm enjoying every bit of this indie business, the fact that I can't pin down what does and doesn't make for sales continues to flummox and frustrate. I suppose if the big traditional pubs couldn't get it down to a science in all their decades of working at it, it's not that much wonder that little one and two-book sellers (now three) like me can't.

Seeing Craig's post just now, I have to say I'm different than he is. Price does make a difference for me. If I'm going to try a new author and see a list of his/her books, I'll almost always go for the least expensive first. A less appealing description will change that, but all things being equal, I'll take a chance on the least expensive first - and I always sample first to boot. So don't forget that there are cheap and cautious buyers out there.


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Ultimately, I think long-term thinking is better; price stability is better.


I was just about to agree with you and say something that Joe just said about quick sales vs longterm sales.

I think Michael J Sullivan is a good example of staying with a good price (his are at $4.95 and $6.95) and seeing it pay off eventually. He didn't get insane sales numbers at first (though he did well), but now that he is hitting insane sales numbers, he's making 70% of $4.95 and $6.95; he just sold over 10K books this month. Now that's a payday.

I think Victorine is one clear example of why 99 cents can be very powerful, too. I really believe there's a place for that price, especially for the first (or second in Sullivan's case) book in a series.

Btw, I just noticed that Avempartha is free again at Amazon! Robin, how did that happen? Holy schnikey, you're going to take over the world


----------



## John Hamilton (May 6, 2010)

What's most amazing to me is that we're having this conversation at all. Authors discussing marketing and pricing strategies on their own books? Inconceivable! The keys to the asylum have truly changed hands, haven't they? 

When I dropped _Night Touch_ down to $.99, I saw about five times the sales. But Halloween occurred during that month-long experiment. I've always wondered if I missed out, that maybe sales would have risen anyway. It's back up to $2.99 now, and so is my newest book. I sell less, but make more. Hope I'm making the right choice.


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

My experience is the same as Vicki's.  My sales numbers were low until I changed my price to .99 cents.  That first month after lowering the price I DID make MORE money than I was making at $2.99 because my sales were so much higher.  So the question is, would I make more money if I raised my price now?  Would I sell more?  Less?  The same?  But, because I only have the one novel title right now, I've decided on this tactic:  leave it at .99 cents since it's the first in the series.  When the next two come out in this year, I'll price them at $3.99 and hope enough people enjoy the first that they won't think twice about the higher price for the next two.

Now, once I see a pattern from there, I'm open to experimenting.  A little.

Oh, and I agree - it's SO great that we're even having this discussion.    I sure do love the control.


----------



## SpearsII (Jan 16, 2010)

I find it telling and interesting no one has mentioned $9.99 or my personal favorite the Follett model of $19.99 as a price range. Are we indies thinking we can't sell books at those prices? I am the first to admit I am scared to price higher than $2.99.  It is doing great things for me and my wife, why change? At the same time I see lots of books in our also bought lists marked at $9.99 or higher.  I wonder how our (indies) pricing is going to change the over all market? Will the rise of best selling indies make others drop their prices or will a select few of the best selling indies rise to a $9.99 price? 

Ps. I have never bought a e-book over seven bucks so I don't think we will ever use the $9.99 model for what its worth.


----------



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Will the rise of best selling indies make others drop their prices or will a select few of the best selling indies rise to a $9.99 price?


Some of this depends on the genre. I can't reasonably expect my romances to sell at $9.99 when so many well-known romance authors have books going in the $6.99 range. I don't know what's typical for other genres, but I do think we as writers have to be conscious of our genre and price accordingly.


----------



## WilliamEsmont (May 3, 2010)

I had my latest work priced at 2.99 for most of December and sales were modest (1-5/day). I dropped it to .99 for the period between Christmas and New years and sold 2x that number. Today, I raised it back to 2.99 and 
I've had 8 11 (just checked DTP) sales so far spread between the US and UK.

Once the sequel for this book arrives (late spring), I may drop the price of Patriot to .99 and use it as a loss leader. Then again, I may price the new one at 3.99 and leave Patriot where it is. We'll see.


----------



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

WilliamEsmont said:


> I had my latest work priced at 2.99 for most of December and sales were modest (1-5/day). I dropped it to .99 for the period between Christmas and New years and sold 2x that number. Today, I raised it back to 2.99 and
> I've had 8 sales so far spread between the US and UK.
> 
> Once the sequel for this book arrives (late spring), I may drop the price of Patriot to .99 and use it as a loss leader. Then again, I may price the new one at 3.99 and leave Patriot where it is. We'll see.


BTW, a loss leader is FREE. $ .99 yields a royalty and is therefore not a loss leader.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> BTW, a loss leader is FREE. $ .99 yields a royalty and is therefore not a loss leader.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


Actually, I'd think of a loss leader as something a retailer sells at a loss to attract customers, so the product doesn't have to be free. Auto dealers sell cars as loss leaders that are essentially at their cost, but they're certainly not free.

Then again, since our costs are minimal, I get your point.


----------



## kyrin (Dec 28, 2009)

kcmay said:


> I'm interested in why you're taking the lower royalty on the higher priced books. If you don't mind sharing.


I know why I did it. Using the lower royalty rate for my book paid off when it was listed for free. That was a calculated risk on my part but it's something to keep in mind if your book is listed at a number of sites especially if you don't have control over what they may price your book at. With the lower royalty rate, you still get paid based on your list price. At the higher royalty rate, you are paid based on what Amazon's sale price is.

Also, there are a few other differences in the royalty agreements that can affect the writer and readers. I suspect there will be even more differences in the near future otherwise no one will ever choose the lower royalty rates.

Course, Ed could have other reasons for choosing 35%.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

John Hamilton said:


> I sell less, but make more. Hope I'm making the right choice.


Not necessarily, John. That's the debate. There are authors who try to go lower and actually see a decrease in sales. Not money. Sales. I don't think a few days is enough. You'd have to change your price for a month, and I know that's scary for some folks.

Readers expect to pay a certain amount for a certain value. The key is conditioning them to pay that value. Assuming a great cover and a great blurb, then the only way to do it is the writing, I think.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> BTW, a loss leader is FREE. $ .99 yields a royalty and is therefore not a loss leader.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


Except that Amazon doesn't allow indies to price at FREE, Ed. $0.99 is as low as an indie can go without Amazon making it free on their initiative.

Considering one is making $0.35 compared to $2.09, that's as close to a "loss leader" status as indies can get within the DTP system.

Your strict definition doesn't quite fit. After all, when Sony brought their PlayStation 3 to market, they priced them slightly below cost at $299 and $399. But $299 and $399 isn't free, so they're not a loss-leader? Sony loses money on hardware in order to sell games, where the real profits are made.

So, by comparison, it's very hard to cover reasonable costs on a $0.99 book (cover design, proofing/editing, promotional efforts and ads)... you have to reach rare and incredible numbers to do it. So in the end, you are probably losing money overall to gain readers... That fits my definition of a loss-leader.

But if the goal is to sell other books at $2.99 and get the better royalties available there... it's a solid strategy, even if you're losing money overall for a long, long time on that first, $0.99 book.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

I just checked my sales, and with an hour left in the day I've made $1300 on DTP and Createspace so far today.

Now I'm assuming that's a holiday bump and won't last. But even if sales drop in half, that's $237,000 a year.

In comparison, $235,000 is the advance I got for writing my six Jack Daniels novels, which was paid out over 7 years. And that was considered a very decent advance.

I'm in awe of this money, to the point I really can't wrap my head around it.

I'm pretty sure, if I dropped my prices to 99 cents an ebook, I wouldn't be able to sell 3900 a day--which is what it would take to earn the same amount of money. 

While 3900 a day does happen in the Top 10, or in the Top 100 if you have multiple ebooks, I really think 650 a day is a more attainable goal, even if the price is $2.99 vs. 99 cents.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> I was just about to agree with you and say something that Joe just said about quick sales vs longterm sales.
> 
> I think Michael J Sullivan is a good example of staying with a good price (his are at $4.95 and $6.95) and seeing it pay off eventually. He didn't get insane sales numbers at first (though he did well), but now that he is hitting insane sales numbers, he's making 70% of $4.95 and $6.95; he just sold over 10K books this month. Now that's a payday.
> 
> ...


There's one other factor with pricing higher that I'm not sure anyone's mentioned. If your goal is still to be picked up by a major publisher, I think you're far more likely to do it at a $4.95 or $6.95 price range than at $2.99 or $.99 -- even with much lower sales. Why? Because with their costs, they can't make money at $2.99, but if you're closer to their usual price point then they can reason that with their extra distribution they'd see higher sales than you. At a lower price point, it's too easy to brush off your success as a bi-product of your price and not of your great book.

Now whether it's worth it to be picked up by a major publisher, that's a whole other debate. If you're in this for the long term, I think it makes sense to do a mix of both traditional and indy publishing (that's my approach), so you maximize your readership, but that's just my opinion. You might even make less money short term, but I think it's still worth it over the long run. Your goal is to make money, yes, but the best way to do it is to build a large audience.

Which gets us back to the original debate about price points. Sigh . . .


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> I really think 650 a day is a more attainable goal, even if the price is $2.99 vs. 99 cents.


Thank you for that, Joe. You may be trying to wrap your head around the money you made; I'm trying to wrap my head around that goal. 650 a day. Wow.

But then, I didn't even think two months ago when I decided to leap into this new world of publishing with both feet that I'd be doing as well as I already am. So who knows.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Scott William Carter said:


> Not necessarily, John. That's the debate. There are authors who try to go lower and actually see a decrease in sales. Not money. Sales. I don't think a few days is enough. You'd have to change your price for a month, and I know that's scary for some folks.
> 
> Readers expect to pay a certain amount for a certain value. The key is conditioning them to pay that value. Assuming a great cover and a great blurb, then the only way to do it is the writing, I think.


For me the problem was obscurity. I wasn't getting noticed, and I didn't have any kind of a budget for spending on promotion. So, I let my price bring me out of obscurity. Instead of spending money on promotion, I took a loss by pricing super low and letting Amazon recommend my book. For me it's working. I don't have out of pocket money to spend on KND or other such ads.

I think it's a great idea to let your book cover, blurb, and writing sell the book. But if no one is visiting your page, looking at your book cover, or reading a sample of your writing, it won't help sell your book at all.

Vicki


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Victorine said:


> For me the problem was obscurity. I wasn't getting noticed, and I didn't have any kind of a budget for spending on promotion. So, I let my price bring me out of obscurity. Instead of spending money on promotion, I took a loss by pricing super low and letting Amazon recommend my book. For me it's working. I don't have out of pocket money to spend on KND or other such ads.
> 
> I think it's a great idea to let your book cover, blurb, and writing sell the book. But if no one is visiting your page, looking at your book cover, or reading a sample of your writing, it won't help sell your book at all.
> 
> Vicki


The baby-blues on your book cover got my attention, initially. I bought when you were still $2.99 and felt I underpaid, after reading it.

I think you're using $0.99 to build audience quite well... but I'd strongly urge you to keep future novels at $2.99. Trust that your novels are worth it. NWSS is a great intro to your writing. Now that 15K readers or whatever you're up to know you... Trust that they'll follow you at $2.99. Set it and keep it there. Because anyone who's read NWSS will pay $2.99 for whatever's next.

Maybe not overnight... but keep the long haul in mind, as Jack advises.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Scott William Carter said:


> Thank you for that, Joe. You may be trying to wrap your head around the money you made; I'm trying to wrap my head around that goal. 650 a day. Wow.


It's actually not that great. Sullivan and Hocking are pulling better numbers with fewer titles. I've got 19 ebooks on Kindle. Today, one sold 200 copies, two others sold 100 each, and the others were 60 or less.

But even if sales slow down dramatically, I'm releasing at least 7 more titles this year, and every time you release a new ebook, you get a bump across all titles.

The lesson here is: write faster.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

I see your point, Joe, and I agree with you... you are probably making the most money at the $2.99 price.

I, however, was only selling 3 books a day at $2.99.  And that was even after a KND short and being featured on Daily Cheap Reads.  So, if I figure that up over a year that would have brought in about $2,136.

I sold 545 books today.  That might not last, but for duck soup let's just calculate what I will make in a year with those crazy numbers.  $67,907.  Crap.  That's more than I ever thought I would get from a traditional publishing deal for one goofy book I wrote while I was too sick to do my real job.

Even if my sales are half that... that's still $33,953.  I don't live in an expensive part of the country.  We can *almost* live on that.

Now I also agree with you, at some point you do saturate the market.  However, I plan on releasing my next book soon.  And then my next.  Unless everyone who is buying my book hates it, I can probably plan on more sales.

So, for me the 99 cent price not only helped me sell a lot of books, but it brought in a lot more money.  Of course, everyone is different, so it's not a blanket solution to selling books.

Vicki


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Victorine said:


> For me the problem was obscurity. I wasn't getting noticed, and I didn't have any kind of a budget for spending on promotion. So, I let my price bring me out of obscurity. Instead of spending money on promotion, I took a loss by pricing super low and letting Amazon recommend my book. For me it's working. I don't have out of pocket money to spend on KND or other such ads.
> 
> I think it's a great idea to let your book cover, blurb, and writing sell the book. But if no one is visiting your page, looking at your book cover, or reading a sample of your writing, it won't help sell your book at all.
> 
> Vicki


I agree. I think going cheap is one tool in our toolbox to help a book get noticed. But you're not obscure any more. Those wonderful Amazon algorithms have picked you up. So at this point, you might be better off raising your price to $4.99.

Or maybe not. Who knows. That's my point -- I think it's going to vary writer to writer, even book to book. But you'd have to leave it there for a month or two and trust the process. It seems like too many writers are panicking after a week and that's just not enough time. Way too many variables.

By the way, I really, really appreciate this discussion. It's almost like Joe was reading my mind, because this is something I've been mulling over endlessly the past few days. I'm not trying to come off like I have all the answers. I have only my own meager data so far and what I've been hearing from others.


----------



## Karly Kirkpatrick (Dec 13, 2010)

Since people were talking about Carl's covers...he did mine as well and I love it!  I'll be contacting him this month about my next one!

As a noob (second month/first book), I've been tempted, very much so, to drop the price on my debut YA to .99 to get more notice. December was my second month of sales and I sold 30 ebooks...almost 1 a day at $2.99.  I sold 27 paperbacks (only 2 on CreateSpace tho...the rest were self-sales).  But I'm trying to hold steady, I think $2.99 is right where my book should be priced.  I think it'll be a couple months, possibly until my next book comes out, to really see a jump in numbers, but I think in the long run, it will pay off, or that's what I'm hoping.  I did lower my UK price after taking a look at their average ebook prices, but I kept it at 1.49 GBP, which is 1.71 with the VAT.  

It's great to see what everyone else is doing, it really gives me a lot to think about!  Good luck!


----------



## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

Jack,
good post, good ideas.  I'm hoping to join the 1,000/month crowd soon, for a 2.99 book.  If we play around with price, that's good too.  Somehow, $2.99 became the established price point for 'Indies.'  What if we formed some kind of 'union', an organization of folks who are selling at around 1K a month, and once we'd locked in about a hundred of these 'best sellers' all, at the very same time, raised our prices up a dollar?  Would that be too greedy?  Would readership fall off because we were asking for an extra dollar?  I have mixed feelings about this.  At present I'm running with a pack of historical authors, most published by the Big Publishing Houses,and they're all selling for eight or up dollars.  Would all my potential readers cut and run because my price was suddenly $3.99?  

Food for thought, everyone.  And Amazon, you would make a bit more too.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

$0.99 is working great for you on NWSS to raise awareness of who you are, Vicki. Great job.

Now, one could argue that you were selling 3 a day at $2.99 back when you hadn't reached even 1K readers yet... I don't think bumping your price back up to $2.99 would immediately shrink you back to 3 sales a day. Might shrink you a bit, but you've reached what... 10K readers now? 15K? 20K?

I think now you have momentum and you could sell at a higher price.

HOWEVER, I think you should keep NWSS at $0.99 at this point, as that terrific intro to your writing. It's working, so why bother messing with it?

But your next books should be at $2.99. Definitely.



Victorine said:


> I see your point, Joe, and I agree with you... you are probably making the most money at the $2.99 price.
> 
> I, however, was only selling 3 books a day at $2.99. And that was even after a KND short and being featured on Daily Cheap Reads. So, if I figure that up over a year that would have brought in about $2,136.
> 
> ...


----------



## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

I don't think you'll run out of readers: Has Shakespeare or Dickens?

Every year new kids graduate to more advanced reading. A few people get too busy (or pass on) and stop buying books (hopefully they've already read yours), others retire and read more. Then there's the whole market saturation thing. We've got tons of room to grow right here in the gold 'ol USA--that's not even counting the rest of the English speaking word. IMHO, there will always be new readers.

I just hope Amazon loses some more market share (even though I'm thankful for all they've done for indies), so they feel compelled give a better commission on 99 cent books, like B&N and Apple.

I feel fine with a 65 cent commission on a shorter book; 35 cents--not so much.



Jack Kilborn said:


> This is where it gets weird.
> 
> In an unlimited potential fanbase, you could keep selling forever. And since ebooks are still in their infancy, one could bet that the market will continue to grow to the point it can never be saturated.
> 
> ...


----------



## Steven L. Hawk (Jul 10, 2010)

I have one book out and it has been priced at $2.99 since being published to Amazon in July. Over that period, my sales have increased every month. Over the last three months, sales have doubled month-over-month:

July: 27
Aug: 131
Sep: 147
Oct: 270
Nov: 559
Dec: 1,189

Once the holiday season ends, and sales settle back out, I'm considering raising my price to $3.99.

If demand is still there at a higher price point (or even if demand is less, but profits are higher), it only makes sense to increase the price. If demand is not there after an increase, it's a simple matter to set the price back to previous levels. I don't think there's any other way to know for sure where _my_ sweet spot rests.


----------



## DeanWesleySmith (Dec 27, 2010)

This topic of pricing has been a huge topic of debate on my site as well over the last few months. My wife (Kristine Kathryn Rusch) and I are working very hard to get our backlist up, with only two novels so far, but a bunch of short novels and collections and over eighty short stories and some nonfiction. The sales have been low across the short fiction, as expected, between 15-20 per month per story, but when you have that much up, it adds up fantastically. And it's growing solidly every month.

And the two novels we do have up are very old books, and we started them off at $4.99 and their sales are growing slowly as well.  We have the collections and short novels at $2.99 and short stories at 99 cents. What has surprised me is how well the collections sell. That I did not expect. 

I have been leaning toward Scott William Carter's structure of starting a book out low and then raising the prices every month or even every week. I think we're going to try that down the road.

This has been a great discussion and I am beyond excited at the numbers. For old-timers like me and Kris, this new world has just turned to gold. Thanks for the great discussion.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

DeanWesleySmith said:


> For old-timers like me and Kris, this new world has just turned to gold.


That's a very important point. Coming from a traditional publishing background, Kindle publishing is nirvana.

And yet, so many of my peers are reluctant to jump on the bandwagon, and all the money is being made by newbies.

That's great for the newbies. But there is a fortune in out-of-print and shelf novels that could be selling like crazy, and I'm not sure why more of the old guard isn't cashing in.

Old dog/new trick syndrome? Stockholm syndrome?

I've got about 5000 books in my personal library, and at least 90% of them are out of print. Why aren't they all for sale on Kindle? Have authors been so whipped by the system they're afraid to try it on their own? Does self-pubbing still have such a stigma that pros don't want to try?


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> That's a very important point. Coming from a traditional publishing background, Kindle publishing is nirvana.
> 
> And yet, so many of my peers are reluctant to jump on the bandwagon, and all the money is being made by newbies.
> 
> ...


Just wait, Joe. A couple months ago, Dean and I taught 30 professional writers how to do all of this in a two-day workshop. The early adopter phase is over. There will always be the old timers who just can't adapt, but the real survivors, writers like Kris and Dean and the 30 folks in that room on the Oregon coast a couple months, they're moving in the right direction. The self-publishing stigma may not be completely dead for established professionals yet, but it's getting there.


----------



## DeanWesleySmith (Dec 27, 2010)

What Scott said. The old pros who I know are jumping like crazy in this direction, and most of the conversations we all have now is on the self-publishing topic and how best to do it, and of course, pricing is always part of that conversation. Even Lawrence Block is going at it full speed. I think as Scott said, the resistance will drop away to only a few who will be left behind quickly.  But Kris and I have upwards of fifty novels that have been reverted and hundreds of short stories each, all just sitting in files doing nothing. Those stories and novels now can come alive again and find an entirely new audience. I've read about how you wish your publisher would revert rights. Last month Kris's publisher reverted all seven books in a series that is very popular, but the publisher wasn't going to pick up the eighth book. So Kris is writing the book anyway and that series is coming back out with all books available. When we got that reversion letter we actually did a dance around the post office because we knew how much money it meant. 

I never thought I would see the day when I would be excited about a reversion letter. Things are changing faster than my old brain can hold onto at times.


----------



## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

For a new writer with a first novel, no fans, and no platform, using the $0.99 price to kick-start sales and get Amazon reviews, like Vicki did, seems to make a lot of sense.

You could view those early $0.99 ebooks as ARCs designed to get reviews that will support a higher price in the future.

Then, if the sales are good, and the Amazon reviews are plentiful and positive, raise your price, as Steven suggests, until you find the sweet spot for that book.

