Omnibuses, Boxsets, and Amazon Price-Hikes

Near the end of June, 2023, Amazon changed the pricing structures for certain kinds of books. These were not small changes, and they had significant implications for my business. Ironically, the changes came right after releasing a supplement to my indie author’s publishing series of books where I talked about the speed of changes in the publishing world, and also the logic in optimizing your physical sales by creating omnibus editions.

Here’s the scoop…

I’ve been making omnibus editions for quite some time because Amazon had a price set per page—the size of the page didn’t matter, and I found I could take my 5.5×8.5 trim size trilogy of 1,200 pages into an omnibus edition of about 800 pages if I increased the trim to the common 6.69×9.61 size. The price for the purchase that was about $10.50 per omnibus. It cost me about $16 for the trilogy as individual volumes meaning I had about $5.50 of difference on the series and could offer a couple dollar discount and add a lot of value. I actually added to the omnibus an additional bonus story that I sell for $5 meaning that for $40 buyers got $56 worth of books. My cost on single volumes with the kicker is $19. I did a multi-book discount and my final net profit was $27 per set… or for $40 the buyers could save $16 and I actually net an additional $2.

I could offer steep discounts and get an extra couple dollars? Boo-yah.

But the Amazon increase made that go away. While all prices increased, some, anything larger than 6×9 increased a lot. Most of my books 6×9 and smaller went up by $0.20-0.50, and my prices were lower than standard norms anyway (it’s $19-20 sticker price on a standard book these days [i.e. not a mass-market trim size.]) So I adjusted my prices up from $15-18 to $15-20 which absorbs some of the increases—but everything is increasing, and it will literally pay to be ahead of the curve.

For a while, I was doing my most significant sales numbers in my omnibus editions. I had increased my size to slightly larger than 6×9 in order to gain a few extra lines and stay under the hard limit of 828 pages. KDP can’t print larger books than that (other services have slightly higher limits, but their prices are also higher, and that defeats the point of the larger omnibus to drive down production costs to pass on discounts.) In fact, right before the increase I was adjusting price to come in line with market rates and had just moved my omnibus price to $42 meaning I was going to make another $2 on the omni and adding a dollar to each of the other books in the trilogy widened the discount by creating an extra dollar of value (individual buy-through added $3 while the omni added $2, but I didn’t get to realize those benefits by the time Amazon hit us with the hike).

To recap: Amazon created a premium print tier, for lack of a better term, at all sizes higher than 6×9. That 800 page omnibus now costs me $14.25, almost $4 more. If I leave the pricing the same, my ROI drops significantly—I no longer made an extra $2, but lose $2, also my costs on the other books go up too. So what’s an author to do?

Get creative and play near the edge of the cliff!

If 6×9 is the MAXIMUM before the increase, then let’s do a 6×9. The previous dimensions were 6.69 by 9.61, and if we adjust the font sizes, headers, gutters, and line spacing, I can still produce a good-looking product that is readable and keep the size to 828 pages. Increasing to 828 puts a price on my new 6×9 omnibus at $10.94, which is about a half dollar increase, which seems to align with the new pricing structure.

Keeping a healthy ROI is a must for an authorprenuer (nobody tell Dave Chesson… I didn’t check to see if he trademarked the word!) Since I’m increasing all my costs, my new cost will be 42.99 for an omnibus that won’t cost me more than $11.75 after factoring in shipping earning me about $31.25 which is above $10 per book that you want to aim for as a general rule. Each of those books in the trilogy is now priced at $17.99, plus the bonus for a total cost of about $60 on a cost of 18.50 after shipping, with that same discount as before. I’m netting 31.50, so about the same. I plan to reduce the discount by a few dollars to reclaim that margin.

Amazon came in like a fat kid on the teeter totter and threw everything out of balance. It might wreck recess for a little bit, but it just takes a little adjustment and some counter-balance to bring the entire system back into line. I don’t have any answer to fix the problem of rising inflation (not any that won’t get me de-platformed or hunted down by government agents,) but it’s helpful to know that the rising costs affect all industries, so as prices go up, your adjustments will go largely unnoticed, and if they are spotted early, they’ll get swallowed up by gross political malfeasance within the news cycle. It’s a slight comfort knowing that while political elites set fire to the economy, we all get to burn together. Yay. I mean, they won’t be affected. They’ll actually come out ahead. But I’ve been told to mind my own business. I’m just saying, get out and vote. Follow policy instead of headlines and follow the money when you head to the ballot box. Until gross incompetence is punished and actual representation of constituents is honored, authors will have to keep a firm handle on their pricing models [soap box rant over.]

This whole exercise, using real numbers on an actual book, should give you an idea of how to price books to keep your profit margins healthy (which means you can actually make some money on your books and afford to eat all the ramen.)

Stay flexible my friends, and play on the edge of cliffs!