Jennifer Becton's Blog, page 42

Video Break!

So thanks to the gals at Indie Jane, I stayed up until 2 AM watching “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” on YouTube. And now I am passing this addiction on to you. I’m sorry.

And for you horse people out there, I found a nice little video produced by the British Museum, which is hosting the exhibition “The Horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot” until the end of September. I totally agree with Martin Clunes’s assessment that horses keep us in the moment because that’s where they are: in the moment. And that’s part of what I love about them. They remind me to enjoy living right now and not to worry so much about the next book or the next thing on my to-do list. I shouldn’t live to check things off a list; I should enjoy each moment I’m living. And so should you.

Correction Re: Amazon Algorithm and Price

I made a mistake, and I’d like to rectify that. In my Indie Jane post from June 2012, I discussed the influence of price on rank at Amazon. My mistake? I mashed together the popularity list and the bestsellers list. Thanks to this blog post by Phoenix Sullivan, the matter is now clearer. Read it.

Despite my confusion, price still affects visibility at Amazon in a way that it had not previously done. That much, I was right about.

But here are is the main point:

The popularity list is the only one weighted in favor of a higher price, not the bestsellers list.

To restate, the bestsellers list is NOT weighted in favor of higher priced books.

However, my overall conclusion–price now affects visibility–was correct. Popularity lists are important in visibility, and many people surf them, and not the bestsellers list, to find books. Also consider that the popularity list affects the bestsellers list more than vice versa.

So as with most things in life, the important thing is for authors to find the balance between price, sales, the bestsellers list, and the popularity list.

My instinct tells me to keep an eye on the algorithm and its changes, but to focus on price and number of sales in order to maximize both profit and visibility. Finding the highest price that gains the most sales–the top of the sales curve–should put your book at its best possible place on both the bestsellers list and the popularity list to gain maximum visibility.

Business Basics for Authors: Market Forces and Price

How do you place a value on an item? When faced with the prospect of setting the price of a book, many authors (and creators of other products) begin by assessing the amount of time and money they have put into the production of the product, and that is not wrong. It is important to know how much you have invested in your work.

However, where many people go wrong is by trying to pass off the full cost of production onto one reader or in a given length of time. They say, “Well, it took me X number of hours to write the book, and I should be getting a minimum wage of Y, so if I project 8 sales a day, then I have to charge Y + (the distributors cut and delivery fees) in order to earn what I deserve.” Or they say, “Well, I’d like to earn my money back in 1 year, and if I project X sales in that time, then I have to charge Y in order to make my money back.” It usually ends with something like this: “Therefore, I have determined that the book is worth Z. Period. End of discussion.”

Everyone starts off by doing this, but it is based on flawed logic and it’s an almost certain way of shooting your book in the foot, so to speak.

“Why?” you ask.

Because you are trying to set the value of the book without taking the market (YOUR READERS) into consideration. The market determines the value of a book, not the author or publisher.

What does that mean? It means that every individual reader looks at your book and then decides if the cost of it is worth it to them. They assess the risk (the purchase price) versus the potential reward (the potential joy or knowledge they’ll get from the book). Then, they’ll either buy it or they won’t. Or they’ll defer the purchase until the price comes down.

This is where that chart from the previous post comes in. Instead of calculating a price based on the faulty premise of trying to pass off the entire cost of production on one reader or in a given time (ebooks are forever), the author should be trying to find the price where the most number of readers will purchase it for the most amount of money. Where the risk is acceptable to most readers, and the reward is greatest for you.

Lots of factors will move the graph above so that the curve falls either at a higher price point or a lower price point. Let’s examine a few of these forces that will act on your book:

Retailers’ Sales Algorithms: Recently, Amazon changed its algorithm so that books with lower prices had to sell more copies in order to achieve the same rank and visibility. This made the sales curve of my books move to the right. I got more reward (visibility) for pricing slightly higher and less reward for pricing at $.99. Previously, the opposite was true.
Cost of Production: If paper gets more expensive, the cost of paperbacks will rise to compensate. If the cost of paper decreases, the cost will decrease to compensate.
Accruing Reviews: Books don’t sell themselves. Readers sell them. Readers share good books among friends, leave reviews, and blog about them. So in order for a book to sell, it has to be read first and favorably received. The risk of buying an unreviewed, unsuggested book is very high for a reader. They don’t want to go into a purchase blind unless they aren’t risking very much in terms of money.
Endorsements: If someone major–I’m talking Oprah level celebrity here–endorses your book, the price can move to the right significantly. If someone in your field endorses it, the price can also move to the right, but to a lesser degree.
Noteriety: If you do something cool like steal Doctor Who’s TARDIS and land it on the White House, I think it’s safe to say that people will be curious about you and your book, thus moving the price to the right too. Commit a heinous crime, and you can’t give the book away, except to creepy stalkers who want to emulate you. Or if you become a known expert in your field or a known entity in your genre, your price will shift to the right.
Time and Acceptance: As your book begins to accumulate positive reviews and people begin recommending it to others, the price can move to the right because the risk to possible readers has been lowered. Someone they trust told them it was good, so they are willing to risk a bit more money to read it. Conversely, if your book gets negative reviews across the board, the price will move left because people are not going to want to risk a lot of money on something that others hated.