David


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Book length is another factor to consider in pricing and popularity. I plan to write a _lot_ of novelettes, around 10k words each, and sell them at 99c each. They're faster to write and edit than novels (for me), they're self-contained, and they're aimed at what I think is a growing market - those who aren't necessarily avid readers, might read on a smartphone, just after a lunch-hour hit of amusement.

So yes, I'm pricing at the absolute lowest point on Amazon's scale, but in terms of time and wordage, the equivalent would be a $7-10 novel. I'm happy, my readers seem happy, and two months after the 2nd in the series came out (1st has been available free all over the place for 18 months), I'm making around $150/month. Small cheese yet, I know, but it's a long-term theory I'm working on...


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

nomesque said:


> Book length is another factor to consider in pricing and popularity. I plan to write a _lot_ of novelettes, around 10k words each, and sell them at 99c each. They're faster to write and edit than novels (for me), they're self-contained, and they're aimed at what I think is a growing market - those who aren't necessarily avid readers, might read on a smartphone, just after a lunch-hour hit of amusement.
> 
> So yes, I'm pricing at the absolute lowest point on Amazon's scale, but in terms of time and wordage, the equivalent would be a $7-10 novel. I'm happy, my readers seem happy, and two months after the 2nd in the series came out (1st has been available free all over the place for 18 months), I'm making around $150/month. Small cheese yet, I know, but it's a long-term theory I'm working on...


Reminds me of the cell phone novels that began in Japan and are still very popular there. Reminds me of short stories, for that matter, which were once very popular in America, but that was fifty years ago and more, back when they were in all the magazines, when magazines were popular ...


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Eric C said:


> Reminds me of the cell phone novels that began in Japan and are still very popular there. Reminds me of short stories, for that matter, which were once very popular in America, but that was fifty years ago and more, back when they were in all the magazines, when magazines were popular ...


Yup. They were probably popular at some stage in Ancient Greece, too...


----------



## Free books for Kindle (Jan 8, 2010)

The pricing/money debate is an interesting one. I think it will vary from author to author and even book to book.  

The key is testing and being aware of possible pricing models and strategies.  Being able to calculate the effect that pricing and volumes sold has on profit is also something we should all be able to do. 

If you have a large portfolio of books, are already fairly well known and are writing in popular genres - a few lost leaders at 99c might help continue to build your sales without cannibalising your long term income stream.  The rest can probably be priced at whatever the genre will take. 

If you're a new author with few reviews and under 1,000 or so sales - a low price may help you get enough exposure to break through the obscurity barrier.  Or it may harm you because it seems too cheap to be true. 

If you're writing specialist content which is unique, have credibility in the industry and it's the kind of thing companies buy rather than individuals - you can price to the moon. There are plenty of Kindle books priced at $50+. You definitely don't want to be pricing this kind of content cheaply at $2.99. 

Lastly bear in mind that sales might quite substantially vary from month to month anyway. It would be excellent if Amazon offered some form of split testing ala Google Website Optimiser for descriptions, covers and pricing.


----------



## Scott Neumyer (Dec 8, 2010)

I can say with pretty strong conviction that I don't think I would have sold nearly as many books in my first month of launch if my price had been 2.99 rather than 99 cents.

I needed my book to be an impulse buy and it worked in my opinion. Not only did it bring in over 500 sales but it also brought in 18 reviews, 14 of which are 5-star.

That's not meant to be boasting at all. It's only meant to illustrate that, at the higher price, I'd have had a lot less readers, a lot lower rank, and a lot less reviews. And those are the main things I needed in the first month to launch it successfully and get the most exposure to set it up for future success.

Will I ever raise the price to 2.99? Probably. But for now, that was my sweet spot for launch. It's certainly different for everyone, but that worked for me. I'm willing to make a little less money at the gate for maximum exposure for the future.

Just my 2 cents. Everyone is different and I'm so proud of everyone's sales this month.

Thanks for starting this great discussion, Joe!


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Sorry I'm so late to this discussion - because it is one that I've felt strongly about for a LONG time. Not that anyone would care all that much about my opinions, but I'll throw them in anyway:


Each book has its own sweet spot
The only way to determint the sweet spot is to experiment
The sweet spot will change over time - both up and down
$0.99 makes a lot of sense as a loss leader to "other books"
$1.99 is a "dead zone" as is $3.99 for most books - better off at $0.99 and $4.99 respectively
Every sale at $0.99 is not a guaranteed reader - many are bought on impulse and hidden behind a huge TBR pile

I've always priced my ebooks at $4.95/$6.95 (except during "experiments"). I've been selling 1,000 books a month since Mar 2010 and October 2,500, November 7,500 and Dec 10,000. BUT...and this is he important point. My marketing strategy and positioning for the books has ALWAYS beeen focused on the "traditional" publishers not the "self pubs". I sell Nathan Lowell's books, they have never been anything other than $4.95 and he came out of the gate at 1,000 a month and in December with the releaes of book 2 that went to 3,000 a month.

I did experiment with the $2.99 price point - mainly from hearing people here and J. A. whose opinion I trust and it bombed for me. I sold "fewer" books at $2.99 than $4.95. Also...when I went on B&N they discounted $4.95 books to $3.98 and again my sales dropped (not profit - number of books). Once they stopped discounting such that Amazon brought the books back to $4.95 they sold more.

The only explanation I can come up with, is I left "my echo chamber" and tried to enter a new "echo chamber" the crossing did not go well - for me. But I'm a bit of an outlier because I've always sold at this higher price point. The real question for people here who have generally used the low price point is can they graduate up with success...I don't know. I've been poking David to do this with Dance of Cloaks as I think it is "ripe" for this book. I also think H.P. Mallory is in a good position to do this as well (especially with 2nd's in a series - keep the first one low- second one they have to pay more." As for Vicki...I think that $0.99 was good to "get you going" but now that you are sailing I think it is worth letting word of mouth spread the word to new buyers and increase the price to something that reflects the "value" of the work.

Please don't take offense at my next statement...it is made with the intention of making everyone "good money". My personal opinion, is the $0.99 and $2.99 price point is making a ghetto for the indies. That since so many are at that place to get sales that EVERYONE feels like they have to stay there and everyone staying there is keeping everyone else locked to that price point.

We, as indies need to help steer readers to price levels that don't "rape them" but also provides us proper renumeration for the years of hard work. I've never placed any of Michael's books at $0.99. When I buy a pack of M&M's it costs me $1.49. I can't see that a book that took years to produce is worth less than a few pices of sugar.

And Moses - as to Avempartha being "free again" - this time it was not "intentional" it is a byproduct of a slow feed to Sony Ereader that had the "old" free price and not the new "$4.95" I'm actually working hard to get that freebie gone (put it at $4.95 under 35% model - waiting for it to populate) once Smashwords gets Sony back off free I'll return to 70% model. It might take awile for Amazon to fix as they are likely shut down or skelton crew due to the holiday.

Anyway I'm very excited for people to try other price points. Do so methodically and docuemnt the process...Share the results but everyone who sees the results realize that what works for one may not work for another.

Hope this helps in some way.


----------



## Sean Sweeney (Apr 17, 2010)

I love Joe's discussions... anything with Joe's name on it usually brings hot debate, and while this isn't exactly scathing dialogue, it's great to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter.

Naomi brought up book length, and I think that has something to do with how we price our books, too. A short story can go for .99, a novella for $1.99 (I put The Mastermind at .99, just for giggles and grins), and some put novels at $2.99. I know that Imogen started Portal off at .99 as a loss leader, to get people hooked, then went up to $3.99 on the subsequent novels in the series. If the sales are there are .99, why not give yourself a bump to that price point? I may do this with the new Obloeron novels; start at .99 for the first one, then give myself a boost.

I had lunch with a local author last Tuesday, and we were discussing digital publishing. He's very interested in it, but he's also very wary of price points. He asked me why I price myself so low. My reply: "Because I'm an unknown." I don't think I could command a higher price than $2.99 for my books. Someday, maybe. In 2010? In January 2011? Probably not. He believes he could get away with pricing himself at $4.99 due to his name; we may try that with his books. 

For me, it would be nice to make a decent amount of money on my writing. My sportswriting fits 4/5ths of my income; my novel income allows me to splurge on a nice dinner or helps put another tank of gas in the car. There have been some issues getting my next book out; I think my sales would have been higher in 2010 if I could have gotten that book out. But that's a coulda shoulda woulda...

I say we make 2011 our best year... besides, it'll only get better.


----------



## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

Interesting debate. My hand hovered over the price box on DTP yesterday but then I decided against it. I think I'll sell my book at 99 cents and then put the new book out at $2,99, people are already demanding the sequel and it should be out early part of February.

Mel


----------



## Gerald (Dec 11, 2010)

Some fantastic discussion here as I've been reading through. Many of the points I was going to raise have been made (and more eloquently) by others.

Length and satisfaction have often been linked   and I think we, as writers (not necessarily just indies) need to provide value to our readers. Someone paying the same for an indie short as a trad pub novel would be unimpressed, and might put them off future indie purchases. At the moment, we have a lot of flexibility on pricing, and a lot of headroom between us and the trad pub offers.

But I do wonder whether, at some point in the future, we might all agree to a 'suitable' price for a novel-length ebook. I know not all indie writers are on here, but there's a lot. And I get the feeling if some of our big hitters were to say "The price we think works for an indie novel is $2.99 / $3.99 / $4.99", a lot of people would follow, and would set a precedent for those of us just starting on the trail and for writers with previous trad published works coming into indie publishing from that direction. We're not talking a cartel, but an acceptance that certain pricing levels work for a large number of authors in mainstream genres.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

callingcrow said:


> Somehow, $2.99 became the established price point for 'Indies.' What if we formed some kind of 'union', an organization of folks who are selling at around 1K a month, and once we'd locked in about a hundred of these 'best sellers' all, at the very same time, raised our prices up a dollar? Would that be too greedy? Would readership fall off because we were asking for an extra dollar?


I don't think that would be too greedy, but it would probably qualify as price fixing, which is illegal, no?


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Both of the last two points speak directly to my comment about indies keeping themselves in the price ghetto.  The real question is...is the $0.99 and $2.99 "what the market will bear"?  I don't think so.  It is what people unsure of the intrinsic worth of their products have decided.  I've actually read a few reviews of the lower priced books where the purchaser "felt guilty" for buying the books for so little and bought more to ease their conscious. I think we "indies" are making our own beds becaues, for the most part, the $0.99 and $2.99 is the only option the market is getting.


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

Here's something to consider--with my .99 price point, I made it onto the Amazon bestsellers list and I don't think I could have done that without the .99 price point. What I wonder now is if I raise that price point, will I fall off the list?

Maybe the bigger question is if the list even matters Do people buy books based on their bestseller status?


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Please don't take offense at my next statement...it is made with the intention of making everyone "good money". My personal opinion, is the $0.99 and $2.99 price point is making a ghetto for the indies. That since so many are at that place to get sales that EVERYONE feels like they have to stay there and everyone staying there is keeping everyone else locked to that price point.
> 
> We, as indies need to help steer readers to price levels that don't "rape them" but also provides us proper remuneration for the years of hard work. I've never placed any of Michael's books at $0.99. When I buy a pack of M&M's it costs me $1.49. I can't see that a book that took years to produce is worth less than a few pieces of sugar.


No offense taken at all, and I'm going to ask the same here of you and others in this thread: don't be offended by what I'm about to say.

The reason I like the $2.99 price point is because I've been traditionally published, so I have something to compare it to. The majority of the writers who hang out here don't have that experience, so they're basing their beliefs on current data, not old data.

Old data tells a very different story.

On my $4.79 ebooks released by my tradtional publisher, I make 82 cents in royalties.

On a $7.99 paperback, I make 64 cents.

On a $25 hardcover, I make $3.75.

These are prices that traditionally published authors have been forced to accept, because we had no other choice. You either took the offer and signed the contract, or you didn't get published. And up until this moment in history, if you wanted to make a decent living being published, traditional publishing was the only way to go.

By my best guess, I've got around 400,000 books in print around the world. Maybe more, but let's go with this number for the purpose of my example.

Since my first book was released in 2004, I've earned about $350,000 in advances and royalties. This includes everything: print, ebooks, audio, movie options.

The $350k is sort of an unreal number, because it doesn't take into account the self-promo I did. I've signed books in 40 states. That cost a great deal of money.

I think it's safe to say that I probably spent $80k to $100k self-promoting over the years.

That was money I felt needed to be spent, and I credit my efforts as the reason all of my books are still in print.

But that means my 400k books in print earned me about 67 cents each in profit.

Now, with $2.99 ebooks and minimal set-up costs, I can make $2.00 in profit. And a $2.99 ebook is a lot easier to sell than a $25 hardcover.

This isn't a ghetto. This is a gold rush.

I know hundreds of professional writers. That's not an exaggeration. Doing the convention circuit as long as i have, I've met damn near everyone writing in the mystery, thriller, and horror genres. I know some huge bestsellers, and those with smaller presses.

The number of them making $1300 a day is less than a few dozen. And those are the ones who hit the NYT list and get major coop in the bookstores and full page newspaper ads.

That isn't slumming. Compared to the past, its a cornucopia.

Now $4.95 for an ebook, by itself, may seem like a fair price. But with my past, charging that much seems greedy--almost like price gouging. Earning $3.50 on a book makes sense to me when the book is a hardcover. A hardcover is big and tangible and well-put together.

An ebook is a bunch of intangible ones and zeros, tied to a proprietary format.

I currently can't wrap my head around the idea that I should earn as much on an ebook as I do on a hardcover.

Maybe it is because I've been conditioned to accept less by the industry. Maybe because I feel that unlike movies, books are usually read only once, so they're in a way similar to that pack of M&Ms you mentioned. In fact, because ebooks can't be resold, and lent only once, they seem to be just as disposable as a bag of candy. Whereas hardcovers are forever. They can be bought and sold over and over again, for years.

Right now, I'm making a killing. Though I'm a capitalist, and I certainly like being paid for the work I do, I really can't see my writing as worth much more than the $1300 a day I'm earning. Beyond that, it becomes imaginary, and almost offensive.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've worked my tail off for much less, and been very grateful for it. Because of that, I'm hesitant to raise my prices, even if it makes me more money.

Hopefully I'll be able to change my mind on this.


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

HP Mallory said:


> Here's something to consider--with my .99 price point, I made it onto the Amazon bestsellers list and I don't think I could have done that without the .99 price point. What I wonder now is if I raise that price point, will I fall off the list?
> 
> Maybe the bigger question is if the list even matters Do people buy books based on their bestseller status?


Just to share a bit of data, I had a book that cracked the top 100 and stayed in the top 300 or lower for over two months, sold all the while at 99 cents. I raised my price to $2.99 and dropped like a rock and the book has never recovered. It is rarely below 2,000 in the rankings nowadays. One caveat: I do precious little self-marketing. No website, etc.

I should add the book cracked the UK top 100 for two weeks solid recently, I raised to $2.99 and sank to about 300 where the books sits now. Should've learned my lesson ...


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

Eric C said:


> Just to share a bit of data, I had a book that cracked the top 100 and stayed in the top 300 or lower for over two months, sold all the while at 99 cents. I raised my price to $2.99 and dropped like a rock and the book has never recovered. It is rarely below 2,000 in the rankings nowadays. One caveat: I do precious little self-marketing. No website, etc.
> 
> I should add the book cracked the UK top 100 for two weeks solid recently, I raised to $2.99 and sank to about 300 where the books sits now. Should've learned my lesson ...


Hmm, thanks for posting your experience on this! And I'm worried if I raise my price, I'll fall off the list also...


----------



## LCEvans (Mar 29, 2009)

I keep Night Camp priced at .99 because it's a children's book and not that many kids read Kindle--yet. I did see a bump in sales during December, but that was still only 48 Kindle copies sold. I had Jobless Recovery priced on sale at .99 to try to give it a boost and it sold less than Night Camp, though better than it did when priced at 1.99. I still raised the price to 1.49 yesterday, because I'd said the sale would last until January 1st and I didn't want to go back on that. We Interrupt This Date is my best seller and it's priced at 2.99. It averages a hundred or so sales a month, but I'm leaving it at that price rather than trying to boost it with a price drop. 

Talented Horsewoman is my horse mystery published by a small publisher. They've priced it at 6.99 on Kindle. I don't get much of that money and it sells better in paperback anyway. My next book is the sequel to TH and I'm done with that publisher nonsense. I'm going to indie publish. I'm thinking of pricing it at .99. It can be read as a stand alone without reading the first in the series. I'm hoping readers will like it and then read the first and later the others when they come out.


----------



## John Hamilton (May 6, 2010)

Great post, Joe, and thanks to all the contributors here. It gives a newbie like me (to the indie fiction scene) a lot to chew on.

Something I think about when I hear this talk about trying to establish higher ebook prices is piracy. I see peril there. In the bad old day of the music scene, before the iTunes Store, many people didn't hesitate to illegally download songs using services like Napster. People loved to stick it to the greedy music labels. Then Apple's $.99-per-song model came on the scene, and a sea change occurred. Music piracy isn't the big issue it used to be (at least, it isn't getting the same press it used to--I don't have actually hard data to back this up.)

If we all start charging $4.99, or $5.99, or $9.99 for an ebook, I think the resistance to piracy will definitely erode, maybe enough to seriously affect our industry. I can just hear the justification going through the customer's head: "Why should I pay $5.95 for this book, which didn't even cost the author a dime to put up on Amazon, and I don't get anything physical to hold in my hands? He/she is selling thousands of these every day anyway, the greedy &^%$R#, so I'll just download it for free on this nice torrent site instead."

I know piracy has been discussed at length on these boards, and the general consensus seems to be that it doesn't really affect sales (and may even help legit sales by increasing readership, which helps word of mouth), but if we all suddenly raise our prices (to levels _print_ authors feel is fair because it's more in line with what's worked in the past), then I think piracy becomes a real threat.

Just my two cent's worth. Fire away.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

HP Mallory said:


> Hmm, thanks for posting your experience on this! And I'm worried if I raise my price, I'll fall off the list also...


You're going to fall off the list anyway. All books do.

But do you want to fall off having made $80k, or $20k?

I know for a fact that being on the Top 100 boosts the sales of your other books. 99 cent ebooks sell in greater quantities. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but the number of indies who cracked the Top 100 were overwhelmingly 99ers. I may be only one of a handful who did it at $2.99. And when I did, I made a sick amount of money. 

Again, I don't have answers. But I'm leaning toward having a few ebooks as a 99 cent loss lead, then eventually raising their prices.

If/when I ever get the rights back to my Jack Daniels books, I think I'm going to price the first at 99 cents. At least initially. I am dropping two of my ebook prices later this month to 99 cents, and also dropping the prices of my UK ebooks, which aren't sleling well.

I also plan on releasing an ebook this year at $4.99.

Naturally, I'll post numbers to show how I've done. I encourage others to experiment and do the same. The larger pool of data we have, the more conclusions we can hopefully make.


----------



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

I'm glad we're showing readers just how some author's tick.  

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Eric C said:


> Just to share a bit of data, I had a book that cracked the top 100 and stayed in the top 300 or lower for over two months, sold all the while at 99 cents. I raised my price to $2.99 and dropped like a rock and the book has never recovered. It is rarely below 2,000 in the rankings nowadays. One caveat: I do precious little self-marketing. No website, etc.
> 
> I should add the book cracked the UK top 100 for two weeks solid recently, I raised to $2.99 and sank to about 300 where the books sits now. Should've learned my lesson ...


But what has it earned at those price points? What were you earning ranked at 300 vs ranked at 2000?


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

We are talking about "intellectual property" here it may cost "nothing" to put on Amazon but how many hours did it take to create? How many hours writing, how many editing. I need to start another thread for how many hours did you put into your books. I'm not a musician but I would think a song would take 1  - 3 weeks to write.  So yeah $0.99 for something that lasts for 3 mins and takes that long does not seem unreasonable.

But a book brings hours of enjoyment and takes months (sometimes years) to produce - is $4.99 really too much to ask for?


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

I asked Michael for some numbers - yours will vary of course: (These numbers are only "writing" - not cover design etc.

First draft 10 pages a day for 6 hours of writing producing 3,500 words so  3500/6 = 171 hours
Editing 2x first draft = 342 hours
Copy editing: 100 hours
Layout print: 5 hours
Layout ebbok: 2 hours
Proofing: 25 hours

Total hours = 171 + 342 + 100 + 32 = 645 hours. Now of course that 645 hours is going to be spread over many readers but I still don't think that a reader would begrude an author asking for less than $5 for something that took them that long to produce.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

rsullivan9597 said:


> But a book brings hours of enjoyment and takes months (sometimes years) to produce - is $4.99 really too much to ask for?


We're approaching this from different angles.

I don't believe $4.99 is too much to ask. But I think getting $3.50 of that is a bit greedy compared to what I'm used to making.

I'm not saying it IS greedy. It could very well be totally fair. But this is the mindset I have from being in the traditional publishing world.

The song analogy breaks down, because I've read my favorite books three or four times, tops, but listened to my fave songs hundreds of times over my life. And an artist selling a 99 cent iTunes song doesn't get 70% royalties. I believe they only make pennies per song sold.

The price isn't the factor here. The amount of money the artist makes is what I can't wrap my head around.

And again: i freely admit to bias and maybe being wrong about this. But someone giving me $2 to read one of my books seems fair. If that makes this media cheaper than movies or music of video games, that's great--maybe we'll draw some customers away from those other entertainment pursuits.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

My sales fluxuate too much for me to run an experiment that only lasts a month.  I do know that I make a lot more per book in the months where my novels were priced at $2.99 than lower.  

