Cheap Reads
The publishing business appears to be evolving at light-speed. But some things NEVER change.
I've been grousing on Facebook about readers who willingly shell out $3 for a single cup of coffee but refuse to pay more than a buck for a novel. Case study: Darcie Chan has sold more than 400,000 copies of THE MILL RIVER RECLUSE, her first novel, after self-publishing it as an e-book. But because she has priced it at 99 cents, she has netted "only" about $130,000.
To stimulate sales, "cutting the retail price to 99 cents from an initial $2.99 was critical," reported THE WEEK magazine of December 23, 2011.
Three dollars was an entirely reasonable price to charge for a 300-page novel. A bargain, in fact. But sales didn't really take off until Darcie lowered the price to a buck—practically giving it away.
HISTORY REPEATS
Another writer who found market forces arrayed against him was Lewis Carroll. In his Preface to the 1896 Edition of Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Carroll wrote:
"I take this opportunity of announcing that the Nursery 'Alice,' hitherto priced at four shillings, net, is now to be had on the same terms as the ordinary shilling picture-books—although I feel sure that it is, in every quality (except the text itself, in which I am not qualified to pronounce), greatly superior to them. Four shillings was a perfectly reasonable price to charge, considering the very heavy initial outlay I had incurred; still, as the Public have practically said, 'We will not give more than a shilling for a picture-book, however artistically got-up,' I am content to reckon my outlay on the book as so much dead loss, and, rather than let the little ones, for whom it was written, go without it, I am selling it at a price which is, to me, much the same thing as giving it away."—Lewis Carroll, Christmas 1896
In this regard, at least, NOTHING has changed in the book business. Writers and "the Public" can't seem to agree on the true value of our work.
I'm standing my ground for now, keeping the price of my
WATERSPELL
e-books at $2.99 each — which is a perfectly reasonable price to charge, considering my heavy investment of time and energy, and the cash I've laid out to get to this point. But as Darcie Chan said in an interview: "I did that [cut the price of her book] to encourage people to give it a chance. I saw it as an investment in my future as a writer."Is this what the future holds? Dollar books?
THE MUSIC BUSINESS DID THIS
If publishing is meant to use the music business as a model, then we need to be comparing apples with apples, not with oranges. A single tune can be bought for $1. The fan who wants the whole "album" or CD will thus pay $10 to download 10 songs.
The analogous approach for books, therefore, would be 99 cents per chapter. That would set the price of my 22-chapter, 400-page novels at about $21.75 — a list price that was once considered perfectly reasonable for long, complex, literary novels.
Of course I wouldn't dream of charging that much for an e-book. But is $2.99 also too much, in the eyes of today's bargain-hunting reader?
I shouldn't think so. A novel, after all, lasts a lot longer than a three-minute song … or a $3 cup of coffee.
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Mark wrote: "Because most can’t identify quality writing from a plot summary or sample pages, $.99 books from unknowns inspire readers to take a chance. If the $.99 read is enjoyed, readers will pay more for su..."This is excellent advice, Mark, and I'll follow it to the letter. I agree that people equate cost with value. Writers who price their books too low are sending a message that "Hey, the writing's not much -- you can have it cheap." Whereas I'd price my novels at $30 each if the market would bear it. LOL I've worked on the three books of the WATERSPELL trilogy for more than 10 years, and I only committed them to be published when I felt they were truly ready.
Writers tend to be in a hurry, I think, because the traditional publishing model demands it. The only time that a new book will get any promotional support from the traditional New York publishers is right before it's released, and for about a month afterward. Then, it's relegated to the backlist, to be ignored. (I've been there, and the backlist is not a fun place to reside.)
So it's kind of beaten into us to do all of our promoting, in a rush, right around the time of the book's release. But now in the age of e-books and print-on-demand, books stay viable virtually forever.
So I will do as you recommend and keep my prices at a (still very reasonable) $2.99. I'll fight the tendency to panic if sales don't skyrocket right away. :)
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment in depth. I truly appreciate your insights.
Deborah wrote: "Mark wrote: "Because most can’t identify quality writing from a plot summary or sample pages, $.99 books from unknowns inspire readers to take a chance. If the $.99 read is enjoyed, readers will pa..."I'm not sure if I'm taking your comment to Mark right, but I want to address it. Think for a second about the amount of media available to us on this contraption known as a computer through the internet. Owning a device like this means we have access to any number of online media that’s free of charge to us. We have access to information about and ways to buy thousands if not millions of books, movies, TV series, comics, and other forms of media. This means that people are going to have to start looking at the bigger picture when it comes to the works they are pushing out instead of just the immediate payout. Now, I don’t know the intricacies of publishing companies, being published or being an author, so I’m not going to twaddle on about how anybody can make this work out, but I’m almost positive that the brunt of the work is going to fall on your shoulders as the author of the media in question.
Shandi wrote: "I’m almost positive that the brunt of the work is going to fall on your shoulders as the author of the media in question. "Oh, absolutely true, Shandi! It doesn't matter whether a book is published by the traditional "legacy" publishers or is offered independently: the author is the one who must do the lion's share of the publicity. The author's the one with the most skin in the game.
I'm grateful to have found Goodreads. It is proving to be a highly effective way of letting the world know about the books I've written. Amidst the glut of free or cheap entertainment that's readily available online, Goodreads is helping me make myself heard.