I could go on for ages about all the market forces that will affect price. It’s a complicated subject with many angles and possibilities for change. But if you keep in mind that readers determine the value of your book and not you, then things become clearer.

Every writer thinks their book is unique and special. They think it brings something new to the market and therefore is more valuable and can support a higher price than its competition, but here’s the flaw with that thinking: every good book should offer something new. If you’re providing the same old, same old, then why bother? But let’s assume that you have written something truly unique that cannot be found anywhere else. Just because you’ve written the world’s only underwater-basket-weaving suspense thriller/romance, that doesn’t automatically garner a higher price tag. Uniqueness or newness of information doesn’t matter at all if no one ever reads it. You have to get the readers on board with you, and pricing where the risk is acceptable to them will allow you to gain their support and thus raise the value of your book on the whole.

 

In the News: DOJ, Apple, et al.

So this post will probably make your eyes roll back in your head, and not in a good way.

But if you are an indie publisher, it’s important for you to keep up with big industry news because even if it’s not directly related to us; it affects us.

So you’ve probably heard about the little DOJ lawsuit regarding the alleged collusion of Apple and several of the Big 6 publishers, which has resulted in a lack of competition in the ebook market and in artificially inflated ebook prices. Well, here’s the proposed final judgement on that, which has not been approved by the court. Warning it’s long, but at least read the intro. I’ll post it at the bottom of the page.

What it appears to boil down to is that steps have been proposed to ensure that the collusion among Apple and the other publishers stops.

What will it mean for the indie author if this is the final judgment? Will it be time to panic? Riot in the streets because real competition will have been restored (or should be) in the book world?

Heck no!

More competition benefits everyone. The lower the prices of Big 6 books, the more books people will buy because they have more money in their pockets after purchasing the latest Evanovich or Roberts.

If Amazon has Apple and the Big 6′s panties in a twist because they’re dominating the ebook market, then the way to fight back is not to collude and destroy competition. It’s to compete! In a competitive marketplace, everyone wins: authors, publishers, retailers, and readers. (Readers will benefit most of all because they will stop paying punitive prices.)

Response of Plaintiff United States to Public Comments on the Proposed Final Judgment

Indie Jane Anniversary Giveaway

If you didn’t win the Kindle Fire from the Fear Free and Fired up Giveaway, you can still win one courtesy of my friends at Indie Jane. This Fire comes preloaded with 20 Austenesque novels, including Charlotte Collins!

Big Thanks and Big News

Before I get to the international news, I’d like to thank everyone involved in the launch of Riding Fear Free: Help for Fearful Riders and Their Teachers, which I had the honor of co-writing with Laura Daley. The ebook is out now, and the paperback is coming soon. Laura and I hope our book helps lots of fearful riders gallop toward their dreams.

Now for my international news:



Editions Bragelonne will be publishing Charlotte Collins and Caroline Bingley in French!

The deal is done, the contracts are signed, and soon Caroline and Charlotte will be en francais! I had the privilege of working with Damaris Rowland and Lori Antonson of the Axelrod Agency in bringing the deal to a close. So thanks to them for all their assistance.

This was an unexpected and pleasant development, and I’m thrilled that my first (and hopefully not last) foreign edition will be in French. As a French major, I will be able to read it (even if I didn’t have the skills to translate it myself).

Business Basics for Authors: The Sweet Spot

In the first Business Basics for Authors post, I talked about how ebook pricing affects the number of books an author sells.

Higher price=fewer sales, but more profit per unit sold

Lower Price=more sales, but lower profit per unit sold

So what does this mean for me? How do I price my book? Do I set my list price as $1 million under the theory that it just takes one sale to make my career? Or do I price at $.99 under the theory that I’ll attract a 3 million buyers?

Authors can do either, but the smartest option is to find the sweet spot where you get the highest number of sales and earn the highest amount per book sold, thus generating the highest revenue possible. In 2011, Dave Slusher at Evil Genius Chronicles analyzed book sales data posted by JA Konrath in 2010 to find the sweet spot of his pricing vs. revenue numbers. Read his post if you’d like a more in-depth analysis than what I’m going to post here.

via Dave Slusher at Evil Genius Chronicles

Here is a chart of what Slusher found regarding Konrath’s sales numbers. The top of the curve is the sweet spot.

I can hear you: “Jennifer, that’s a lovely little chart, but what does it really mean, and how do I apply it to my situation?”

What it means: If Konrath gives his book away free, he gets no money. If he prices at $1, he earns $1000 (because lots of people buy at $1, but he only earns $.35 per unit). If he prices at $9, he earns about $500 (because fewer people buy at the price point by he earns $6.30 per unit). But if he prices at $3, he will earn more than $2,000 because he has found the sweet spot where people are willing to buy and where he makes the most possible per book.

How it applies: This data is unique to JA Konrath, and while it might serve as a good starting point for you, the only way to find the unique sweet spot for your book in your genre in a particular market is to experiment with your price and keep records. Figure out how much money you earned at each price point, and you will find your sweet spot.