I am going to experiment in that "dead zone" this year  -$1.99 and $3.99.  I agree that pricing closer to your competition is a form of "product placement" and maybe I'd be better off a buck higher.

But my off-genre books have to be hand sold anyway.

So here is what I'm going to do for next year, or least the first half of it:

10-20k words - .99
20-40k words - 1.99
40-60k words - 2.99
60-90k words - 3.99
90k+ - 4.99

I think going by word count is a fair way to do it. I have a lot of novellas in the 30k range, and novels in the 65-75k range - so that what puts me in that "dead zone." We'll see how dead it is.  Since I have works at all lengths, though, we'll see if some prices seem to be more interesting than others. 

I might try a three months of one thing and three months of another.

Oh, and btw, my five story short collection at .99 is my best seller - but I think people treat it partly as a sampler, because I say right in the book description that it has chapters from one of my novels.  Whenever I get some promo for the novel (like when Red Adept gives it an award) the collection sees a bump in sales.  Much more so than the novel itself.

Camille


----------



## Guest (Jan 2, 2011)

rsullivan9597 said:


> But a book brings hours of enjoyment and takes months (sometimes years) to produce - is $4.99 really too much to ask for?





Jack Kilborn said:


> But someone giving me $2 to read one of my books seems fair.


The value of something is determined by what the market will pay for the product, not the amount of time that goes into making it or the vague ideas of "fair" that we have about our work. One traditional economics 101 example: a diamond is worth a lot of money and a gallon of water is not. But if you're stranded in the middle of the desert, you might well trade your diamond for a gallon of water. Such is the same with ebooks. There are comparative factors that need to be taken into account. It's about what people are willing to pay for something, not what we expect to be able to get for it.

If someone sets the price of their book higher than someone else, they can expect to lose a portion of their sales to those (in the same genre) with lower prices.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Jack Kilborn said:


> Now $4.95 for an ebook, by itself, may seem like a fair price. But with my past, charging that much seems greedy--almost like price gouging. Earning $3.50 on a book makes sense to me when the book is a hardcover. A hardcover is big and tangible and well-put together.
> 
> An ebook is a bunch of intangible ones and zeros, tied to a proprietary format.


The "format" of the book is not where the intrinsic value is...its the "content of the book". The twist that makes us go "ohhh that was good", the characters we want to spend more time with, the hours of enoyment we had.

Remember the old Star Trek episode...the human body is only a few $ worth of cheap chemicals but of course when you consider what "really" makes a person they are worth so much more .... and so are books ... IMHO.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Total hours = 171 + 342 + 100 + 32 = 645 hours. Now of course that 645 hours is going to be spread over many readers but I still don't think that a reader would begrudge an author asking for less than $5 for something that took them that long to produce.


If 100,000 people download that ebook, Michael made $542 an hour. Is that excessive? Again, I dunno.

But 100,000 isn't the cap. I fully believe I'll have books that sell 1 million copies over my lifetime.

If Michael sells a million, he earned $5420 an hour. My ebooks, priced at $2.99, will have earned me $3100 an hour.

Looking at it like that, they both seem outrageous.

In a 9 to 5 job, you get a weekly salary for the work you did that week, and never any more. Your rate of pay is fixed, and the amount of money you earn is static.

As authors, our hourly rate goes up a bit every time we sell a book.

Now I'm playing devil's advocate here, because I suspect you may be right, and $4.99 is a fair price point. But I'm just having some trouble with it.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> You're going to fall off the list anyway. All books do.
> 
> But do you want to fall off having made $80k, or $20k?
> 
> ...


Bravo, Joe. One thing I like about you, you may come off strong on some point, but you're also willing to change your mind. It's the mark of a survivor. 

If we get out of little enclaves and stop talking to just writers, and talk to readers, you're going to find very few e-Book readers who think $4.99 is "price gouging." (There's always going to be a vocal minority who say book prices are too high no matter where they're priced; there's also idiots who think information needs to be free.) It only seems that way from a writer's point of view because of the huge difference in our net compared to traditional publishing, but readers don't care about that. In fact, most of the readers I talk to are *happy* when writers make more money. I can't tell you how many people look anguished when I tell them my royalty is less than 10% on the books I sold to S&S. My mom looked like she wanted to cry. 

One other point: I applaud you sharing your data, but it will only be data that's pertinenent to your situation. That's the whole point of this. Different price points will work for different authors, different books, different situations. There's a huge demand right now in epic fantasy and those readers don't blink at good books at $4.99. Will that translate into thriller and mystery?

I honestly don't know. But I tell you one thing, if your really want to shut up those naysayers in NY who say you're only doing well because you're priced at $2.99, you can really put the fear of God in them by making bucket loads of $$$ at $4.99.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Jack Kilborn said:


> We're approaching this from different angles.
> 
> I don't believe $4.99 is too much to ask. But I think getting $3.50 of that is a bit greedy compared to what I'm used to making.
> 
> I'm not saying it IS greedy. It could very well be totally fair. But this is the mindset I have from being in the traditional publishing world.


Traditional publishing is broken in many ways...Many of which you talk about...Isn't this just another of them?

I have the advantage of not being traditionally published so when I started "my publishing" - I thought $3.50 - $6.50 for a book (what I make when I sell print books direct) seems reasonable as long as the reader is being charged what a typical book costs which is $12.95 - $14.95 for trade paperback and about $5 for ebook. I may have "stumbled" into my price point by that thinking - but its working for me and I think it could work for others.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

foreverjuly said:


> If someone sets the price of their book higher than someone else, they can expect to lose a portion of their sales to those (in the same genre) with lower prices.


In theory - yes - but I "lost sales" at a lower price point and "gained sales" at a higher one -- I'm not talking about profit - I'm talking about the total number of books sold.


----------



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> But I'm leaning toward having a few ebooks as a 99 cent loss lead...


I'm going to echo what Ed said earlier, that 99 cents shouldn't necessarily be thought of as a loss leader. I came reasonably close to paying my (painfully large) mortgage payment this month on 99-centers. Enough of anything adds up. And yes, sure, I would be making more at a higher price, IF my sales didn't drop off. But last time I raised 'em, they did. Finding the sweet spot for each of us involves figuring out how high you can raise the price without making your sales plummet.


----------



## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

Joe, you said.


> I currently can't wrap my head around the idea that I should earn as much on an ebook as I do on a hardcover.


And yet the amount of effort it took you to produce the tale, to create the experience for the reader in other words, is the same regardless of the packaging the "publisher" wraps it in.

I understand the average reader doesn't think this way, but I'm honestly surprised more writers don't look at it from this angle either.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Scott William Carter said:


> If we get out of little enclaves and stop talking to just writers, and talk to readers, you're going to find very few e-Book readers who think $4.99 is "price gouging."


My point exactly!


----------



## tbrookside (Nov 4, 2009)

> The price isn't the factor here. The amount of money the artist makes is what I can't wrap my head around.
> 
> And again: i freely admit to bias and maybe being wrong about this. But someone giving me $2 to read one of my books seems fair.


I think [and have always thought] that dollars to the artist is the key metric.

The traditional publishers have intermediated content to customers and paid authors $0.50 to $1.25 a unit - and have had more people beating down their doors to create content for them than they could manage.

That to me says that the $2.00 a unit Amazon pays to get content at the $2.99 price point will also inevitably generate all the content they need, and more.

That constitutes a pretty dramatic "gravitational force" to level the price of content down to $2.99, or below...eventually.

Some content isn't replaceable or interchangeable. The presence or absence of other books priced at 99 cents or $2.99 would have no impact on my decision to buy a new Harry Potter book. But (prepare to gasp in outrage) a lot of content _is_ replaceable and interchangeable. If every living published sci-fi author was abducted by aliens, I'd find different sci-fi writers to buy. My wife reads chick lit and food memoirs and history. The ability of one author to replace their content for the higher-priced content of another author in those genres is pretty high, judging by her statements as a fan.


----------



## RyanMWilliams (May 28, 2010)

What a great thread! It's really interesting to see what everyone is doing. I agree with Scott and others that point out that having more content can help. At least I think that's been true in my situation. I'm doing weekly ebook releases, most are short stories, but also collections and just recently another novel. With each release I put it up for free on Smashwords for a week before it returns to the regular price and gets uploaded to the other retailers. Even so most of my sales still come on the Kindle! I've tried different prices and currently price ebooks at $.99 for stories/novelettes, $2.99 for collections and $4.99 for novels. Interestingly it my sales have been improving since I started pricing the novels at that point. I wasn't selling as much when I priced the novels lower. And it's interesting how different titles sell. I have one story that's in the top 100 for its categories over on Amazon UK, that hasn't sold as well here.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> My point exactly!


Yeah, I like the way you think.


----------



## Larry Marshall (Jan 2, 2011)

One of the things authors need to think about when dealing with pricing are what factors might affect changes in the marketplace in at least the near future.  There's lots of talk here about how Amazon's royalty structure affects your decisions and there have been imprecise discussions of genre effects on pricing decisions.  But you authors don't seem to see any reason to think about DRM in this context.  I think that's a mistake.

Why?  It's not about piracy in my view.  Rather, it's about how the consumer sees book availability, book use, and risk.  Many of us believe in personal libraries, whether they be electronic or physical.  We use tools like Calibre to organize our eBooks.  Many of us have been around long enough to see formats die or change and have dealt with the struggle of juggling the format wars.  We've come to realize that we must do illegal things to keep up, even if we're not pirating anything.  I bought hundreds of eBooks before Amazon ever thought it was a good idea to sell them.

So what do people like me see in the marketplace?  We see cheap, throw-away books.  I'll buy a DRMed book priced at $2.99 and consider it a rental fee.  I'll live with the fact that I can't change the damn filename from the stupid crypto-code nonsense, can't integrate it into the rest of my library, and that I'll never be able to move it to the whiz-bang eReader that I'll want in a year or two.  

But above that price...no way.  THIS, my friends, is depressing the average price of an eBook right now.  Why pay $7 for a Konrath eBook when I can buy the paperback for that price, if it's only a rental.  Right now there are dozens of $6-10 books I'd be happy as a clam to buy but won't because they carry DRM.  Eliminate DRM, on the other hand, and the average price of eBooks will climb, at least in part because of we library builders.  In short, DRM has constructed a false ceiling on eBook pricing but it won't last forever.  

Right now, authors who release their books without DRM are getting my dollars so as you strategize, you might consider placing "distribution unlimited" in the description of your titles and price them higher if you like.


Cheers --- Larry

ps - the fact that this thread exists is exciting as it reflects what you already know - the authors are gaining control of their work.  That's a very good thing.


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

Jack Kilborn said:


> But what has it earned at those price points? What were you earning ranked at 300 vs ranked at 2000?


At a rank of 300 and a price of 99 cents I was making more than at a rank of about 7,000 and $2.99. (Don't recall the exact numbers anymore.) Around 7,000 was when I decided oblivion awaited and lowered the price back down to 99 cents and climbed back up, but only to 2,000 or so.

Every book is different and so is every author in regard to how much effort and savvy s/he puts into marketing. But more data is better than less for everyone concerned.


----------



## Larry Marshall (Jan 2, 2011)

John Hamilton said:


> If we all start charging $4.99, or $5.99, or $9.99 for an ebook, I think the resistance to piracy will definitely erode, maybe enough to seriously affect our industry. I can just hear the justification going through the customer's head: "Why should I pay $5.95 for this book, which didn't even cost the author a dime to put up on Amazon, and I don't get anything physical to hold in my hands? He/she is selling thousands of these every day anyway, the greedy &^%$R#, so I'll just download it for free on this nice torrent site instead."


I don't completely disagree with what you're saying but I will toss in a slightly different view. I've been down both roads here. Frankly, if I can be guaranteed a well-formatted book, with a decent cover, I'll gladly pay $6 for the privilege. I don't find the book world to be like the music world, at least in the sense that the quality of most pirate downloads is simply not nearly as good as what you buy. Sadly, where some of the big publishers have dropped the ball is in this area, leaving covers off their eBooks, as just one 'for instance.'

I think there's something else, and many authors have spoken of it elsewhere. Yes, we like to "stick it to the publishers" but what's REALLY great about what happening in the book world is that when I buy a book from an indie author, I know that much of the money is going to the author. That makes me feel good.

Cheers --- Larry


----------



## John Hamilton (May 6, 2010)

Larry Marshall said:


> I think there's something else, and many authors have spoken of it elsewhere. Yes, we like to "stick it to the publishers" but what's REALLY great about what happening in the book world is that when I buy a book from an indie author, I know that much of the money is going to the author. That makes me feel good.
> 
> Cheers --- Larry


Thanks, Larry! That fills me with a lot of optimism.


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Scott William Carter said:


> There's one other factor with pricing higher that I'm not sure anyone's mentioned. If your goal is still to be picked up by a major publisher, I think you're far more likely to do it at a $4.95 or $6.95 price range than at $2.99 or $.99 -- even with much lower sales. Why? Because with their costs, they can't make money at $2.99, but if you're closer to their usual price point then they can reason that with their extra distribution they'd see higher sales than you. At a lower price point, it's too easy to brush off your success as a bi-product of your price and not of your great book.


I suspect the opposite is true. I suspect that what typically attracts bigger publishers is pure _sales_ numbers, rankings, etc.. I'm sure any smart publisher will take price into account too, but they want to know that your books _sell_. They can worry about the prices later.


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> I suspect the opposite is true. I suspect that what typically attracts bigger publishers is pure _sales_ numbers, rankings, etc.. I'm sure any smart publisher will take price into account too, but they want to know that your books _sell_. They can worry about the prices later.


This reminds me Amazon Encore has taken on quite a number of 99 cent wonders.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

As long as a lot of people can be convinced that they are "greedy" if they make money, there will be aristocrats and peasants.

Is Tom Hanks greedy?
Is Oprah greedy?
Is Warren Buffet greedy?
Is Tony Hayward greedy? (CEO of BP)

I bought The Iron Duke as an ebook for 9.99. It was highly anticipated, and I got caught up in the fever. It was okay, but it wasn't great. It wasn't 9.99-worthy.

I begrudge that price a teeny tiny bit, mostly because I know how little the author got. At 6.99, I wouldn't have even a teeny grudge.

My point is, thinking about greediness/nongreediness is not useful. 

Authors should make as much as they can because $$ buys time. Without time, you can't write. And if you DO get into the 1K a month club and you quit your day job for a couple of years and write books, you'd better HOPE you make a "greedy" amount of money and save a lot of it.

Because while we're writing, while we're giving up our day jobs, time goes on. We fall out of the day job market, lose day job skills, contacts. Health care and retirement benefits.

What if you have 5 years of greediness, and then things change, fall off, sales slow, and you're looking at a future where you've got a trickle of an income and you've been out of the job market for 5 years?

= = = = = = 

Rant over.

Everybody knows I hate hate hate the 99 cent price point. Yet I have a book up at 99 cents because there has been so much downward pressure by everybody else pricing their books at 99 cents. In the world where I'm queen, the floor for novellas and first books in series would be 2.99, then 3.99 for up to mid-sized novels, and 4.99 for door-stoppers.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> I suspect the opposite is true. I suspect that what typically attracts bigger publishers is pure _sales_ numbers, rankings, etc.. I'm sure any smart publisher will take price into account too, but they want to know that your books _sell_. They can worry about the prices later.


I know what you're saying, Moses, but seriously, most publishers are primarily interested in the same thing all businesses are interested in: profit. I haven't done a survey of those writers "picked up" by traditional publishers, and there's probably not enough data to mean much, but I know this much is true: they pay a lot more attention if you're selling well at $4.95 than at $.99.


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> Again, I don't have answers. But I'm leaning toward having a few ebooks as a 99 cent loss lead, then eventually raising their prices.
> 
> If/when I ever get the rights back to my Jack Daniels books, I think I'm going to price the first at 99 cents. At least initially. I am dropping two of my ebook prices later this month to 99 cents, and also dropping the prices of my UK ebooks, which aren't sleling well.


This is pretty much the pattern I'm following. I have two series, the first book in each series I plan to market at .99 and the follow up books each will be 2.99. I basically am following the same formula that Amanda uses so I figure it can't be bad! LOL


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Lots of good points are being made here.

Going back to the whole "union" idea--there's actually some gravitas in that.

A few months ago I floated the idea of having an organization of and for self-pubbed Kindle authors.

The idea is that it's good to be part of a bigger group, made up of like-minded people, who have similar interests at heart.

Most genres have organizations, MWA, RWA, ITW, SFWA, HWA, NinC, the Author's Guild, etc. But none of them addresses what a Kindle author is going through, or needs. In fact, the average Kindle author wouldn't be allowed to join any of them.

A "United Authors" group could be helpful. There could be a yearly convention with panels, where e-authors an e-readers get together. Awards. An open exchange of information and ideas. A hub for sales. And don't discount strength in numbers. If 2000 indie authors, comprising the top sellers on Kindle, all decided to raise their prices $1, or boycott some unfair practice, we could actually change the industry.


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Eric C said:


> This reminds me Amazon Encore has taken on quite a number of 99 cent wonders.


Yep.

If my only goal was to get a traditional publishing deal, I would probably put everything at 99 cents so I could hopefully go to the publishers and show them my high sales figures and reviews.

That's not my only goal, though, so I'd rather try to get a good revenue-generating business established independently first and then treat a good publishing contract as a bonus.


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> A few months ago I floated the idea of having an organization of and for self-pubbed Kindle authors.
> 
> /quote]
> 
> Awesome idea!


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> Lots of good points are being made here.
> 
> Going back to the whole "union" idea--there's actually some gravitas in that.
> 
> ...


Well, the first thing you'd have to do is stop using the term "Kindle author." 

I love my Kindle, but it's only one of many venues now for selling ebooks.

Independent Publishers Network?

Personally, though, while I like the sentiment behind the idea, I've always steered clear of all writer organizations. While I appreciate that they exist, it just always seems like they spend all their time arguing about things that matter very little.


----------



## BlakeCrouch (Apr 18, 2010)

What I've been doing is having a number of short stories available at .99 as gateway drugs, but keeping collections, novels, even novellas at 2.99...it has been very tempting to lower either Desert Places or Locked Doors to .99, just for awhile, for an experiment, but I just can't bring myself to do it. My real concern with .99 for novels, is that if there are enough books at this price, it will have the effect of establishing a bad precedent for readers....if there's enough great material out there for only .99, (and there is) why even bother with the 2.99 stuff? That would be bad for everyone.

A writers organization would be an excellent step toward solidifying some power and establishing industry standards for ourselves.


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

BlakeCrouch said:


> What I've been doing is having a number of short stories available at .99 as gateway drugs, but keeping collections, novels, even novellas at 2.99...it has been very tempting to lower either Desert Places or Locked Doors to .99, just for awhile, for an experiment, but I just can't bring myself to do it. My real concern with .99 for novels, is that if there are enough books at this price, it will have the effect of establishing a bad precedent for readers....if there's enough great material out there for only .99, (and there is) why even bother with the 2.99 stuff? That would be bad for everyone.
> 
> A writers organization would be an excellent step toward solidifying some power and establishing industry standards for ourselves.


To heck with the organization, let's just skip straight to price collusion.


----------



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

All roads lead to the Union of the Downtrodden.  

Miss Chatty Chatsworth


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> $1.99 is a "dead zone" as is $3.99 for most books - better off at $0.99 and $4.99 respectively


I suspect that $3.99 is probably the best hot spot for revenue. More than one author I've heard from found that they made more money at $3.99 than $2.99.

I think $3.99 is probably close to_ the_ sweet spot for a novel. It's low enough that it doesn't feel like a major purchase, but it pays a good royalty. I think you probably meet considerably more resistance at $4.99 than at $3.99. I could be wrong.

$1.99 is a dead zone on Amazon because it pays 35%, but it's probably underrated, too. Twice as much money per sale vs $0.99 is a lot of money. I can see a place for all of these prices and I think about using all of them as a newbie from $1 - $5. If I ever get to the point where I'm well-established then I'd consider $6 and $7 as well.


----------



## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Please pardon me for stepping in here, because I am not a writer. I am a "dedicated" reader, I have quit keeping track, but after tracking for a year I found that I read slightly more than 300 books in a year. After reading through all 5 pages of this, I see a point that has not really been addressed. Markets. 
Amanda Hocking is blowing away the YA market at $0.99. Jack, you compete in a completely different market. A higher price in an adult market is sustainable, in the YA market, some kids do have a higher disposable income, some don't have a whole lot. I think for her market, Amada is priced perfectly. Adult markets are willing to, and accustomed to, paying more. 
I know I have bought many books at all price points under $7. I think in the past 2 years I have paid $9.99 for a total of 4 books, and they have all been specific books that more than 1 person of the 9 on my account wanted. I have read books at $0.99 that I really think were worth FAR more, and I felt kinda guilty about only paying $0.99 for, even knowing the authors get more of that $ than they would with a trade pub.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

BTackitt said:


> I have read books at $0.99 that I really think were worth FAR more, and I felt kinda guilty about only paying $0.99 for, even knowing the authors get more of that $ than they would with a trade pub.


That's good to know. Thanks for chiming in.