You comment: "This means that people are going to have to start looking at the bigger picture when it comes to the works they are pushing out instead of just the immediate payout."
I agree that 99-cent books may tempt readers to purchase the works of writers they don't know. But as a professional, many-times-published author who has devoted years to my WATERSPELL novels, giving them all I've got -- all my creativity as a writer and my painstaking editorial attention to detail -- I am viscerally opposed to selling my work too cheap.
Mark commented: "I think the big problem with $.99 novels is value attribution. People use cost as a guide to value. Cheap stuff feels like junk."
For people who equate cost with value, I want them to understand that my professionally written, assiduously edited novels are a great value at $2.99. In my not-so-humble opinion, they'd be a great value at $9.99. :-)
But I understand what you're saying about the competition: the "any number of online media that’s free of charge." That's why I'm pricing my books at a mere $2.99.
Any lower than that would be almost an insult, as a writer-friend remarked when she and I were discussing this subject. We agreed: A well-written, carefully edited, 400-page novel is certainly worth as much as a $3 cup of coffee.
Thanks, Shandi, for your comments. The very fact that you found me online and read my blog reassures me that I CAN make this work out. I wrote the kind of long, intricate, character-driven fantasy that I enjoy reading, and now I've put it out there for others who have similar literary leanings. I hope you enjoy my novels! :-)
Deborah wrote: I agree that 99-cent books may tempt readers to purchase the works of writers they don't know. But as a professional, many-times-published author who has devoted years to my WATERSPELL novels, giving them all I've got -- all my creativity as a writer and my painstaking editorial attention to detail -- I am viscerally opposed to selling my work too cheap.I didn't mean selling your book at a lower price point. In fact, the fact that I bought the eBook version means I think it's priced incredibly well when compared to the paperback version. I would have even been willing to buy it if the price point was three or four dollars more, and it would have still been an option at a ten dollar price. To me, eBooks are simply meant to be a cheaper alternative. That’s it, and their price point says nothing about the quality.
What I meant is that the media markets still need to change significantly to match this changing environment. As I said before, the internet leads to many media avenues, and this is becoming increasingly apparent as we watch various media struggling to keep up. In the case of books, eBooks are not enough to meet this change (especially considering how easy they are to pirate). The brunt of the work in changing books as a media is going to fall and has already fallen on the shoulders of the authors who write the books.
I worded that horribly, but I'm unsure how to reword it to get my point across.
Shandi wrote: "I would have even been willing to buy it if the price point was three or four dollars more."Bless you! :-)
"The brunt of the work in changing books as a media is going to fall and has already fallen on the shoulders of the authors who write the books."
I'm sure you're right. But me? I am unlikely to contribute much toward dragging the tradition-bound world of books and publishing into the modern media age. The first article I ever sold to a magazine, I typed on a typewriter. The first word-processing program I learned to use was WordStar. I'm proud of myself for having mastered HTML well enough to correctly format a Word document for e-publishing. :-)
Whatever happens with the new-media issues you mention, I'll be relying on the more technically minded among us to pioneer a better (pirate-proof?) way. It's all I can do to wrap up my current, humongous freelance-editing job so I can return to making final edits to WATERSPELL Book 3 for a May release.
Thank you again for a thoughtful conversation about this rapidly changing media we're all invested in, as writers & readers. And most especial thanks for buying my novels! :)
Shandi wrote: "the media markets still need to change significantly to match this changing environment ... the internet leads to many media avenues, and this is becoming increasingly apparent as we watch various media struggling to keep up. In the case of books, eBooks are not enough to meet this change (especially considering how easy they are to pirate)."Your comment came to my mind, Shandi, as I read an article by author
Mark London Williams in the March/April 2012 SCBWI Bulletin. He writes:
"[T]he big controversial question is: Is all hacking and pirating really bad for the artists [writers and musicians]?"
He quotes a PC Magazine headline that says, "Piracy pays for itself."
The basic argument seems to be that writers, when their works are pirated and spread around, benefit from the exposure. He writes:
"You can often observe a correlation between most pirated ... games and films and their actual profitability. ... a list of the top ten most illegally downloaded films and games showed them all to be wildly profitable, in spite of -- or because of? -- their increasingly spreading fans, buzz generated by users, etc."
Of course I'd rather have readers buying my books than pirating them. But so far, pirating seems to be having not-altogether-terrible effects on the book business and on individual authors.
Still too early to say, I'm sure. All I know is that my e-books are out-selling the paperbacks, so I'm more and more firmly settled into the e-book camp.
BTW, WATERSPELL Book 3 is available now (Kindle Edition) at Amazon, tying up this trilogy. I'm a bit giddy, realizing that I've FINISHED the writing! This story has claimed a major chunk of my life for more than a decade, so it's a little surreal to actually be done writing it. :-)
Next I'll be going around to fantasy and sci-fi conventions, signing books. Then those paperbacks will come in handy. LOL
Thanks again for your insights about the changing world of books and publishing. It's a little scary, how fast things are moving, but also quite exciting.
Your Goodreads novel post is excellent and I suspect the balance of the book is just as good. Experiment with the $2.99 price, let it ride. Promote the book and see what happens. Take your time. Too many writers are in a hurry and miss opportunities to succeed.
I think the big problem with $.99 novels is value attribution. People use cost as a guide to value. Cheap stuff feels like junk. I say start high and only go low for limited time promotions, and only if other promotional efforts fail.