Sweet spots will change as market forces act, and that is what we’ll be talking about in the next in the Business Basics for Authors series.

And don’t forget to register to win a Kindle Fire!

 

Win a Kindle Fire

Help Laura Daley and me celebrate the upcoming launch of Riding Fear Free by entering to win a Kindle Fire and much more!

Fear Free & Fired Up Prize Pack includes a Kindle Fire and an ebook copy of Riding Fear Free.



Fear Free & Looking Good Prize Pack includes a t-shirt and hat from our friends at Bisaddular, a $20 gift certificate for custom horsehair jewelry by SC Equine, and a signed full-color paperback of Riding Fear Free.



Fear Free & Feeling Good Prize Pack includes bath items from Lather and Lace, a braided Vaquero chinstrap from the Krazy Kangaroo, and a signed full-color paperback of Riding Fear Free.

Good luck and Ride Fear Free!

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Business Basics for Authors: How Price Affects Sales Numbers

Warning: Math Ahead

One common theme I’ve found among authors–both indies and trad pubbed alike–is that many feel a bit lost when it comes to the business aspects of publishing. Indies obviously need to know some basic business principles because they have to handle their spreadsheets and pricing decisions on their own, but even if you are trad pubbed (or have chosen that direction), you need to know some basic facts in order to make smart decisions about things your agents or publishers tell you.

Recently, I was explaining my pricing choices on Southern Fraud to someone in the book business. I explained that I chose the $.99 price point for book 1 because it would generate a lot of sales, but little income. I wanted bulk sales and didn’t care about money; I just wanted to share the book with as many people as possible. I then explained that I wanted to earn money from book 2, so I priced it higher, knowing that I would not achieve the same sales numbers. I also explained how I wanted to find the sweet spot at the peak where income and sales reach are maximized.

This response I received surprised me: the apparent belief that this was something unique to certain books, implying that my book in particular could not support a higher price based on the fact that it sold fewer books at that price than it had at $.99. The response also indicated that past experiments in this area had yielded the same results with certain other books, ie. raising a book’s price caused sales numbers to decrease.

Well, this just in!

This shouldn’t be a surprise. And there shouldn’t be any need to experiment to discover that a higher price means fewer sales than the same item at a lower price.

This is the way it works in economics. It’s an economic fact. If all things are equal:

Lower price = more sales and less income per unit sold.

Higher price = fewer sales but more income per unit sold.

Look at your own personal economics. Let’s say you’re shopping for an item online and find it for sale on two websites. One site offers it for $.99 and the other for $9.99. Shipping costs the same at both sites, and you are not purchasing anything else. Most likely, you are going to choose the cheaper site so that you can save money. The $.99 business is trying to earn their money through bulk sales, and the $9.99 business is trying to earn more per unit sold.

There are lots of “market forces” out there that complicate this simple principle, but this is the basic fact of economics where we’ll begin and branch out from there.

Next week, I’ll explain the pricing sweet spot.

Bad Guys in Keen Eddie

Recently, I was engaged in a thought-provoking conversation about thrillers, more specifically about the bad guys in thrillers. We discussed the villains in Southern Fraud and agreed that they aren’t terribly scary or diabolically evil.

I took this as a compliment because writing purely evil villains was not my intention. However, our conversation gave me an opportunity to reevaluate my view of thrillers as a genre and of bad guys in general.

From the beginning, I wanted Southern Fraud be a different kind of thriller. I wanted to emulate the feel of TV crime drama/comedies and not linger somewhere particularly dark and evil. I have always been looking for books that had a similar tone and style to shows like Castle, the Mentalist, or shows on USA. I’d never found them. Everything seemed to be either very dark or so slapstick it was unrealistic.

I wanted to write something humorous, somewhat realistic in plot, Southern in terms of manners and characters, and romantic in the right doses. I wanted to tell the story of characters overcoming obstacles, including the bad guys, and dealing with real emotions. I wanted the stakes to be high and the danger to be present, but I didn’t want to go the traditional route to attain these things. I wanted to try something different. I achieved my goal, I think, as far as what I wanted to do within the larger thriller genre.

But what about my bad guys? Are they evil enough?

Enter Keen Eddie, a TV show that ran one season in 2003-2004. I count this as a show that was cancelled too soon, much like Firefly. Was it perfect? No, but it was different and clever. I quite liked it.

Not only did I love the London setting and British actors, not to mention , but I loved the bad guys. They were idiots, not criminal masterminds. They murdered because they got backed into a corner or panicked; they weren’t artfully arranging bodies all over London. There were no uber-criminals or uber-criminal conspiracies, like Red John in the Mentalist or whoever killed Beckett’s mom in Castle.

Frankly, I liked that. It seems more realistic to me. Most violent criminals are not psychopathic geniuses but unpredictable, intoxicated, or otherwise chemically impaired fools. And to me, this stupidity and unpredictability is what makes a bad guy dangerous and interesting. Sure, pure evil is scary, but that’s not what I wanted to write at this point. Maybe one day, but right now, I’ll stick with unpredictable fools.