----------



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

BTackitt said:


> Please pardon me for stepping in here, because I am not a writer. I am a "dedicated" reader, I have quit keeping track, but after tracking for a year I found that I read slightly more than 300 books in a year. After reading through all 5 pages of this, I see a point that has not really been addressed. Markets.
> Amanda Hocking is blowing away the YA market at $0.99. Jack, you compete in a completely different market. A higher price in an adult market is sustainable, in the YA market, some kids do have a higher disposable income, some don't have a whole lot. I think for her market, Amada is priced perfectly. Adult markets are willing to, and accustomed to, paying more.
> I know I have bought many books at all price points under $7. I think in the past 2 years I have paid $9.99 for a total of 4 books, and they have all been specific books that more than 1 person of the 9 on my account wanted. I have read books at $0.99 that I really think were worth FAR more, and I felt kinda guilty about only paying $0.99 for, even knowing the authors get more of that $ than they would with a trade pub.


Again, the price is a token paid (IMHO) while the investment in time is the real commitment. If you read a good book and feel that it was underpriced, remember that not all authors are in it for grubsteak. Some want your time, which is a much more valuable commodity, especially if you come back for more. Would you feel guilty paying $9.99 for something you couldn't finish? Probably not. There are many reasons to author and the price should reflect the reason. I have read many posts on pricing (in fact, on Kindleboards alone, after reviews, its the most perennial topic, which tells you that I might be in the minority, but hey - I'm genetically a minority), and one would think that all authors walk about with a permanent crick in their neck looking for the pennies in the corner. Readers should be aware that their pocketbooks are one thing, but there is an appreciation for time. Some authors value their time more than yours and insist that if they spent a year in solitary with their work and effort that, like some Michelangelo commission, the reader just pay them at a rate. We're not plumbers. (If we were, we'd be more useful and far richer). We're artists and entertainers filling in the spaces in life and as such warrant only what a reader can afford in expendable income. But that's me . . . a fruit in a nut bowl, and look forward to contributing to the next 75 threads on this topic over the next 2 months.


----------



## Lynn Mixon (Jan 2, 2011)

Jack Kilborn said:


> I don't believe $4.99 is too much to ask. But I think getting $3.50 of that is a bit greedy compared to what I'm used to making.
> 
> I'm not saying it IS greedy. It could very well be totally fair. But this is the mindset I have from being in the traditional publishing world.


It may be more than you're used to getting as an author, but now you're the publisher, too. All the work you've done that falls onto what is normally their side of the fence shouldn't be discounted. You formatted the books, paid to have a cover created, keep track of all the little details. Isn't that worth a slice of the pie, too? I bet they make $3.50 on the ebooks they sell.


----------



## Guest (Jan 2, 2011)

Terry Mixon said:


> It may be more than you're used to getting as an author, but now you're the publisher, too. All the work you've done that falls onto what is normally their side of the fence shouldn't be discounted. You formatted the books, paid to have a cover created, keep track of all the little details. Isn't that worth a slice of the pie, too? I bet they make $3.50 on the ebooks they sell.


Ooo, this is a good point, Terry.


----------



## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

I've been selling books since August - I priced them at $2.99 because 1. I wanted the 70% royalty. 2. I needed to make money on my books. 3. I felt that was a "fair" price for a new, unknown author.

In August I sold 142.
In December - with three books - I sold over 5000 books - all at $2.99 (I'm actually making a living at this -a nd than was my goal.)
My books have been in the number one and two spots in the Ghosts genre for a couple of months.
My series books are doing far better than my stand alone.  I know that I have a market for the next one in the series.  
However, once the new book in the series comes out - in February - I'm going to drop the first one down to .99 to see if I can't pull in another demographic of readers who won't try a new writer unless they are at .99.
If I can see the numbers that HP, Victorine and Amanda see and then have those same readers move up to my $2.99 books - I will be astonished!

At the end of my last book, I finished with a bit of a cliffhanger - my daughter suggested that this was the time to raise the cost of my book because so many people will want to buy it to see what happens.    But, I think writers have a relationship/trust with their readers and part of my relationship is that I will deliver (hopefully) a good story at a reasonable price.  I'm happy (okay - make that thrilled beyond belief) with the success of my books and I just want to keep moving forward.

Jack - I love the idea of an organization of some sort.  If only, as a group, we could get things like health insurance, etc... that keep many people from leaving their "real" jobs and go into this full time.

Happy New Year - and Happy Selling!!!

Terri


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Here's an oldie-but-goodie from the halcyon days of September. From my blog:

Should Ebook Novels Cost $2.99?


----------



## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

Scott William Carter said:


> as long as I'm prolific and don't let my ego get in the way (translation: be willing to write under multiple names),


I'm curious, why do you feel the need to use multiple names just because you write in multiple genres? I know Jack/Joe/whatever-his-name-really-is (LOL) does it, as do others sometimes, especially those who write in erotica in addition to other genres, but I've never understood the reasons why authors do that (other than maybe the erotica/other, that kinda makes sense). Seems like it'd be easier to establish a brand, a following, using the same name, even if the genres are different. Readers aren't stupid, they can understand that an author may write more than one kind of book, and if they like the style of writing in one book, how are they supposed to easily find your other books if you use different names for them?


----------



## osnova (Oct 20, 2009)

Jack Kilborn said:


> If 2000 indie authors, comprising the top sellers on Kindle, all decided to raise their prices $1


With self-publishing comes potential liability. Don't know much about this but "price fixing/collusion" under the Sherman Act rings a bell. Be careful out there.


----------



## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

HP Mallory said:


> This is pretty much the pattern I'm following. I have two series, the first book in each series I plan to market at .99 and the follow up books each will be 2.99. I basically am following the same formula that Amanda uses so I figure it can't be bad! LOL


This has been a really timely discussion for me and I think I'm going to be following this formula as well. From my own experience since my first book came out in February, I sold quite a few books in the first months it was out, but there's been a steady decline in my sales, month after month. The book is rated fairly well, the cover doesn't suck, and I don't think the writing is all that bad either, but at $2.99 I have trouble selling it - both my children's and fantasy novel. I tried dropping the price to $0.99 for a week and saw an uptick in sales on the 27th of December (may have had more to do with Kindle sales though). I brought it back up and have been dry since. I'm now going to drop it to $0.99 for the month of January and see how it compares. 35% of something is better than 70% of nothing, in my case.


----------



## JenniferBecton (Oct 21, 2010)

As a new author with no platform, I thought it was best to price my work just below the lowest comparable books in my genre. I also believed that *I* should earn  at least the same amount on my paperback as I do on my ebook. When you subtract the printing cost and seller's cut, I get a little more than $2 per paperback at my current price of $9.99. In my mind, that $2 is what I earned for the content of the book and the formatting/cover art. The rest paid for paper, printing, and distribution. So it was reasonable to me to price my ebook at $2.99 because I earn about $2 on it. And an ebook is just content. So to me, it makes sense that what I earn on the content of my ebook and paperback should be the same or similar. 

How does this gel with the larger question of what is the sweet spot for optimum ebook sales? I don't know. If there is a known optimum paperback price, then it seems reasonable to start with an ebook price that is the difference between the cost of the paper and the paperback sales price.

But maybe I'm missing something...


----------



## RyanMWilliams (May 28, 2010)

Scott William Carter said:


> It's a great question, Steph. And honestly, it's something I struggled with for a long time (mostly due to ego). It varies from writer to writer. I really like my friend Kristine Kathryn Rusch's model, which is to write under multiple names but the pseudonyms are for the most part open secrets. Each name becomes it's own brand. Readers who like my light and fluffy romantic comedy Dog Food and Diamonds may not like the much edgier mystery The Gray and Guilty Sea. And my YA and children's books from S&S are in another category too (told you this is a problem for me). By putting them under different names, when I release another book under those names I'm signaling to my readers what kind of book it is.


I really liked Scott's answer to this question. I think he hit on the major reasons and benefits. Writing under multiple names is also a bit of a drawback, simply because each name is its own brand. Basically you're trying to run multiple writing careers at the same time, so authors should take that into account, but if you are prolific and write in multiple genres I think it can work out well. And with open names readers that like multiple genres can still easily follow an author from one to the other.


----------



## HP Mallory (Jul 7, 2010)

davidhburton said:


> This has been a really timely discussion for me and I think I'm going to be following this formula as well. From my own experience since my first book came out in February, I sold quite a few books in the first months it was out, but there's been a steady decline in my sales, month after month. The book is rated fairly well, the cover doesn't suck, and I don't think the writing is all that bad either, but at $2.99 I have trouble selling it - both my children's and fantasy novel. I tried dropping the price to $0.99 for a week and saw an uptick in sales on the 27th of December (may have had more to do with Kindle sales though). I brought it back up and have been dry since. I'm now going to drop it to $0.99 for the month of January and see how it compares. 35% of something is better than 70% of nothing, in my case.


Your covers are fantastic!


----------



## DavidRM (Sep 21, 2010)

I'm new to indie publishing, having released my first ebook in September 2010.

I'm emphatically *not* new to being a self-employed, independent software developer/business owner. I've been selling my own software and games on the Web since 1996. Thus, I've seen the price discussion over and over the last nearly 15 years.

When I decided to publish my own novels, collections and short stories, I fell back on what I've learned over the years. I researched prices. I calculated royalty rates. And, most importantly, I made the choice to stay *away* from the bottom end. I'm not interested in being considered low rent or cheap or bargain basement.

Based on what I saw, I set the price for my ebook novels at $3.99. When I release my first novella-length ebooks in January, I'll be pricing them at $2.99. My sales have been a bit slow, but that's what happens when you first start. Unless you get lucky. I'm working on my luck, even now.

When you price your products/books/whatever, you don't make the decision based on *you*. You make it based on your audience or market. *You are not your market.*

Here's another little business owner tidbit: _If at least a few people aren't complaining about you're price, it's probably too low._ Does this apply to book pricing? I'm not sure yet, but it definitely applies to every other product or service you can think of.

And: Setting your price low as a "sale price" is useless if no one hears about it. Perhaps Amazon has been useful in that regard since they make it easy to search that price range. You have to advertise a sale, or it's just the price the person sees. If you don't tell them you lowered the price, they won't know. And if you don't tell them that the lower price is temporary, they have no sense of urgency to "Buy Now!"

-David


----------



## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

When you write all genres under the same name, you run the risk of offending readers. Take Piers Anthony for instance. He has written mostly fantasy, but he also write erotica. A reader who's a big fan of his fantasy might have developed a habit of buying a new book authored by Piers Anthony without reading a description.

I plan to follow JK's model and write under pseudonyms which use the same initials as my real name (KM). I might even write under my real name some day.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

davidhburton said:


> This has been a really timely discussion for me and I think I'm going to be following this formula as well. From my own experience since my first book came out in February, I sold quite a few books in the first months it was out, but there's been a steady decline in my sales, month after month. The book is rated fairly well, the cover doesn't suck, and I don't think the writing is all that bad either, but at $2.99 I have trouble selling it - both my children's and fantasy novel. I tried dropping the price to $0.99 for a week and saw an uptick in sales on the 27th of December (may have had more to do with Kindle sales though). I brought it back up and have been dry since. I'm now going to drop it to $0.99 for the month of January and see how it compares. 35% of something is better than 70% of nothing, in my case.


Two things come to mind.

1 - Dec 27th was a HUGE day for just about everyone so the increase in sales on THAT particular day may not be due to price.

2 - You were doing a lot of promotion initially (I know you came on my radar because of it) But I've not seen much recently - was the sales directly related to the marketing....


----------



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I raised both my books to $2.99 on June 30, and yes, they both lost sales and ranking. The romance had been as high as the 300s in rank and fell to around 1,000 and stayed there until recently when it tapered a bit more. Sales went down to 75% of what they had been. Since we all know the math, you can see that I made a lot more per month from 75% of the sales at $2.99 and 70%.

Like Joe I have some emotional feeling about price but mine is on the other end. For a full length novel, I can't get over feeling $.99 is - cheap. Both as a reader and a writer I feel that way and even seeing all the success of various people with their .99 books, I've never been able to get over that feeling. I'm working on a second mystery now and telling myself the smart thing to do would be to price it at $2.99 when it's done and lower the price on the first mystery to $.99. I'm not sure I can make myself do it. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if I end up with that first mystery at $1.99 just because.

Length and other things also affect me on the other end. There is a post on the AAR forum about my books to the effect of - I can't believe considering the success of Eyes [first romance], Sing [second romance] is only $2.99. I think of that post often. I also think of price vs. length often. My romances are 118,000 and 134,000 words. The next one is also going to be that long; would $3.99 be reasonable? Would it put people off an indie work? Maybe by the time I release another romance some of these discussions and various author price experiments will give direction.

No reader has ever remarked on the price of my ebooks except to say they were a bargain. I have had some remarks that the Create Space paperbacks are expensive at $11.99, and I keep my price on them as low as I can by not doing expanded distribution and taking a per book royalty lower than what I get on a $2.99 ebook. I will confess I would not pay $11.99 for a paperback by an unknown indie author myself and it surprises me that some people do, but then those are people who choose not to have an ereader, and I bought my first ereader in 1999.


----------



## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

Daniel Arenson said:


> I don't think that would be too greedy, but it would probably qualify as price fixing, which is illegal, no?


Daniel,
I don't think so, as we're already in collusion with the $2.99 price point, loosely agreed to, and the Commerce Department hasn't come down on us.

Let me quote RSullivan here, "Please don't take offense at my next statement...it is made with the intention of making everyone "good money". My personal opinion, is the $0.99 and $2.99 price point is making a ghetto for the indies. That since so many are at that place to get sales that EVERYONE feels like they have to stay there and everyone staying there is keeping everyone else locked to that price point. "

I think she has a good point.

What I'm talking about is trying to move that $2.99 price point up. Everybody doing it (well, almost everybody) at the same time. Someone stated that $3.99 was a 'dead zone.' Well, maybe $4.99 is the place we want to be.
Anyway, food for thought.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

One other thing to keep in mind...every $0.99 is not a "new reader".  I know I've downoaded a ton of free books (none of which I've ever cracked by the way).  And a fair number of $0.99 - most of which are on the TBR pile.  I sometimes buy a $0.99 if the book looks like "it might" be interesting and I think the price may go up in the future.  Kind of "buying while on sale". Since Michael has multiple books it is important for me for them to read "other books" in the series.  At $4.95 there is less chance that someone is going to buy it and not read.  Since I've seen DRAMATIC upticks in "later" books in the series I have pretty good data to believe that my "freebie" promotion turned into "readers".  Now that being said.  I'm sure 99.9% of the freebies are sitting there not read - but given how many flew off the shelves (about 20,000) I only need a few of them to "open' it to be successful.


----------



## osnova (Oct 20, 2009)

callingcrow said:


> Daniel,
> I don't think so, as we're already in collusion with the $2.99 price point, loosely agreed to, and the Commerce Department hasn't come down on us.


That would be the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department and the FBI. Please don't make any conclusions from the lack of an enforcement action (you can't predict when the confluence of prosecutorial discretion, backlog of cases, available resources, DA's ambition, big publishers' nudge would happen). If authors come to the $2.99 based on their own considerations (the Amazon's policy comes to mind), it's one thing, if they "agree" on the price, that's price fixing. Please research this topic. The penalties could be drastic.

With this, I bid adieu.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

ellenoc said:


> I raised both my books to $2.99 on June 30, and yes, they both lost sales and ranking. The romance had been as high as the 300s in rank and fell to around 1,000 and stayed there until recently when it tapered a bit more. Sales went down to 75% of what they had been. Since we all know the math, you can see that I made a lot more per month from 75% of the sales at $2.99 and 70%.
> 
> Like Joe I have some emotional feeling about price but mine is on the other end. For a full length novel, I can't get over feeling $.99 is - cheap. Both as a reader and a writer I feel that way and even seeing all the success of various people with their .99 books, I've never been able to get over that feeling. I'm working on a second mystery now and telling myself the smart thing to do would be to price it at $2.99 when it's done and lower the price on the first mystery to $.99. I'm not sure I can make myself do it. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if I end up with that first mystery at $1.99 just because.
> 
> ...


Great info, Ellen. Thanks for sharing. And no, $3.99 for a book people *want* to read is not unreasonable. Why not leave the first one at $2.99 and put the second one out at $4.99?

Or you can do what I did and put a note at the top of your blurb something to the effect of this:

***Publisher promotional special: .99 cents for the month of January***

Then you're not setting a precedent and you're giving the reader a little extra incentive to buy now.

Get creative. There's all kinds of things we can be doing. Here's something I did: I wrote a short story featuring the character from The Gray and Guilty Sea and put the first 50 pages of the novel at the end. (It's called "A Plunder By Pilgims" if anyone wants to check it out; thanks Mom.) Via Smashwords (took six weeks to get there), it's out everywhere but Amazon for free. And as soon as it hit at B&N, sales shot up over there. Too early to tell from iPad and others, since they're so slow to report.

It's been selling steady at 99 cents at Amazon, but I wish I could make it free there. Maybe one of these days Smashwords will work out their issues with Amazon and I'll be able to do just that.

Anyway, that's just an example of a way to think like a publisher. Think outside the box. Be creative. You know, that thing we do when we're writing.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

ellenoc said:


> My romances are 118,000 and 134,000 words. The next one is also going to be that long; would $3.99 be reasonable? Would it put people off an indie work? Maybe by the time I release another romance some of these discussions and various author price experiments will give direction.


Ellen, I have a 120,000 word historical family saga I'm going to put out, and I'm probably going to price it at 4.99 and see what happens.


----------



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

Jack Kilborn said:


> This is where it gets weird.
> 
> In an unlimited potential fanbase, you could keep selling forever. And since ebooks are still in their infancy, one could bet that the market will continue to grow to the point it can never be saturated.
> 
> ...


You can write and publish 6-7 books in a year, though. In a sense, until they plant you six feet under, you have an infinite number of books you can produce. It doesn't matter if you trade more lucrative future sales for sales today as long as you keep producing new books.

At some point if sales stop for older books, then you can look at your overall sales figures for those titles and discover what your saturation point is and price accordingly.


----------



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

kcmay said:


> When you write all genres under the same name, you run the risk of offending readers. Take Piers Anthony for instance. He has written mostly fantasy, but he also write erotica. A reader who's a big fan of his fantasy might have developed a habit of buying a new book authored by Piers Anthony without reading a description.
> 
> I plan to follow JK's model and write under pseudonyms which use the same initials as my real name (KM). I might even write under my real name some day.


In the old days, when Stephen King wrote under a secondary name (Bachman) it was due to the publishing industry's tight ban on novelists publishing more than one novel per year (two at the most). King decided to do it, under a different name and using a somewhat darker style, until his cover was blown. Then he wrote a novel about the psuedonym (The Dark Half) that arose and slew the author. 

I suspect it has more to do with branding now. I mean, I don't sell books. I sell EDWARD C. PATTERSON and you can have me at any price you name as long as you enjoy the experience or at least have an experience, because I'm a trip.  I was thinking of wrting business books under the pen name MARNIE DAGRUBBER, but I'd need to come up with a pricing strategy that would get my reader's PIN numbers.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Just one last point before I knock off to get some real work done.  You know, laundry.  (Writing is not work.  It's too much fun.)

I think a lot of people are looking at some of these all-star numbers and feeling like they'll never get there.  But if you stop worrying about Amazon rankings, and start focusing on monthly net revenue (the reason Joe started this thread), your ranking can be far, far lower and you can do very well.

Ten sales a day across all sites at 4.99 translates into $1000 net.

That's 300 sales, spread across all sites, both ebook and POD.  Your ranking will probably rarely crack the top 10,000, but who cares?  I don't know what universe other writers live in, but if I can make $1000 a month from a single book, I'm very happy.  I don't think I'll ever have to worry about running out of readers at 300 sales a month.  And I know I'm going to keep writing books.  So far, nobody's broken my fingers.

Again, I don't there's any one price point for all books, but I do know that I want to be the kind of writer people don't hesitate to pay $4.99 to read.  Am I there yet?  I dunno.  But I'm going to use that price point as extra motivation to work harder.

So thanks for the thread, guys.  This has really clarified my thinking on this.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Lots of good ideas in this thread.

I'd like to add that, in a previous thread about cover art, I mentioned there is a subconscious bell that goes off in the customer's head when they see sub-par book covers. It says "amateur" to them, and there are warning bells that go off.

Books under three bucks might also give that same "amateur" signal, since the majority of those pricing that low are indie authors.

My novel Trapped is priced at $2.99 and is currently ranked at #300. At that rate, I can expect around 2700 sales this month, or $5500.

My novel Afraid is priced at $6.99 by my publisher, and is hanging in at #1250. At that rate, it'll sell about 700 copies in a month. If I had 70% royalties on that, I'd earn $3450.

So, at least in this case, the lower price is more profitable.


----------



## 25803 (Oct 24, 2010)

osnova said:


> With self-publishing comes potential liability. Don't know much about this but "price fixing/collusion" under the Sherman Act rings a bell. Be careful out there.


I can't join the discussion regarding pricing of books because I don't have any answers, but I can share that the antitrust laws do apply to us as indie authors.

Back when I served on the national board of a writer's org, it was one of the topics we discussed. A lot. Screenwriters can form unions because many are actual employees of movie studios. However, authors are independent contractors (not employees) and thus can't form a union. As a group we can't fix prices, have a tough time finding group insurance, and so on. It is extremely annoying and occasionally various bills have floated around Congress, but there's never been any action that I'm aware of.

I never felt uncomfortable over talking about how to price our books on this forum because everyone has said that it depends on the author, book, genre, or whatever. As far as I've seen, there hasn't been any price fixing or collusion. No one has said, "Hey, let's all price our books this way." And I don't think anyone is suggesting we do that.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> Lots of good ideas in this thread.
> 
> I'd like to add that, in a previous thread about cover art, I mentioned there is a subconscious bell that goes off in the customer's head when they see sub-par book covers. It says "amateur" to them, and there are warning bells that go off.
> 
> ...


But how do you know that your first-time readers aren't just choosing the cheaper books because the choice is available? If all your books were at $4.99 . . .


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

KathyCarmichael said:


> No one has said, "Hey, let's all price our books this way." And I don't think anyone is suggesting we do that.


Even if someone did say that, it would be meaningless, like trying to herd cats.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Steph H said:


> I'm curious, why do you feel the need to use multiple names just because you write in multiple genres? I know Jack/Joe/whatever-his-name-really-is (LOL) does it, as do others sometimes, especially those who write in erotica in addition to other genres, but I've never understood the reasons why authors do that (other than maybe the erotica/other, that kinda makes sense).


I use my real name, "Daniel Arenson", for my fantasy novels. The "Daniel Arenson" brand denotes serious, well written (I hope!), epic fantasy novels for teenage and adult readers. I plan to soon release a collection of humorous horror stories -- gory, goofy stuff. It doesn't fit the "Daniel Arenson" brand, so I'll use a pseudonym for that one. I just don't want to confuse my readers.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

callingcrow said:


> Daniel,
> I don't think so, as we're already in collusion with the $2.99 price point, loosely agreed to, and the Commerce Department hasn't come down on us.


I think that, even as a group, and even with Konrath among us, we're small enough to fly under the radar. There's simply not enough money flowing around here to attract the long arm of the law. But remember: Right now, we haven't officially agreed we'll all price our books at $2.99 -- many of us do, because it works. If we all agreed to create a group of "bestselling" authors, and planned one day when we'd all raise our prices to $3.99 as one, yeah... that's a different story. Probably not the best idea.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> Lots of good ideas in this thread.
> 
> I'd like to add that, in a previous thread about cover art, I mentioned there is a subconscious bell that goes off in the customer's head when they see sub-par book covers. It says "amateur" to them, and there are warning bells that go off.
> 
> ...


I agree that *some* people might be turned off by the lower price points, but honestly I don't think the majority of the people out there even know what an "indie" author is. They see a book that is recommended to them, and if it looks good and is cheap they click "buy."

I am using my low price to get sales. If a book sells, Amazon starts recommending that book to others. The free advertising I'm getting from pricing my book at 99 cents is worth a lot to me. Sure, some people might not try it out just because it looks too cheap, but there's apparently hundreds of people each day who don't care.

Vicki


----------



## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Victorine said:


> I agree that *some* people might be turned off by the lower price points, but honestly I don't think the majority of the people out there even know what an "indie" author is. They see a book that is recommended to them, and if it looks good and is cheap they click "buy."
> 
> I am using my low price to get sales. If a book sells, Amazon starts recommending that book to others. The free advertising I'm getting from pricing my book at 99 cents is worth a lot to me. Sure, some people might not try it out just because it looks too cheap, but there's apparently hundreds of people each day who don't care.
> 
> Vicki


I will be REALLY interested in your next book and its sales. It seems to me that you've made a wonderful name for yourself - a brand - and people know they can expect a quality story. So, with that next book, if you price it for $2.99 - will those same people buy the next one? I certainly hope so!


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

terrireid said:


> I will be REALLY interested in your next book and its sales. It seems to me that you've made a wonderful name for yourself - a brand - and people know they can expect a quality story. So, with that next book, if you price it for $2.99 - will those same people buy the next one? I certainly hope so!


I'm quite interested too! I have no idea what to expect. I know a lot of people have said they are waiting for the next one... but by 'a lot' I mean around 30. So I really don't know what will happen. 

It's also a Sci-fi/paranormal romance, which might not appeal to the people who liked the contemporary one.  But those characters won't leave me alone until I write the darn thing! 

Vicki


----------



## LCEvans (Mar 29, 2009)

> For a full length novel, I can't get over feeling $.99 is - cheap. Both as a reader and a writer I feel that way and even seeing all the success of various people with their .99 books, I've never been able to get over that feeling.


I agree with you, Ellen. I don't even bother to download free books anymore because I don't read them. I usually do read the $.99 books, though I still think of them as cheap, and I don't mean price. I'm more likely to buy and read a .99 book if it's on sale and I know I'm getting it at a bargain price. Sales for my 2.99 book were a lot better when I had it priced at 1.99, but most months I make more money at 2.99 and I think that price is fair.


----------



## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

HP Mallory said:


> Your covers are fantastic!


Thanks!! I took Joe's message to heart ages ago around cover art.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

davidhburton said:


> Thanks!! I took Joe's message to heart ages ago around cover art.


I agree. Your covers are terrific, David.


----------



## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Two things come to mind.
> 
> 1 - Dec 27th was a HUGE day for just about everyone so the increase in sales on THAT particular day may not be due to price.
> 
> 2 - You were doing a lot of promotion initially (I know you came on my radar because of it) But I've not seen much recently - was the sales directly related to the marketing....


It's possible. I was doing a lot of giveaways with that first book to get my name out there. In the first week I easily gave away more than 1000 copies of the ebook. With the second book, I did some blog giveaways and hit up a number of reviewers, etc. I won't do the grand scale giveaway thing again. I had hoped that things might pick up more as time went on. I even did the KND thing and that only generated enough sales to cover the cost of the one day. It could be the content doesn't interest enough people, so I may need to evaluate what I'm writing and to whom it's aimed. I'm sure it will all come together eventually - it's about finding what works for my books, just like everyone else.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

A couple of thoughts while reading through the thread:

1.) Like it or not, price always sends a signal about market position. It doesn't matter if people know what an "indie" is or not. The price they see next to the title is information on what kind of book it is. This is well-known in marketing - and frankly MOST people are affected negatively by the lowest price, even if they don't realize it. This is why many manufacturers create a lower tier price point than they want, because they know people will go for the next price up.

Because ebooks are new to the mass market, we haven't settled what a particular price point means. But that is coming. Soon the package of what the cover looks like, the price and a few other things will be just like a genre shelf.

IMHO, 2.99 is such a widely used price, it will soon mean "indie" instead of "bargain." As for, 3.99 and 4.99, they already are prices that the traditional publishing houses use for bargains. So if your cover looks professional enough, that could be a marketing point. (On the other hand, I expect "indie" will also be a marketing point - like "art house" in film.) And .99 will probably become a catch all of three areas: bargain intro pricing of series, short works, and perhaps a new kind of "pulp."

2.) Unlimited _potential_ doesn't actually mean unlimited -- it means _unknown_. Market saturation is a reality of every market. Yes, there will continue to be business - but the mad growth of the beginning is unsustainable. We've seen saturation happen here all the time: You find a new place to promote, you get a burst of sales when you first hit it.... and then it trickles off. How many people have complained that the Book Bazaar "doesn't work anymore?" It works better for new books or books that haven't been promoted in a while. That's because the venue has reached saturation, and then slows to the trickle of new users. Sure, the new users will continue to come (at least if the venue hasn't been too poisoned by spam) but this will be at a MUCH slower rate than when you were new to everyone.

I'm not making any particular recommendation based on these things - just pointing out that they are the reality of any business. You shouldn't be afraid of them, but you really seriously shouldn't ignore them.

Camille


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

I thought this Amazon Customer review that I got today was very timely, considering this discussion which I have been following with great interest. Lord knows, I'd love to be selling 3500 books a month at the $2.99 or $3.99 or especially $4.95 price point. I would LOVE that. But, here's a reader's take on things:

_"With great characters, great plot development, and lots of entertainment, this is a great value on Kindle. When so many publishers are choosing to charge as much or more for a Kindle edition as for a paperback, it was great to find this gem for 99 cents. It is an amazing entertainment value. I started recommending it to my friends and family after only a couple of chapters. I am looking forward to Karen Cantwell's future works."
_
That's just a snippet - she talked about my brilliance as a writer before talking about entertainment value. 
(just joking)

I don't think this reader felt guilty that she was able to read this fun book for only .99 cents, and I'm thrilled that she a) purchased it because of the price b) loved it and c) is telling others!!!! Telling others - that's promotion and I got it for the price of the book.

I had mentioned earlier that I had decided to leave the first book at .99 cents and price the others higher. I was sort of waffling on that decision while reading some of these posts. After that review, I'm COMPLETELY decided. .99 cents for the first book and $3.99 for the others. If the $3.99 doesn't jive with readers and it doesn't sell as well, then I'll try $2.99.


----------



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

LCEvans said:


> I agree with you, Ellen. I don't even bother to download free books anymore because I don't read them. I usually do read the $.99 books, though I still think of them as cheap, and I don't mean price. I'm more likely to buy and read a .99 book if it's on sale and I know I'm getting it at a bargain price. Sales for my 2.99 book were a lot better when I had it priced at 1.99, but most months I make more money at 2.99 and I think that price is fair.


I love it when I get feedback "I can't believe your book was priced at only $ .99" - they got a bargain, at least in their mind. In my mind, they shared in my soul - my cheap, underpriced, stand-in-the-corner and feel guilty soul,  Bad, Ed.

Edward C. Cheapolason


----------



## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

Victorine said:


> I'm quite interested too! I have no idea what to expect. I know a lot of people have said they are waiting for the next one... but by 'a lot' I mean around 30. So I really don't know what will happen.
> 
> It's also a Sci-fi/paranormal romance, which might not appeal to the people who liked the contemporary one.  But those characters won't leave me alone until I write the darn thing!
> 
> Vicki


LOL I know exactly what you mean.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

I've toyed with the idea of charging $3.99 or even $4.99 for _Firefly Island_, my first novel. The book was originally published at Five Star (we have other Five Star alumni here at Kindleboards -- Lee Goldberg, Harry Shannon, and Karen Fenech come to mind). At Five Star, my novel ran through a professional editor, and then a copyeditor. It was reviewed at Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. I'm wondering if a higher price can give _Firefly Island_ a "traditionally published" appeal.

BUT... I always keep my price at $2.99. Why? First of all, I'm still an obscure writer. I want to keep getting my name out there. _Firefly Island_ sells 100-200 copies a month; I don't want to lose that. Second, I rather enjoy offering my books for a low price.  At Five Star, _Firefly Island_ was a $25 hardcover. That was great for my library sales (we sold hundreds of copies to libraries), but I felt bad charging $25 from Average Joe Reader. I now make up for those years by charging only $2.99 -- and earning the same royalties I did with those $25 hardcovers.


----------



## kyrin (Dec 28, 2009)

osnova said:


> That would be the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department and the FBI. Please don't make any conclusions from the lack of an enforcement action (you can't predict when the confluence of prosecutorial discretion, backlog of cases, available resources, DA's ambition, big publishers' nudge would happen). If authors come to the $2.99 based on their own considerations (the Amazon's policy comes to mind), it's one thing, if they "agree" on the price, that's price fixing. Please research this topic. The penalties could be drastic.
> 
> With this, I bid adieu.


I hate going off topic but this bugs me. Antitrust laws (at least in the United States) prohibit anti-competitive behavior (monopolies) and unfair business practices. They are made are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. If tomorrow, every author publishing on Kindle and Nook agreed to set their price at $2.99 (or whatever), they would not have broken any antitrust laws because there would still be competition in the marketplace. The price doesn't hurt anyone or violate any standards of ethical behavior.

It's like the price of movie tickets. For the most part, they are all the same with slight variations depending on where you live and the time of the showing. The theatres are not breaking any laws when they get together with the movie studios to set prices. They are not part of one big company. There is still competition between movies and theatres. The same things goes for downloadable music and other products that have similiar prices.

This does not mean I support price fixing or anything. I believe each author selling their books should settle on a price they can live with. I don't believe in fear mongering.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

John Hamilton said:


> Then Apple's $.99-per-song model came on the scene, and a sea change occurred. Music piracy isn't the big issue it used to be (at least, it isn't getting the same press it used to--I don't have actually hard data to back this up.)


Except that $0.99/song is a bit of a rarity these days on iTunes. $1.19 is becoming disturbingly common on current releases, although thankfully they still seem to cap albums with more than 10 tracks at $9.99 so far... multi-disc releases being the exception.


----------



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

LKRigel said:


> Ellen, I have a 120,000 word historical family saga I'm going to put out, and I'm probably going to price it at 4.99 and see what happens.


I hope it works for you, and I hope we continue to have these discussions so we all get to see the result of some of these experiments.


----------



## cahocking (Nov 8, 2010)

Monique said:


> It would be interesting to know the variation in sales between $2.99 and $3.99. And what of $1.99? It's so seldom used.


Monique, both my novels are selling at $1.99. Not even sure why I chose that price, but being new to the ebook game, I just thought that was an affordable place to start. My books have sold in paperback through Lulu since 2006 and one of them was shortlisted for an Australian literary award in 2007, but sales had slumped to almost zero over the last two years. Since the end of October when I became "ebooked", I've sold more than enough to keep me happy, am beginning to get those good reviews that I so hoped for, and have already made some sales for 2011. I have never been too concerned with the money making side of my writing, it's all about obtaining a readership for me, but maybe that's because I'm older, am debt free and have done all the hard yards with kids, mortgages and having to earn a living. If I was doing this forty years ago, I think I'd be much more concerned with the dollars coming in than the numbers actually reading and enjoying my work, which to me, validates me as a writer.


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> Ellen, I have a 120,000 word historical family saga I'm going to put out, and I'm probably going to price it at 4.99 and see what happens.


Definitely keep us posted on that. As an indie, I'd probably want to have a large number of readers, a good platform, or a big backlist to price at that level to start out with. For example, David Dalglish could get away with that, I'm pretty sure.

Btw, I may put mine out around $3.99. I'm still deciding. It's going to depend partly on how hard I'm going to try to get a big sales rank jump early on. If I want to see how high I can climb in a short period of time, then $2.99 should probably be the max. I'm torn because I'd like to start off at $3.99, but I also want to have fun with a marketing blitz and see how high the book can climb in the first month. And if I'm _really _serious about a blitz, then 99 cents is the way to go, but I don't know if I can stomach 99 cents for the release.


----------



## RJ Keller (Mar 9, 2009)

Jack Kilborn said:


> I know for a fact that being on the Top 100 boosts the sales of your other books. 99 cent ebooks sell in greater quantities. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but the number of indies who cracked the Top 100 were overwhelmingly 99ers. [...] Again, I don't have answers. But I'm leaning toward having a few ebooks as a 99 cent loss lead, then eventually raising their prices.


That was my experience. Introducing my book at 99 cents had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in it - on the contrary, I border on being obnoxious about how good I feel about my abilities as a writer...there should be law against people like me. It had to do with getting it into readers' hands, shocking them with the quality (in the "I can't believe this was only .99!!!" way), and counting on those readers to spread the word. That's what happened. When I raised it to 2.99, the sales didn't drop as much as I had anticipated, and within a month they were right back to where they were at 99 cents.


----------



## DavidRM (Sep 21, 2010)

I'm not yelling at anyone in particular here. More at an attitude. Feel free to get defensive, though, if you think I'm yelling at you. It's more entertaining that way...

--- rant ---

AUGH!

Obscure author, schmobscure author.

In a bookstore with over 10,000 books--or on Amazon with *MILLIONS*--if you aren't King, Grisham, Rowling, or Brown YOU ARE OBSCURE. And until you are one of those group of rarified people, YOU WILL NEVER NOT BE OBSCURE.

There will *always* be more people who have never heard of you than have tried your book--or even run their eyes over the spine of your book wedged between the other books on the shelves.

No one knows who you are (or who I am). Even if you sold 10,000 copies of your book last week (and I wish had), the typical shopper doesn't know you (or me) from the guy browsing the next aisle. What's more, ask them what authors they *do* know, forbid them the four I mentioned above, and they're probably reduced to a handful of genre authors they are familiar--and that the person in the next aisle probably has never heard of.

Any pricing argument based on "I'm an obscure author" is silly. Period. Price your book you like eff-ing *mean* it and stop making excuses.

--- /rant ---

-David


----------



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

MosesSiregarIII said:


> Definitely keep us posted on that. As an indie, I'd probably want to have a large number of readers, a good platform, or a big backlist to price at that level to start out with. For example, David Dalglish could get away with that, I'm pretty sure.
> 
> Btw, I may put mine out around $3.99. I'm still deciding. It's going to depend partly on how hard I'm going to try to get a big sales rank jump early on. If I want to see how high I can climb in a short period of time, then $2.99 should probably be the max. I'm torn because I'd like to start off at $3.99, but I also want to have fun with a marketing blitz and see how high the book can climb in the first month. And if I'm _really _serious about a blitz, then 99 cents is the way to go, but I don't know if I can stomach 99 cents for the release.


My formula has been, every book when released starts at $ 3.99 for 4 months maybe 5, then it drops to $ .99, except for The Jade Owl series (5 books), because they do well at that price, their epic lengths and, the 2nd book in a series is not price dependant - only the first book. (I still only take 35% royalties on them). When the book drops to $ .99 it usually triples in sales, but the early run at the higher price is also not as price dependant as I have "readers" who buy my books regardless of price. That saturates in about 4 or 5 months. I also take advantage of Smashwords annual giveaway (usually in March - MarchMadness), which this year will be wild because of Smashwords rapid expansion. I usually run with this for a portion of the month with a portion of the books (switching out) and usually full-bull (that is 100% discount). This expands the base of readers, a portion of whom will actually read one or more of the books. I also participate in charity gift baskets for hospitals, Operation eBook Drop, promotions run by fellow Indies where one or more of my books are the prize. This has been my marketing plan from the beginning.

I'm not some dumb kibitzer without a plan or a message, but the message is this. Establish a plan. Stick to it. You can adjust it, but don't worry about it or shaggety-doodle it constantly. And unless your in the .00002% of Indie authors who make bigger bucks (I mean, I don't write romance novels, private dick stories, vampires tales, but sell gay themed novels, some set in 12th Century China, to straight folk), write for that one reader and if you can pay the electric bill, do it. If not, donate it back to Kindleboards or the church offering basket or, better still, Breast Cancer. Listen to your Auntie Edward - make a plan, stick with it and swim for your love of writing and not for the IRS.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



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

RJ Keller said:


> That was my experience. Introducing my book at 99 cents had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in it - on the contrary, I border on being obnoxious about how good I feel about my abilities as a writer...there should be law against people like me. It had to do with getting it into readers' hands, shocking them with the quality (in the "I can't believe this was only .99!!!" way), and counting on those readers to spread the word. That's what happened. When I raised it to 2.99, the sales didn't drop as much as I had anticipated, and within a month they were right back to where they were at 99 cents.


Your book should be priced at $ 12.99, because its worth every penny of it.

ECP


----------



## RJ Keller (Mar 9, 2009)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> Your book should be priced at $ 12.99, because its worth every penny of it.
> 
> ECP


Wow...thanks Ed! You're a sweetheart!


----------



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

RJ Keller said:


> Wow...thanks Ed! You're a sweetheart!


I stole some of Scarlet's chocolate. Shhh! Don;t tell her.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

DavidRM said:


> Obscure author, schmobscure author.


Exactly, David.

Another thing that I think a lot of indies have a hard time with is the fact that it isn't about a book, it's about a career, and it takes a while to build a career. You may have bursts of success or dragging failures - and there actually isn't that much you can really do about it. Until you have a body of work, and time in the audience's mindspace - until you have critical mass in your personal brand - you can fail as easily as you can succeed.

Churning through prices and marketing venues, etc., is a crap shoot until you have a decent body of work. It's a good _learning experience_, but without a lot of those learning experiences under your belt, you really don't have the ability to judge whether what's going on with you is a fluke or not. Fast success is like growing without putting down roots. So...

Take the time to put down some roots. Whatever method you use, whatever price you choose to set, don't just go changing it willy nilly. Price isn't as important as the overall mass of your products and experience. So even though I think Victorine was really on the verge of a breakout anyway when she lowered her price, I'm not going to encourage her to change it until she feels ready. IMHO, if she did, what happens as a result will probably be random, but will make her worry and distract her from what she needs to be doing - writing more stuff.

I think the most important thing you can do for pricing right now is to 'set it and forget it.' Pick your pricing strategy, set it, and then leave it alone for a LONG time. (Six months, a year, longer....) Don't churn, don't cause yourself to second guess. Get on with being a writer. Every so often, stick your head up and take a reading on the climate, and change your prices if you feel they ought to - but don't fret about it.

It's kind of like one of the more successful stock market strategies out there. You look at your money, you evaluate where you want to put it, and how you want to "balance" your portfolio - what percentage of your money you want in each sector or stock. Then you invest in stocks and LEAVE the investments where they are for a quarter. At the end of the quarter, you don't chase trends. You simply rebalance your portfolio to match the same proportion you originally wanted. Which means you sell those that grew the most, and buy more of those that fell (or grew the least). That way you actually do "buy low, sell high" - even though your emotions make you want to do the opposite.

With that kind of unemotional strategy - decide what you're going to do ahead, and stick to it - you're likely to beat every other strategy out there. But it's a long term thing. Relax and build your career like a good investor builds his portfolio.

Camille


----------



## JennaAnderson (Dec 25, 2009)

One thing that comes to mind when I read these discussions is this: my novella is priced at $0.99. It is selling  well right now. UK sales are awesome. I feel many, MANY people are downloading it just to 'give it a try' Does it bother me that I am selling many but potentially not being read by anyone? Yes, this bugs me. Are higher priced books bought and then actually read? If I put out a novel will I price it higher? I'm not sure.


----------



## cahocking (Nov 8, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Exactly, David.
> 
> Another thing that I think a lot of indies have a hard time with is the fact that it isn't about a book, it's about a career, and it takes a while to build a career. You may have bursts of success or dragging failures - and there actually isn't that much you can really do about it. Until you have a body of work, and time in the audience's mindspace - until you have critical mass in your personal brand - you can fail as easily as you can succeed.
> 
> ...


Absobleedinlutely Camille!


----------



## DeanWesleySmith (Dec 27, 2010)

Oh, thank you, DavidRM and Camille. I was reading through the posts and admiring all the great covers and getting more depressed at all the "I'm so unknown" stuff being tossed out, until finally DavidRM said what I wanted to say.

Here's the truth. We are all unknown unless we are at the top four or five, as DavidRM said. I have been selling novels traditionally for almost twenty-five years, have one hundred plus novels published through traditional publishers, and over seven million copies of my books in print and no one knows who I am or has read anything of mine. Trust me, every book must stand alone, be sold by cover and great blurb and great sample, and if you are lucky after enough time a few people are following you enough to actually look for your next book. But darned few.

Thank you, DavidRM for slamming that "I'm so unknown" garbage.  If you think you are unknown and thus are pricing your books at 99 cents, and that's the only reason, you are making a huge mistake in my opinion. There are some valid reasons a few have talked about to price a novel at 99 cents for a short time, but being unknown is not one of them. Why not price them at $3.99 and $4.99 and trust your own work and your own talent?

And once again, wow are there some cool covers on these posts. As a new person here, I am impressed.


----------



## Gordon Ryan (Aug 20, 2010)

Posted accidentally.  Read next post.


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

I think 'I'm an unknown' is very valid - in one sense.

If you're selling every single ebook yourself - via personal interaction or an ad campaign, whatever - you're in for a nastily long haul. The goal isn't to sell your ebooks yourself, surely: it's to have other people so enthusiastic about your ebooks that THEY sell them to others for you. Great covers, blurbs and samples will help convince the sort of people who browse and take chances, but a lot more people simply rely on suggestions from trusted friends and family.

That's where the 'unknown' problem comes in - getting those initial enthusiastic reader/sellers. Of course, if you've been getting lots of sales at a low price point for months and months and you're still not seeing any word of mouth happening... you have a different problem.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Well, being unknown wasn't the only reason I priced my book at 99 cents.  I watched with others were doing, and the indie authors who were being held up as examples of success were mostly utilizing the 99 cent price.  So I tried it.  It worked for me.  I know others who have tried it, and it hasn't worked.

I have no idea what the secret is.  I'm just flying by the seat of my pants like everyone else.  But I do think it helps to gain a following, to have hundreds of sales each day as opposed to a handful.  And I never expect to be as well known as King or Rowling, but I'm not looking for fame.  I just want to entertain people.  And if I can pay my bills at the same time, I can call it a success.

Vicki


----------



## Gordon Ryan (Aug 20, 2010)

Jack, I'm a bit confused by your various threads.  Initially, you seemed to be in favor of higher ebooks prices, eliminating the lowest end of the market.  Perhaps you were only referring to the .99 books.  The basic argument in reply has been "more readership equals more recognition."  To which you replied, "merely an earlier sell out of potential readership."

Are you in line with Steve Windwalker about 2.99 being the sweet spot for most of the work?  The hourly rate argument fails the test in my opinion.  When I served as chief executive officer of a city or large homeowner association, and made an excellent hourly rate, it was not because my work was harder at that level, but because of the thousands of hours I'd spent earlier learning the business and how to avoid pitfalls.

As an author, I think the 500-1000 hours I might put into a particular novel (most of mine are right aroung 100,000 words) is overshadowed by the years of experience I have in the places I write about, the knowledge I have of intelligence gathering, the military background, etc.  In summary, an author brings to the table not just the labor spent on that particular book, but the total sum of their experience gathering information that is used in the book.  At least IMO.

I've always thought 2.99 was a very cheap price for any full length (at least over 75K) novel.  Granted my making $2.00 for that book compared to what I made with the original hardback is phenomenal and I am quite pleased.  Still, why not?  The reader pays far less for this ebook and I make far more.  I see that as a win-win.

Using your logic, with which I agree, I will take the limited sales at higher prices and stretch out the life of the book.  All the while writing the next one.

Gordon Ryan


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> Your book should be priced at $ 12.99, because its worth every penny of it.
> 
> ECP


If books were priced based purely on what they are worth in terms of their effect on the reader, the enjoyment derived, etc....

Then instead of $0.99, NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS would have been priced at $24.99.

At least for me...


----------



## Gordon Ryan (Aug 20, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> What if you have 5 years of greediness, and then things change, fall off, sales slow, and you're looking at a future where you've got a trickle of an income and you've been out of the job market for 5 years?


This is the sports analogy. An NFL player only has a few years of injury free playing time. They make their money and run. And they make plenty doing it. Should we pay 65-150 for a normal weekend NFL game? Three hours of watching sport? Probably not, but they need to pay the players and the owners. A book takes far longer to read. Worth something in excess of .99.

Gordon Ryan


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

DavidRM said:


> Any pricing argument based on "I'm an obscure author" is silly. Period. Price your book you like eff-ing *mean* it and stop making excuses.
> 
> --- /rant ---
> 
> -David


Because I'm not sure, I have to ask what you mean by "price your book like you eff-ing mean it?" Are you suggesting going with higher prices? Or are you just saying to avoid talking about obscurity as a reason for your price (whether it's 99 cents or $6.95 or anything else)?


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Victorine said:


> Well, being unknown wasn't the only reason I priced my book at 99 cents. I watched with others were doing, and the indie authors who were being held up as examples of success were mostly utilizing the 99 cent price. So I tried it. It worked for me. I know others who have tried it, and it hasn't worked.
> 
> I have no idea what the secret is. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants like everyone else. But I do think it helps to gain a following, to have hundreds of sales each day as opposed to a handful. And I never expect to be as well known as King or Rowling, but I'm not looking for fame. I just want to entertain people. And if I can pay my bills at the same time, I can call it a success.
> 
> Vicki


What's working for you, Vicki, isn't price alone... it's that NWSS is such a solid, enjoyable read. 99 cents introduces people to you... NWSS is what sells them on you and why you have people saying, "When's her next one going to be out?"

Good writing is why 99 cents works for some, and not for others. That's the difference-maker.

If I pay $24.99 or $0.99, if I have a BAD read, I'm not recommending it to anyone or buying anything that author does next time.

If I have a good read, I'll recommend that author and anxiously await whatever they do next.

That's me in reader mode... and not an atypical reaction, I'll bet.

Ultimately, good writing draws readers to itself; bad writing won't no matter what the price.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Awe, thank you Craig.  I was feeling blue and you cheered me right up.  

Vicki


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> What's working for you, Vicki, isn't price alone... it's that NWSS is such a solid, enjoyable read. 99 cents introduces people to you... NWSS is what sells them on you and why you have people saying, "When's her next one going to be out?"


I haven't read her book yet, but that has to be the case. Plenty of books get up near or in the top 100, but the book has to be very good if it's going to stay at that level.

Vicki, have you hit the top 100 yet? I notice you're at #103 right now.


----------



## DeanWesleySmith (Dec 27, 2010)

Here is my problem in a nutshell with full novels published at 99 cents, or even $2.99: They are hard core discounted compared to anything being brought out by traditional publishers. And after all the decades in traditional publishing, I never once heard any professional writer say, “Go ahead, publisher, publish my new novel directly to the discount bin.”

And thus we find my problem with these low prices. If a major publisher, or even a small press, did that to one of my books, I would have been in court to stop them. And yet indie writers do this all the time to their own books. Stunning to me, just stunning. And why I am having such an issue with this pricing. 

A great discussion, but I still can't shake the feeling that I don't want to publish a novel to a discount bin.  Sorry if that sounds insulting. I don't mean it to, just trying to figure this out and I'm coming from 25 years of making a living at fiction writing through traditional channels and I am loving this new world. Just not understanding parts of it, such as this discount-out-the-door pricing.

Joe, what would you have done if one of your traditional publishers had said to you, "We're going to send your entire print run to discount tables." Just curious.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Dean,


The difference is what ends up in the writer's pocket when all is said and done.

At $2.99, the indie eBook writer pockets $2.09. Respectable per-copy profit.

The reason one would rightfully scream if a trad-publisher did that with a print book is at $2.99, the writer at best would be getting, what, $0.25? $0.29?


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

DeanWesleySmith said:


> Here is my problem in a nutshell with full novels published at 99 cents, or even $2.99: They are hard core discounted compared to anything being brought out by traditional publishers. And after all the decades in traditional publishing, I never once heard any professional writer say, "Go ahead, publisher, publish my new novel directly to the discount bin."
> 
> And thus we find my problem with these low prices. If a major publisher, or even a small press, did that to one of my books, I would have been in court to stop them. And yet indie writers do this all the time to their own books. Stunning to me, just stunning. And why I am having such an issue with this pricing.
> 
> ...


I know this is hard to believe for some but I am maximizing revenue at 99 cents. If I raise to even just $2.99 the books tank and quickly. These are well reviewed books. (Well the one I still have up is well reviewed. The other I pulled recently at the request of my agent while it makes the rounds with trad publishers, and I have another indie novel for sale without any reviews yet.) I suppose this situation might be different if I spent two hours a day marketing the books, but I'm not willing to do that. The WIP, and shooting the shit here, is too much fun...


----------



## kyrin (Dec 28, 2009)

DeanWesleySmith said:


> Joe, what would you have done if one of your traditional publishers had said to you, "We're going to send your entire print run to discount tables." Just curious.


I'm not Joe but I'll answer this one. If going to the discount table means making more more money and reaching more readers then the money grubber in me would have no problem with it.

In ny opinion, I wouldn't call $2.99 for an ebook the discount bin unless you are comparing it to books in dead tree form. That's an apples and oranges comparison. It is also the reason why some traditional publishers are having problems. They are stuck with the old pricing and business models.

I see $2.99 as the low end of the scale for eBooks with $9.99 as the high point. You can turn a nice profit at either end of the spectrum. It all comes down to your book. At the lower end, earning $2 a book is nothing to sneeze at. For an author with a traditional publisher, their book would have to sell for a lot more to make the same kind of money. I really don't mind making more than my favorite authors per book.

Tell me, how much would you have to charge for a book to make the same royalties you would get from a traditional publisher? At 70% royalties, the book price would be under a dollar. It puts a different spin on things into perspective for me whenever I price my books. That said, I will someday my prices might rise but that's going to depend on a number of factors.


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> Everybody knows I hate hate hate the 99 cent price point. Yet I have a book up at 99 cents because there has been so much downward pressure by everybody else pricing their books at 99 cents. In the world where I'm queen, the floor for novellas and first books in series would be 2.99, then 3.99 for up to mid-sized novels, and 4.99 for door-stoppers.


A challenge for you - raise the price back to 2.99, and put a blue bare-chested man on the cover. Bet the 'downward pressure' problem will disappear. ;-)


----------



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> A challenge for you - raise the price back to 2.99, and put a blue bare-chested man on the cover. Bet the 'downward pressure' problem will disappear. ;-)


My novels didn't sell at $2.99 despite the bare chests.


----------



## terrireid (Aug 19, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> My novels didn't sell at $2.99 despite the bare chests.


I think I've mentioned this before - but Ellen, dang, those are really nice chests.


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> My novels didn't sell at $2.99 despite the bare chests.


But the chests weren't blue, either... 

The challenge was slightly tongue-in-cheek, I'll admit. I think it's a lot more useful, though, to look at things we can do to improve the desirability of our product than to price it less than we think we should and then complain of having had no choice.

Dang, now I'm hearing my mother saying, "if every other author jumped off a bridge, would you follow?"


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

Any product is really only "worth" what someone is willing to pay for it.  I've been self-employed for over 20 years and know through experience that you have to price your service/product so it's competitive then PROVE the value of that service/product to gain and keep a following.

We can sit here as writers all day long and talk about what our time and talent is "worth" - but it doesn't mean bupkis if people aren't willing to pay the price we set.  Some people here are able to set higher prices and sell well, others have had to go lower in price to sell and build a readership.

This has been a fun discussion, but I have to say, I could care less what someone else thinks about how I've priced my book or why I've priced it that way.  For every author (this is the beauty of Indie publishing - it's the author's choice, not the publisher's) - it's a business decision.  Period.  Only time will tell if my business decision will pay out in the long-run, but given my statistics so far, I'm fairly confident.

Mostly, I'm very excited that we ALL have these choices now.


----------



## bellaandre (Dec 10, 2010)

I think this is a great discussion - I'll throw my stats into the pot too. Especially because I've wondered what would happen if you went up from $2.99 too, Joe.

Like it was for many of you, December was an awesome month for sales of the 6 ebooks I've released myself. I sold more than 5000 copies across retailers and my current best selling book (Game For Love: Bad Boys of Football 3) is priced at $5.99 and even made it into the Nook top 100 at that price for a week (hitting 55 was a real thrill with my self-published book, especially since I've never gotten anywhere near that high with my books from Bantam or Pocket). My second two best sellers are $4.99 and $2.99. Interestingly, my lowest priced book at $1.99 is my lowest seller, by far. I've tried lowering the price of a couple of books to $.99 and sales dropped off dramatically.

I pretty much price per word. My $2.99 ebook that sells really well (Candy Store) is 25k words. My $4.99 ebook (Love Me) is 48k words. My $5.99 ebook (Game For Love) is 75k words.

So glad we're all sharing what works! I love writers....
 Bella Andre

http://www.BellaAndre.com


----------



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

That's awesome, Bella; I'm glad you're doing so well.


----------



## bellaandre (Dec 10, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> That's awesome, Bella; I'm glad you're doing so well.


Thanks, Ellen. You and I obviously have the same taste in shirtless men, don't we? 

Bella
www.BellaAndre.com


----------



## bellaandre (Dec 10, 2010)

sibelhodge said:


> Whoa! Three bare chests to look at now. *Girlie scream*


Can there be too many? 

Although, speaking of covers - I tried something new with CANDY STORE - instead of a shirtless guy I put a couple embracing. It's a much cuter cover for me. I was surprised to see that buyers at B&N and the iBookstore really seemed to go for that book right out of the gate. Whereas at Amazon, it seems the more in-your-face-sexy cover work better.

So much data....
 Bella


----------



## John Hartness (Aug 3, 2009)

Y'all be careful, now. Too much more squealing and I'll put my bare chest on the cover of my next book - "What bacon and beer can do for YOU!" 

I bet I can make more money from people begging me to keep my shirt on than I did in my last Amazon remittance check. 

Wow, both sides of that statement are pretty sad. I'm gonna go drown my sorrows in bacon now.


----------



## bellaandre (Dec 10, 2010)

John Hartness said:


> Y'all be careful, now. Too much more squealing and I'll put my bare chest on the cover of my next book - "What bacon and beer can do for YOU!"


Seriously, though, you should do that. I know lots of people who would buy it. 
Bella


----------



## LCEvans (Mar 29, 2009)

> This has been a fun discussion, but I have to say, I could care less what someone else thinks about how I've priced my book or why I've priced it that way. For every author (this is the beauty of Indie publishing - it's the author's choice, not the publisher's) - it's a business decision. Period. Only time will tell if my business decision will pay out in the long-run, but given my statistics so far, I'm fairly confident.


Yes. You have to find the price that works best for you and your books.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Dean,
> 
> The difference is what ends up in the writer's pocket when all is said and done.
> 
> ...


This argument ignores the fact that the author is also the publisher. So the "writer" gets more -- but the publisher gets nothing? And the publisher still has expenses, "e" notwithstanding.

I could be wrong, but I don't think 99 cents can hold as a model for working authors. Authors who live on spousal income or retirement income, sure.

Note, this doesn't apply to books selling in the top 100s, but it's not reasonable to make business decisions based on getting into those lofty levels.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

DeanWesleySmith said:


> Here is my problem in a nutshell with full novels published at 99 cents, or even $2.99: They are hard core discounted compared to anything being brought out by traditional publishers. And after all the decades in traditional publishing, I never once heard any professional writer say, "Go ahead, publisher, publish my new novel directly to the discount bin."
> 
> And thus we find my problem with these low prices. If a major publisher, or even a small press, did that to one of my books, I would have been in court to stop them. And yet indie writers do this all the time to their own books. Stunning to me, just stunning. And why I am having such an issue with this pricing.
> 
> ...


I honestly don't care if everyone thinks my books are on the discount tables. I made $4,000 in December if you count my print books. Call my book anything you want. I'm paying my bills with my bargain basement book. I'm gaining fans. I get emails from people telling me they couldn't put my book down. Do some people not like my book? Sure. I get that not everyone will like my book. But it's still selling, and it's going to be a great way to get people to notice my second book when it comes out.



MosesSiregarIII said:


> Vicki, have you hit the top 100 yet? I notice you're at #103 right now.


I cracked the top 100 for two hours once... in the wee hours of the morning. I hope I can get there and say for a while next time. 

Thanks for noticing!

Vicki


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> This argument ignores the fact that the author is also the publisher. So the "writer" gets more -- but the publisher gets nothing? And the publisher still has expenses, "e" notwithstanding.
> 
> I could be wrong, but I don't think 99 cents can hold as a model for working authors. Authors who live on spousal income or retirement income, sure.
> 
> Note, this doesn't apply to books selling in the top 100s, but it's not reasonable to make business decisions based on getting into those lofty levels.


Just like Joe and Dean, my views on this are evolving, but you really got to the crux of the issue for me. Since the e-reader market is still growing, we can get the mistaken impression that there's an endless supply of readers for a particular book. But my gut sense is that you will eventually run out (or more likely, trickle off) of readers eventually. And remember the math:

100 sales at 4.99 = 1000 sales at .99 = $350
200 sales at 4.99 = 2000 sales at .99 = $750
300 sales at 4.99 = 3000 sales at .99 = $1100

Assuming it's a quality book with good cover and great blurb (I know, big ifs), my gut sense is it's a hell of a lot easier to get 300 sales a month than 3000, even with those price points taken into consideration. And I doubt you'll ever have to worry about running out readers, plus you've set a value for your book that's still a good deal for the reader.

3600 sales in a year for a book is minuscule by NY standards, but if a writer is putting out three or four books a year, it can make a hell of a good living (especially if you're still selling to big publishers as well as doing short stories and other things).

But I agree there's no one right answer here. If you look at the bestseller list on the Amazon kindle page right now, lots of publishers are discounting, so they're playing this game too. You can get The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for only $5. And the The Lost Symbol right now is $3.99.

To me, that feels like an incredible bargain. Which is my point.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Vicki, I don't think people are talking about books like NWSS when they discuss price generally. It's fantastic that you've made it into the lofty heights of the Amazon algorithms. 

Most books won't.

General pricing policy can't work if it's based on winning the lottery.


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Victorine said:


> I honestly don't care if everyone thinks my books are on the discount tables. I made $4,000 in December if you count my print books. Call my book anything you want. I'm paying my bills with my bargain basement book. I'm gaining fans. I get emails from people telling me they couldn't put my book down. Do some people not like my book? Sure. I get that not everyone will like my book. But it's still selling, and it's going to be a great way to get people to notice my second book when it comes out.


Vicki, I think your success is awesome. But I think Dean's point is that you're sacrificing long term income for short term gain. If you have 100,000 readers for your book, wouldn't you rather make $200,000 (even at $2.99 -- an incredible bargain) over 10 years rather than $35,000 in one?

I can't say with any sort of certainty that this is true, but it's feels true to me.

And the fact that you're getting great reviews tells me you'd do just as well at $2.99 (which is still a bargain table book). You'd have to ride it out for a month to let it settle and not panic after a week, but I'm almost 100% certain it'd be the right move at this point.

But as someone wise once told me, it's your career. We all have to make these decisions as to what we think is best. If your goal is to remain on the Kindle bestseller list (which seems kind of pointless with only one book out there -- you can always do a short term price drop when the second book comes out), then I can see why the 99 cent price point is the right choice for you.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> Vicki, I don't think people are talking about books like NWSS when they discuss price generally. It's fantastic that you've made it into the lofty heights of the Amazon algorithms.
> 
> Most books won't.
> 
> General pricing policy can't work if it's based on winning the lottery.


If I had looked at these arguments and decided to not drop my price, I would have never known that my book could make it into the top 200.

And I have watched other authors a lot. DB Henson has been in the top 100 for months. I keep watching it, expecting her to run out of customers. But she's not. That's what ultimately made me realize something: Amazon keeps saying their best selling item is the Kindle. Even if I sell 1,000 books a day, they're selling *more* Kindles than I am books.

This is important, so I'll say it again. Amazon is selling more Kindles than even the best selling book... you know, that one in the number one spot.

This isn't going to run out soon, folks. There are millions of Kindles out there. I haven't even sold to a small percentage of them yet. And the number of potential customers are growing by leaps and bounds.

Vicki


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> Vicki, I don't think people are talking about books like NWSS when they discuss price generally. It's fantastic that you've made it into the lofty heights of the Amazon algorithms.
> 
> Most books won't.
> 
> General pricing policy can't work if it's based on winning the lottery.


Thanks for that, L.K. That's been my point too -- very few books are going to be in the "all-star" category, so basing a strategy on that is pointless. We can hope for it, but planning for it is nuts.

What's got me excited is how much money a writer can make selling at a rate that would essentially put a book out of print in NY, so long as the book is not priced too low.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Victorine said:


> If I had looked at these arguments and decided to not drop my price, I would have never known that my book could make it into the top 200.
> 
> And I have watched other authors a lot. DB Henson has been in the top 100 for months. I keep watching it, expecting her to run out of customers. But she's not. That's what ultimately made me realize something: Amazon keeps saying their best selling item is the Kindle. Even if I sell 1,000 books a day, they're selling *more* Kindles than I am books.
> 
> ...


Exactly! So I understand completely why you're unwilling to raise the price on NWSS (though I, like others, think you're missing an opportunity to make some really good money.)

But what about books that aren't in the top 500?


----------



## bellaandre (Dec 10, 2010)

Victorine said:


> This isn't going to run out soon, folks. There are millions of Kindles out there. I haven't even sold to a small percentage of them yet. And the number of potential customers are growing by leaps and bounds.
> Vicki


I totally agree with this. I had this vision of millions of people ripping open the paper on xmas day and finding an ereader there. Of course they couldn't wait to load it up with books!  From everything I'm reading and seeing (even around my small town) the adoption rate for e-readers/tablets/e-books is tremendous. And I think the sales numbers in the past 10 days have really proved it.

As for price, I think there are so many variables at play. For me, the first two non-backlist, original ebooks I wrote (Love Me and Game For Love) are sequels to NY pubbed books. Do I think that has helped them? Of course. But the really interesting thing is that the bulk of my reviews and emails say the same thing: "This is the first book I've ever read of yours." So while I"m sure I've gotten sales from previous readers who were looking for a sequel, I suspect most of my readers are new. Which is really, really exciting.

In any case, I've thought long and hard about pricing and do think I'm in my current sweet spot with a full length novel being $4.99 - $5.99 and novella length at $2.99. For whatever reason, $.99 has not worked for me at all in the past nine months. Maybe it will in the future - I'm certainly open to anything. That's why I'm here on these boards learning from everyone else's experience.

Great cover, btw, Vicki! 
 Bella


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I just wanted to thank everyone for this discussion. It's touching on so many issues I'm wrestling with right now. 

I lowered my price for a holiday sale and am seeing 90+ sales a day now at the lower price. But I do wonder if I'm sacrificing something in the bargain.


----------



## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

Scott,

" If you look at the bestseller list on the Amazon kindle page right now, lots of publishers are discounting, so they're playing this game too.  You can get The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for only $5.  And the The Lost Symbol right now is $3.99."  I have noticed this too.  

We've had a price advantage, but Big Publishing is getting hip to this and can certainly discout one book in a series to attract readers.  So, competing on price is going to get harder and harder.  And there are tons of midlist writers whose publishers are allowing their titles to languish in their catalogues.  They are no doubt busy scanning, proofing, learning how to epublish.  

Yes, the number of ereaders is increasing.  I would say that these two trends might cancel each other out a bit and we'll still (Indies) have a nice window to work in.  

I would say, if you can get on readers radar screens now, that's good, because it will, slowly, get more crowded.

I think 2011 will be the year of the Indies.


----------



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

This is the Neverending Pricing Story. 

To me it seems like the first thing an indie writer needs to do is build readership -- well, write books first of course. 

I look at Zoe Winters who is selling her three novellas at $2.99 and her collection of all three at $3.99, I believe. She is doing well at that price, but for a long time she was selling her first novella for $0.99 (and giving it away on her website, where it's still free). 

I really think she built readership with the cheaper prices and that allowed her to raise her prices because she reached some kind of critical mass that started putting her books in front of shoppers. 

Victorine is making nice money and getting a ton of people exposed to her writing at $0.99. I'd be happy with that. She can raise her price, but the best thing she can do is get another good book out. 

And Amanda has two $0.99 books and that seems to work nicely for her too.


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Well, like I said, I do watch other authors.  I've seen authors raise their price from 99 cents, where they were selling very well, and then drop like a stone in the ranks.  I know they aren't making as much being that low in the ranks.  I've seen some of them go back to the 99 cent price, and not ever make it back to where they were in rank.  I'm not going to take the chance.  Besides, what I really want is readers.  And I'll have my next book out soon (hopefully).

I find it interesting that the big publishers pay good money to have a book put free on Amazon, and they keep doing it, so it must be working for them.  So why isn't it a good idea to try a book at 99 cents to see if it would climb the charts?

Vicki


----------



## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

callingcrow said:


> Scott,
> 
> " If you look at the bestseller list on the Amazon kindle page right now, lots of publishers are discounting, so they're playing this game too. You can get The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for only $5. And the The Lost Symbol right now is $3.99." I have noticed this too.
> 
> ...


You got that right. Just based on some of the private listservs I'm on, established pros are really beginning to move now. I've personally taught over 50 writers to do this myself. I think the early adopter phase is over.

Which means the only way to compete long term is the same as it's always been: with great storytelling. You keep improving your craft, things will work out fine no matter which pricing strategy you use.

All right, I think I've beat this dead horse long enough. I know where I've come down: I want to be a writer people don't hesitate to pay $4.99 to read. I'll use discount pricing for brief periods, but I think I'm going to base my thinking on $4.99 being the regular, long-term price for ebooks for the foreseeable future. I also write a lot of short stories, so my thinking is if people want to sample my work for 99 cents, they can always buy those. See how it works out.


----------



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

Monique said:


> I just wanted to thank everyone for this discussion. It's touching on so many issues I'm wrestling with right now.
> 
> I lowered my price for a holiday sale and am seeing 90+ sales a day now at the lower price. But I do wonder if I'm sacrificing something in the bargain.


You might be leaving money on the table, sure, but there are apparently millions of readers who like paranormal romance. At 90 sales a day you are approaching $12,000 in revenue over a year on 32,000 sales. You could sell at that rate for ten years and not get close to reaching a saturation point if you consider anyone who read Twilight as a potential reader.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

There have been a number of discussions popping up lately (including some on Dean's blog - in the comments on several posts - probably more on posts about other things than those about price, actually) - and I think that's another sign that things are in flux.

I want to take a step back and look at the pricing model of traditional publishing, and why it was the way it was -- because I don't think most publishers really KNEW what they were doing. They were just doing what they'd done before and what worked, and they ignored things that didn't directly relate to them. However:

Historically books were a premium item because of the cost of manufacture - but also because they were a durable good. They kept their value so they were an investment. I mean, they generally didn't appreciate in value, but they were something in your house that you could reliably sell for quick cash.

Even "penny dreadfuls" usually had multiple owners sharing the cost. You'd buy as many as you could afford and then trade them with your friends - thus cutting your cost per book in half or quarters. Dumb publishers hated this. Smart ones played on it.

The aftermarket for physical books thus supports a higher price... but it also does something else that is downright amazing and can only happen with intellectual property: It means that a product is available to all price ranges, and to every audience equally. A new hardback sells to one audience, a limited edition to another. Trade paperbacks to yet another. Mass Market to another. Used books of various kinds to yet others. Lending and freebies to yet another.

Sure all of these audiences overlap -- but the really cool thing is, that ALL books can hit all these audiences, and do so at the optimum price for each group. It can be literature or trashy pulp fiction - all have offerings at every level somewhere.

At least they did with paper books. Of course the problem was that the only people who paid the _publishers_ (and therefore the writers) were those who purchased new. The rest support that price, but they are more or less invisible.

eBooks change all that. And I don't know how it's going to shake out. Those audiences are still there, and there will always be portions of them who are underserved (and therefore be an opportunity). From what I've seen lately, I suspect that what'll happen are two things.

1.) The business will fragment to match the audiences. Instead of the same books offered at different prices to different audiences, each book will be marketed to a different audience, and priced accordingly. Someone over on Dean's blog compared this to a "league" system. Bush leagues, minor leagues, majors. Others might see it as a class system, but I don't think it will really be a "ghetto" so much as equivalent to different kinds of stores. People may look down on dollar stores, but hey, I remember the old five and dimes and they were very cool stores. (And for that matter, if you're a kid, the dollar stores have treasures something like them.)

The big thing with this model, though, is that it isn't really "high brow" vs. "low brow." There will be many reasons for authors and readers to choose a different level. There will be the hobbyists - the "for the love" literary writers and poets - as well as those who can toss off two trashy novels a month, spelling optional. People doing super niche stuff will probably be at all levels. And there will be those who pay a higher price who will also want trashy novels (although spelling probably won't be optional for them).

2.) "Windowing" and other variable pricing models. We're going to see the prices of individual books change over time. Many publishers do this now - they offer the book at a premium price, but then will drop it down for short periods of time to snag more price-conscious consumers. Others will price new releases very high, and then drop the prices slowly over time.

They don't do this just as teasers to get people to try the books - they're actually expanding their audience to different groups, many of whom will NEVER pay a higher price. That way they can move beyond saturation of the audience at one price point.

And imho, that may be the secret to dealing with market saturation. I do agree with those who say maybe pricing low at first to "get off to a good start" is self-defeating in the long run. You may burn up your fuel too fast, and you'll continue to have to work harder than you might have if you took it slow and built up your writing and reputation. Saturate the upper levels before you then expand your audience by lowering your price.

But that's just theoretical stuff. I stick by my earlier statement that the big thing is not to churn your prices or worry too much. Pick your strategy and give it a good long chance to work. Change it only at a pre-set time, so you aren't doing things by emotion.

(Also, and I mean this: FORGET RANKING! That's a meaningless toy. It's a comparative thing, and the meaning changes from hour to hour. Authors can and do make a decent living without ever achieving the top 100. Remember that a $4.99 book can sell a ninth of the number of books as a .99 book, and will still make more money. The rankings difference is huge between these two books.)

Camille


----------



## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Asher MacDonald said:


> You might be leaving money on the table, sure, but there are apparently millions of readers who like paranormal romance. At 90 sales a day you are approaching $12,000 in revenue over a year on 32,000 sales. You could sell at that rate for ten years and not get close to reaching a saturation point if you consider anyone who read Twilight as a potential reader.


@Monique - Yes. This.

I like to think of the money I *could* have made as a fee I'm paying for advertising. Advertising on Amazon. What would you pay each day to be featured on Amazon, to people who have read similar books?

But instead of paying that fee out of pocket, you're getting paid less than what you would have. Unless your sales take off. Then you'll get paid more than you were.

I highly recommend you keep your 99 cent price. Your cover is excellent, and you are obviously getting word of mouth advertising. And remember, I was selling 90 books a day in the US near the end of November. Now I'm selling 360.

Vicki


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

@ Camille - Very interesting post. Lots to think about there.

@ Asher & Vicki - Thank you. You're right about the saturation level, I think. Camille's point is a good one though, that it's easier to move the price down to expand your audience than to move it up. But, if I'm thinking truly long-term here, it's not about one book or two, but a career. Out of Time may never sell well at $2.99 or $4.95, but it might help me sell When the Walls Fell and the others at that price. 

Have I mentioned how much I love this board? I really have no other place to discuss these issues. It's invaluable.


----------



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

callingcrow said:


> Scott,
> 
> " If you look at the bestseller list on the Amazon kindle page right now, lots of publishers are discounting, so they're playing this game too. You can get The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for only $5. And the The Lost Symbol right now is $3.99." I have noticed this too.
> 
> ...


This kind of reasoning makes me think prices will be driven down. After all, classic economics teaches us that oversupply drives down prices. And when the cost of creation is nil (the costs to produce an ebook are all sunk and not recurring), that tends to drive down pricing too.

How low can traditional publishers go? They can go free with first books in a series. My friend downloaded Diana Galbadon's Outlander (think that's the title) for free and loved it and got hooked and paid for the second one in the series. That's $7 for the ebook on Amazon right now. We'll see a lot of free and $0.99 and $2.99 books from traditional publishers trying to get us hooked on a series or an author.


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Asher MacDonald said:


> We'll see a lot of free and $0.99 and $2.99 books from traditional publishers trying to get us hooked on a series or an author.


I'm seeing this right now. Two of the three "What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item" books on my item page are free books and have been for months and months. Outlander was there for a time when it was free.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Monique said:


> I'm seeing this right now. Two of the three "What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item" books on my item page are free books and have been for months and months. Outlander was there for a time when it was free.


Which is why I may end up leaving Space Junque at 99 cents forever.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Asher MacDonald said:


> This kind of reasoning makes me think prices will be driven down. After all, classic economics teaches us that oversupply drives down prices. And when the cost of creation is nil (the costs to produce an ebook are all sunk and not recurring), that tends to drive down pricing too.


Just remember books are not commodities. They aren't at all a supply and demand item - they conform to a different set of rules that have to do with desirability.

And even with so-called commodities, this pricing model doesn't wash for many products. Cooking oil is a commodity. "Single estate" olive oil is not. You can get a loaf of bread for a buck nearly anywhere... and yet Zingerman's does good business selling $15 loaves of bread to people who pay to have it shipped all over the world. (And yes, I admit, my friends and I once did attempt to arrange for a helicopter to go down to Ann Arbor and get a Zingerman's pastrami on rye. The deal fell through when we didn't have anybody to get the sandwich to the airport. But you know, there is no real pastrami in our town.)

And the creation cost is NOT nil. Sunk costs DO affect price. Even in commodities and classic economics. It's amateurs who don't realize it because they don't pay themselves wages. However, wages and overhead are the source of most cost in most commodities. Basically, when the price falls below the cost of production (including wages and sunk costs) people go out of business, and the price rises.

I'll repeat this: people throw around the words "unlimited potential" when what they really mean is "unknown potential." The truth is, there is always a limit. You just don't know what it is.

Camille


----------



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

It's so different to see a public discussion of the reader's money and what we plan to do with it. Most discussions of this nature are generally clandestine and out of the consumer's sight as a matter of delicacy.  

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## JenniferBecton (Oct 21, 2010)

Not only does this discussion come down to different sweet spots depending on the book, genre, or author, but it also depends a lot on the author's goals. Victorine says she's interested in finding a large readership. That's great.  Steady growth is more important to me than hitting the top 100, so I'm somewhere in the middle. But someone who has unlimited time and wants to make money can price their book at $1 million. At that price, it only takes one sale to make a buttload.

I also think fear has a large role in this. I lowered my price, experienced success, and now I'm afraid I'll (choose one) fall off the bestsellers list, lose sales, go down in flames and never recover. Perhaps there is anecdotal evidence that suggests that books don't recover after the price is raised and then lowered again, but I just don't see how the average person would even know that the price has changed. I don't know all prices by heart and I have a vested interest in comparing prices. 

Plus there are other factors. As a new author, I felt it was fair to ask $2.99 for people to take a chance on me. But once established as a known quantity, I could see expecting more.

I have been guilty of thinking that $2.99 is my sweet spot, but having only proof that it's better than $4.95. I expect I'll play with pricing as time goes by and markets change.


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Scott William Carter said:


> You got that right. Just based on some of the private listservs I'm on, established pros are really beginning to move now. I've personally taught over 50 writers to do this myself. I think the early adopter phase is over.


Red alert! Red alert!

He's a spy!!!


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> It's so different to see a public discussion of the reader's money and what we plan to do with it. Most discussions of this nature are generally clandestine and out of the consumer's sight as a matter of delicacy.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


Says the man who sells some of his ebooks at $3.99 and then uses odd excuses like "time investment" to justify it. Tough to get on a high horse when you're on the ground pricing with the rest of us.

I respect your opinion, and your right to express it. But you gotta walk the walk before you talk the talk.


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

Monique - I'm with Vicki.  If you're selling that many books right now at the new price - keep it there for AT LEAST a while.  I've only read the first few chapters, so far, but I have a strong feeling the rest is JUST AS GOOD.  Build that readership while you can!!!  

Is Out of Time a stand alone or are you thinking of/planning on a sequel?


----------



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

Jack Kilborn said:


> Says the man who sells some of his ebooks at $3.99 and then uses odd excuses like "time investment" to justify it. Tough to get on a high horse when you're on the ground pricing with the rest of us.
> 
> I respect your opinion, and your right to express it. But you gotta walk the walk before you talk the talk.


I was just passing the mesage along from my PMs. You might not respect the concept of your reader's time investment, but carry on.

Edward C. Patterson
My Horse is Sway Back


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

JenniferBecton said:


> Like workers in any other field, I expect fair compensation for my work.


Expecting compensation has nothing to do with disrespecting or devaluing readers.

I've had readers travel 1000 miles to meet me, bringing along all six of my hardcovers wrapped in mylar, just to get a signature.

I've given out thousands of books to readers--actual paper books, at my expense. Ebooks? I've given out hundreds of thousands.

I've signed over 60,000 autographs for readers.

I've named over twenty characters in my books after readers.

I love readers. And I realize the very best thing I can do to respect readers is to make enough money at this so I can write more and give them more of what they enjoy.

My fans want me to make a living at this. They wouldn't find this topic distasteful at all.

Those who do find it distasteful need to understand that this is my job, and sharing data with my peers will help me get better at my job.


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> I was just passing the mesage along from my PMs. Sorry, carry on.


If I passed along my PMs, I'd get kicked off the board for being too offensive.

We get that you don't care about money, Edward. We do. Some of your comments here have contributed to the discussion, others seem an awful lot like casting judgment--judgment you can't cast while you're selling $3.99 ebooks.

If you want to reach fans, make everything free all the time, or price it as cheaply as you can, all the time. Then you can rightfully claim the moral high ground.

Your time investment argument is poor. Every book I write is a contract with my reader. When they pick up one of my books, I'm promising to entertain them. And I always do my best to fulfill that promise, no matter if they get the story for free, or buy a signed first edition for $50 on ebay.


----------



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

karencantwell said:


> Monique - I'm with Vicki. If you're selling that many books right now at the new price - keep it there for AT LEAST a while. I've only read the first few chapters, so far, but I have a strong feeling the rest is JUST AS GOOD. Build that readership while you can!!!
> 
> Is Out of Time a stand alone or are you thinking of/planning on a sequel?


Thank you, Karen! It's the first in a series.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> It's so different to see a public discussion of the reader's money and what we plan to do with it. Most discussions of this nature are generally clandestine and out of the consumer's sight as a matter of delicacy.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


Um, Ed, that's simply not true. Writers have always talked about such things everywhere and openly. It's just that the "customer" was always those evil publishers before. And retailers and business people talk prices in public.

I respect your position, but this constant sniping at everyone who has a different position is getting old.

The truth is, nobody is wrong in this discussion. Nobody. It's a matter of the blind men and the elephant. This is a big and complex and everyone has something to offer in terms of information and perspective - but the elephant's trunk is not like its tail, which is not like its foot which is not like its tusks.

Camille


----------



## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

Thanks for the thread, Jack, will be interesting to see if any useful data comes out of it and what the results will be.

I just reduced the price on my non-genre book this morning. Will be interesting to see if anying comes of it, but I know the problem is I haven't got a handle on the promtion and marketing end and have yet to find a good source for my target market. Long way to go (only one review thus far for instance), but all the information shared on the forums is helping to chrystallize a plan.

I respect everyone's right to price as they feel but I don't see how .99 as a base price can be sustained if ebook publishing is to succeed. Having been in business pretty much my entire adult life, I understand the value of having 'sales' but I also know that sometimes bumping prices _up _ is just as helpful and far better for the bottom line.

It would certainly be helpful if we had data from folks who have played around some with prices, and I thank all of you for sharing...

Sharon


----------



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

"I respect everyone's right to price as they feel but I don't see how .99 as a base price can be sustained if ebook publishing is to succeed."

It can be easily sustained if you sell enough copies and keep producing new books. 

One thing that bothers me is the idea that selling at a certain price point devalues the work. The intrinsic value in a book isn't determined by price but by the quality of book itself. I realize that there is buying psychology to consider, but even that isn't a reflection on the quality of the book. It's part of the consumer's decision-making process.


----------



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

daringnovelist said:


> Um, Ed, that's simply not true. Writers have always talked about such things everywhere and openly. It's just that the "customer" was always those evil publishers before. And retailers and business people talk prices in public.
> 
> I respect your position, but this constant sniping at everyone who has a different position is getting old.
> 
> ...


No, I'm wrong. Jack said so. And I am the elephant. And I am a constant and already old and getting older.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## JA Konrath (Apr 2, 2009)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> No, I'm wrong. Jack said so. And I am the elephant. And I am a constant and am already old and getting older.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


You're not wrong because I said so, Ed. Your opinion is valid, and relevant to you and to the discussion.

Where you're wrong is saying stuff like "It's a good thing I'm into readership and not trinkgelt." and other sly comments hinting that discussing money, or even thinking about money, is crass---and then pricing some of your ebooks at $3.99, which is a higher price than the majority of the posters here.

Writing to give joy to readers is a noble pursuit. But that doesn't mean making money from it is wrong, or should never be discussed.


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

Monique said:


> Thank you, Karen! It's the first in a series.


Excellent! 

Even better reason to build that readership in my opinion.


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> The truth is, nobody is wrong in this discussion. Nobody. It's a matter of the blind men and the elephant. This is a big and complex and everyone has something to offer in terms of information and perspective - but the elephant's trunk is not like its tail, which is not like its foot which is not like its tusks.


Well said, Camille. Thank you.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Jack Kilborn said:


> You're not wrong because I said so, Ed. Your opinion is valid, and relevant to you and to the discussion.
> 
> Where you're wrong is saying stuff like "It's a good thing I'm into readership and not trinkgelt." and other sly comments hinting that discussing money, or even thinking about money, is crass---and then pricing some of your ebooks at $3.99, which is a higher price than the majority of the posters here.
> 
> Writing to give joy to readers is a noble pursuit. But that doesn't mean making money from it is wrong, or should never be discussed.


Exactly - except for one thing. We ALL write to give our readers joy. If you really want to devote full time to that, you have to make a living.

Camille


----------



## Zack Hamric (Jun 2, 2010)

I'm not sure of the answers- I do know that at $2.99, if you have a half dozen books ranked in the top 4,000, you're making a reasonable amount of money- just a guess would be 350 books per month per title x 6= 2,100 books and $4,200. The odds of selling 12,600 books to make the same money are much slimmer...

I've stayed at $2.99 and spend 20% of the revenue on Kindle Giveaways and paid promotion. Since getting off to a rousing start with 3 sales in June, I hit 685 last month with a genre that typically doesn't rock the world on Kindle. 

I'll just keep plugging...and keep writing...

The bigger question is not just how to price and promote on Amazon, but how to promote on B&N and Apple...I'm at a loss on those two...

Thanks,
Zack


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Asher MacDonald said:


> This is the Neverending Pricing Story.
> 
> To me it seems like the first thing an indie writer needs to do is build readership -- well, write books first of course.
> 
> ...


And $4.95 and $6.95 is working well for Michael (10,000 books sold in December). I do think each person has to come up with their own "sweet spot" but I think too many are choicing $0.99 and staying there long past the time they need to be -- looks at Vicki. You've already started a nice following. I think it is now word of mouth which is generating your sales not the $0.99 price point. And I don't think ANYONE would feel cheated reading your book at a $4.95 price point (though I know you won't go that high since I can't even get you to $2.99


----------



## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

rsullivan9597 said:


> And $4.95 and $6.95 is working well for Michael (10,000 books sold in December). I do think each person has to come up with their own "sweet spot" but I think too many are choicing $0.99 and staying there long past the time they need to be -- looks at Vicki. You've already started a nice following. I think it is now word of mouth which is generating your sales not the $0.99 price point. And I don't think ANYONE would feel cheated reading your book at a $4.95 price point (though I know you won't go that high since I can't even get you to $2.99


rsullivan,

You've convinced me. Calling Crow, recently uploaded, the first book in my Southeast Series, is currently on sale for 99 cent. In March the price goes up to $2.99.


----------



## jhendereson (Oct 22, 2010)

Again I must apologize. I honestly did not think a group of people could discuss the subject of money without being rude, gloating and/or bragging. Plus, no one got hot and started cursing. This thread was pretty illuminating and interesting. In the future I'll reserve my comments till I get all the facts.


----------



## cahocking (Nov 8, 2010)

ROFL! This thread puts me in mind of that wonderful series of "Ladies of Letters" books by Carole Hayman, made into a radio series and then, more recently, into a TV series. Oh oh oh, I have a wonderful idea for a new book! I'll call it "Posts of Indie Authors". All the research is right here on this thread. Now all I have to do is decide how much to sell it for .......
With Kindest Regards in the True Spirit of a Lady of Letters,
Carole


----------



## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

I know I'm still a noob in the game, but even I wonder if my $2.99 is too low. I see some people pricing their short stories at $2.99, and here I have a 122,000-word novel at that price. Sure, some genres are hotter than others, but fantasy isn't a slug as far as readership goes. Neither is SF.

I had Kinshield on sale for $0.99 for the end of December New Kindle crowd, but now Amazon won't set the price back to $2.99 on the product page even though my DTP bookshelf shows $2.99. I wrote DTP customer service this morning and haven't received a response yet. I'm hesitant to change the price again 'cause it might blow a fuse somewhere.


----------



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

kcmay said:


> I know I'm still a noob in the game, but even I wonder if my $2.99 is too low. I see some people pricing their short stories at $2.99, and here I have a 122,000-word novel at that price. Sure, some genres are hotter than others, but fantasy isn't a slug as far as readership goes. Neither is SF.
> 
> I had Kinshield on sale for $0.99 for the end of December New Kindle crowd, but now Amazon won't set the price back to $2.99 on the product page even though my DTP bookshelf shows $2.99. I wrote DTP customer service this morning and haven't received a response yet. I'm hesitant to change the price again 'cause it might blow a fuse somewhere.


I think $2.99 for a short story is ridiculously high. If you want to look for some kind of standard in pricing, look to paper books from the traditional publishers. You get a 250-350 page novel for $7.99. That's the baseline for paper and the market has accepted it.

Really, though, all that matters is how the market responds to your price and your book. I won't pay $0.10 for a book I think is bad. I would pay $15 or more for another book like Shadow of the Wind, one of my favorite books in years.


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

When comparing print prices to ebook prices, remember to at least consider other countries, too. Example? Australians typically pay around $20 for a new-release paperback. I know the market is small in other English-speaking countries, but it's likely to grow rapidly.


----------



## Amyshojai (May 3, 2010)

Interesting topic. And my (nonfiction) backlist books, now on kindle, are probably in the minority so I don't know how this might relate to others. I started out at $2.99 with the first one (kitten) back in April, and futzed around with pricing going up to $3.99, back to $2.99, then up to $4.99, as I added the other books. With the exception of one month (July I think), sales doubled each month. So finally long about October or so, I raised the kitten book to $5.99--sales  increased. Ultimately I priced all the books at $5.99. They seem to all be steadily increasing in sales. Nope, I'm not selling thousands, or even hundreds yet. But for December it was well over 70 books at the $5.99, meanwhile with the print versions also coming along. Of course, I've given LOTS of books away, too, print and otherwise, plus doing lots of blogging and writing AOL content that helps build the brand.

Would I sell more copies at a lower price? For some of them, maybe. But I'm selling more of the kitten and aging-cat books at this price point than I ever did at the lower ones. *shrug*

All that said, when the fiction WIP finally debuts, it will first be offered for free, then .99 and we'll see how that goes. I'm an unknown in fiction and anxious to dip furry toes in those waters and hope some of the nonfiction audience follows me over and I satisfy readers in that arena, too.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

nomesque said:


> When comparing print prices to ebook prices, remember to at least consider other countries, too. Example? Australians typically pay around $20 for a new-release paperback. I know the market is small in other English-speaking countries, but it's likely to grow rapidly.


Actually, I think the market is likely to grow everywhere. High prices, inconvenience and lower selection drove a lot of readers out of the market over the years.

But _kids today_ DO read. More than ever. They just don't read traditional books or magazines as much. They read online and on their handheld devices. They have different tastes, different habits and different budgets than the book buyers of yesterday. Plus there are old fogeys like me who miss the kind of books we used to get as kids, before the midlist shake out. (Or older fogeys who miss the pulps.)

I miss finding books like Perry Mason - short and fast reads, not artfully written but wonderfully plotted and with fun characterization. Or more upscale books like classic mysteries which are artfully written, and didn't have a hook that overshadows the mystery. (Not that I don't like the modern mysteries with a hook. It just that it's hard to find the ones where there was no particular hook any more. Just a good detective and a good puzzle and a little melodramatic plotting.)

Indie publishing means all audiences will be able to find their "thing." And all authors can find their audience - even if it's small.

Camille


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

kcmay said:


> I know I'm still a noob in the game, but even I wonder if my $2.99 is too low. I see some people pricing their short stories at $2.99, and here I have a 122,000-word novel at that price. Sure, some genres are hotter than others, but fantasy isn't a slug as far as readership goes. Neither is SF.
> 
> I had Kinshield on sale for $0.99 for the end of December New Kindle crowd, but now Amazon won't set the price back to $2.99 on the product page even though my DTP bookshelf shows $2.99. I wrote DTP customer service this morning and haven't received a response yet. I'm hesitant to change the price again 'cause it might blow a fuse somewhere.


you will blow no fuse. I've changed my price enough times to know that! sometimes twice in one week!

yes, pricing drives me whacko.


----------



## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> you will blow no fuse. I've changed my price enough times to know that! sometimes twice in one week!
> 
> yes, pricing drives me whacko.


It'd be nice if it didn't take 24 hours for price changes to go into effect. In this digital age, that seems slow to me.

I've never tried a higher price, though I've tried 99c sales that bumped sales a little but not enough to warrant keeping it at that price. But I'm going to try it now. The worst that can happen is people won't buy, right? And sales have slid off for me anyway, so I might as well try it. I've received enough reviews on Venom now that people might not feel like they're taking a huge risk paying $4.99 for it.


----------



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

daringnovelist said:


> But _kids today_ DO read. More than ever.


Thanks to Jo Rowling, who may have saved a whole generation from sliding into the purely visual media zone. I know her view of eBook s are evolving, but Harry Potter has brought hosts of readers, especially adults via their own children to peer buzz into reading again.

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

daringnovelist said:


> I miss finding books like Perry Mason - short and fast reads, not artfully written but wonderfully plotted and with fun characterization. Or more upscale books like classic mysteries which are artfully written, and didn't have a hook that overshadows the mystery. (Not that I don't like the modern mysteries with a hook. It just that it's hard to find the ones where there was no particular hook any more. Just a good detective and a good puzzle and a little melodramatic plotting.)


Short books hardly exist anymore. They've been super-sized by historical standards, I suppose so that the reader feels s/he's getting a bargain. But I'm not sure what you mean by hooks in mysteries that overshadow the story. High concept? In which case, I think there are still plenty of those around. I will say it's easier to sell a first novel that's high concept, but after becoming established it's not necessary. Most of T. Jefferson Parker doesn't have any high concept, for example, and a lot of Michael Connelly, speaking off the top of my head.


----------



## cahocking (Nov 8, 2010)

OK, you've talked me into it. I've just adjusted the price on both of my books from $1.99 to $0.99 as an experiment, bearing in mind that I've only gone ebook since October and I'm already delighted with the sales. I'll keep you posted!
Regards
Carole.


----------



## Christopher Smith (Aug 3, 2010)

This has been an amazingly informative thread.  I've played with numbers, but since Fifth Avenue is my first novel, I thought I'd go low (.99 cents) and build a base for the next book, which is nearly finished.  FA stayed 10 weeks on the Top 100 before falling off on Christmas Eve (thank you, !%$*% Santa!) and it just leaped back onto the list today.  How do first-time authors feel?  If you're pricing low, are you doing it to build a base?  I still don't feel that at this point it would do much at $2.99, as much as I'd like to go there.  Maybe I'm wrong.  I don't know.  Who's got the crystal ball?


----------



## RJ Keller (Mar 9, 2009)

Christopher Smith said:


> This has been an amazingly informative thread. I've played with numbers, but since Fifth Avenue is my first novel, I thought I'd go low (.99 cents) and build a base for the next book, which is nearly finished. FA stayed 10 weeks on the Top 100 before falling off on Christmas Eve (thank you, !%$*% Santa!) and it just leaped back onto the list today. How do first-time authors feel? If you're pricing low, are you doing it to build a base? I still don't feel that at this point it would do much at $2.99, as much as I'd like to go there. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Who's got the crystal ball?


I'm reading Fifth Avenue right now, Christopher, and at the risk of sounding like a


Spoiler



kiss-ass


, I think you could get away with $2.99. Obviously it's up to you.


----------



## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

Christopher Smith said:


> This has been an amazingly informative thread. I've played with numbers, but since Fifth Avenue is my first novel, I thought I'd go low (.99 cents) and build a base for the next book, which is nearly finished. FA stayed 10 weeks on the Top 100 before falling off on Christmas Eve (thank you, !%$*% Santa!) and it just leaped back onto the list today. How do first-time authors feel? If you're pricing low, are you doing it to build a base? I still don't feel that at this point it would do much at $2.99, as much as I'd like to go there. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Who's got the crystal ball?


You will often hear the argument here that authors price low to build their base. But this is, or soon will be--as more readers become ereaders--an unprecedented bonanza of authors for readers, if you add up indie and trad combined. So to earn any repeat customers you've really got to impress, just knock the ball out of the park, it seems to me.


----------



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

cahocking said:


> OK, you've talked me into it. I've just adjusted the price on both of my books from $1.99 to $0.99 as an experiment, bearing in mind that I've only gone ebook since October and I'm already delighted with the sales. I'll keep you posted!
> Regards
> Carole.


Yeah, Carole.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Eric C said:


> Short books hardly exist anymore. They've been super-sized by historical standards, I suppose so that the reader feels s/he's getting a bargain. But I'm not sure what you mean by hooks in mysteries that overshadow the story. High concept? In which case, I think there are still plenty of those around. I will say it's easier to sell a first novel that's high concept, but after becoming established it's not necessary. Most of T. Jefferson Parker doesn't have any high concept, for example, and a lot of Michael Connelly, speaking off the top of my head.


I should have been more specific. When I said "classic" I meant cozy puzzle mysteries. I am loath to use the word "cozy" for them any more, because that part of the genre has shrunk to gimmicks. Many of those books are good, but you can't have a cozy without a gimmick these days. (I mean, I shouldn't complain - my current main series is a western.) And it seems like most of those series disappear before they really develop.

I do read a lot more on the hard-boiled and police procedural end of things these days - but they tend to be more weighty.

Camille


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

Christopher Smith said:


> This has been an amazingly informative thread. I've played with numbers, but since Fifth Avenue is my first novel, I thought I'd go low (.99 cents) and build a base for the next book, which is nearly finished. FA stayed 10 weeks on the Top 100 before falling off on Christmas Eve (thank you, !%$*% Santa!) and it just leaped back onto the list today. How do first-time authors feel? If you're pricing low, are you doing it to build a base? I still don't feel that at this point it would do much at $2.99, as much as I'd like to go there. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Who's got the crystal ball?


Christopher, I've been watching Fifth Avenue and you've done GREAT! You obviously had a marketing plan and executed well on it. You're book (IMHO) got the numbers because.

a) You have a site with many eyeballs that you can leverage
b) You poured quite a bit of money into promotion with some pretty high-end giveaways
c) You have a VERY professional looking product
d) You did a fantastic job with the rollout (back to the marketing plan thing).

Personally, I think your book could stand to go up in price. I understand the need to get eyeballs- but you've done that and are getting good reviews so let word-of-mouth bring in the new readers and concentrate on getting the price such that you are making decent $ in addition to decent numbers. As you are obviously marketing savvy I don't need to tell you that its about maximizing profit.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> Thanks to Jo Rowling, who may have saved a whole generation from sliding into the purely visual media zone. I know her view of eBook s are evolving, but Harry Potter has brought hosts of readers, especially adults via their own children to peer buzz into reading again.


Actually I meant kids who don't necessarily read Harry Potter or Twilight. I think people underestimate just how _text_ oriented this generation is, because it's not the forms we use. They tweet and chat and visit forums, and send emails. (They write letters the way I did as a kid - when long distance was too expensive to phone.) They read blogs and heck, even the heavy-duty interactive gamers chat - in text - while they play.

IMHO, I think those who think they can add a little media to books and turn them into something "kids today" would like are missing the boat. Games and interactive media have gone so far beyond that, that such books would seem retro anyway. But oddly, pure text is something they react well to.... on their devices. They don't like dead trees, and they may not even be all that thrilled with a dedicated device like Kindle. But they're very open to twitter novels and reading apps.

I suspect we're on the edge of a convergence. We're going to see new genres and lengths and forms for this new audience (and most of it will be published independently by them).

Camille


----------



## parKb5 (Jan 4, 2011)

I just entered the picture so I went for the low price of $0.99 for my first book. I'm not planning on making a fortune on it. I just had fun writing my book and thought maybe someone would enjoy reading it and tell me so. All I am looking for someone to say, "Wow! Greg, you're book doesn't suck LOL."


----------



## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Christopher Smith uses 99 cents and 2.99, btw. If you watch his book you'll see the price change now and then.


----------



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

parKb5 said:


> I just entered the picture so I went for the low price of $0.99 for my first book. I'm not planning on making a fortune on it. I just had fun writing my book and thought maybe someone would enjoy reading it and tell me so. All I am looking for someone to say, "Wow! Greg, you're book doesn't suck LOL."


This works too. I used to be involved in the local poetry scene, and I still drop in at open mikes and other events from time to time. All these writers do it for the love of doing it. There's never any chance of making money off poetry.


----------



## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

Asher MacDonald said:


> "I respect everyone's right to price as they feel but I don't see how .99 as a base price can be sustained if ebook publishing is to succeed."
> 
> It can be easily sustained if you sell enough copies and keep producing new books.
> 
> One thing that bothers me is the idea that selling at a certain price point devalues the work. The intrinsic value in a book isn't determined by price but by the quality of book itself. I realize that there is buying psychology to consider, but even that isn't a reflection on the quality of the book. It's part of the consumer's decision-making process.


I truly did not mean to nor did I infer that because a work is priced low makes it inferior quality. I am well aware that there are quality books out there priced at .99. But not everyone is a prolific writer nor wants to be. Do the math, even 100,000 sales at .99 with 35% royalties only equals about $35,000 per year. And how many are doing those numbers? Not saying folks shouldn't price low to build their base, just sayin' I don't think .99 price point as the norm can sustain the ebook biz.

Sharon


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

I swear this is not a plant...but the most recent review on "The Crown Conspiracy" (5-star) stated that they loved that it was "very reasonably priced" at $4.95.


----------



## karencantwell (Jun 17, 2010)

iamstoryteller said:


> Not saying folks shouldn't price low to build their base, just sayin' I don't think .99 price point as the norm can sustain the ebook biz.


I agree completely here -- I also don't think that many people who price their books at .99 cents plan to price them all there. As far as I can tell, most are (or are planning to) using that as an introductory price for one book or first book in a series.

Karen


----------



## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> I swear this is not a plant...but the most recent review on "The Crown Conspiracy" (5-star) stated that they loved that it was "very reasonably priced" at $4.95.


rsullivan (sorry don't know your name) and hubby Michael, I want you for my gurus. You rock!

Though a noob indie, I can see that you have put in a great deal of time and work to get where you are. I downloaded a couple of your books and intend to read them soon, I'm guessing they are as well written as your covers are beautifully rendered.

May your sales just keep on rising...


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

iamstoryteller said:


> rsullivan (sorry don't know your name) and hubby Michael, I want you for my gurus. You rock!
> 
> Though a noob indie, I can see that you have put in a great deal of time and work to get where you are. I downloaded a couple of your books and intend to read them soon, I'm guessing they are as well written as your covers are beautifully rendered.
> 
> May your sales just keep on rising...


Thanks...my name is Robin btw, and Michael did the covers.


----------



## iamstoryteller (Jul 16, 2010)

Thanks, Robin, I knew I had read your name somewhere but could not recall it! Hopefully I will remember now.

And wow! Michael is one very talented man! Smart too, to have a wife like you.

Cheers, Sharon


----------



## L. A. Burton (Sep 1, 2010)

I think it's a great idea. I emailed you about it. And whatever it takes I'm there. 


Jack Kilborn said:


> Lots of good points are being made here.
> 
> Going back to the whole "union" idea--there's actually some gravitas in that.
> 
> ...


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Association of Independent Authors


----------



## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

nomesque said:


> A challenge for you - raise the price back to 2.99, and put a blue bare-chested man on the cover. Bet the 'downward pressure' problem will disappear. ;-)


Only if the blue bare-chested man had ripped abs. Actually, I had ripped abs when I last tried to do some situps. But they didn't show on the outside. Darn


----------



## L. A. Burton (Sep 1, 2010)

nomesque said:


> Association of Independent Authors


Thank you. I checked it out it looks great.


----------



## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

callingcrow said:


> Only if the blue bare-chested man had ripped abs. Actually, I had ripped abs when I last tried to do some situps. But they didn't show on the outside. Darn


So you're not volunteering to grace the cover? Darn!! 

Yes, I agree on the abs, btw.


----------



## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

iamstoryteller said:


> Thanks, Robin, I knew I had read your name somewhere but could not recall it! Hopefully I will remember now.
> 
> And wow! Michael is one very talented man! Smart too, to have a wife like you.
> 
> Cheers, Sharon


Hey that made me laugh...I consider him smart...but for a lot more than his choice in women


----------



## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> As long as a lot of people can be convinced that they are "greedy" if they make money, there will be aristocrats and peasants.
> 
> Is Tom Hanks greedy?
> Is Oprah greedy?
> ...


Quitting my day job--not going to happen for me. Even if a publisher called up with a million dollar deal. I carry the benefits, so that's that. However, I *could* go to part-time and keep benefits and keep up to date in my field. It's a win/win situation. 

As far as hating the 99 cent price point, well, fortunately as Indies, we can choose our price point. The fact is, in general, 99 cent books sell more and there are times when volume of sales can trump monetary gain.

For instance, I put my book on sale for six weeks in Nov/Dec because I'm trying to get a seqeul out. At the rate I was going, I wasn't going to have as many readers of the sequel as I would have liked, so I put the book on sale to gain a larger readerbase. I even gave it away on Indiewrites for a week. All together, the move has built my readership from about 500 at the end of October, to about 2k now. (not sales, just people who have the book--not all have read it, I'm sure.) If even half of them read it and like it enough to buy the next book at possibly $3.99, it willl have been worth it.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

I agree with everything you say, Mary! Obviously I'm a mass of contradiction. And Space Junque will probably stay 99 cents for -- a while....


----------

