No Dominion & publishing thoughts
So posted over on Facebook saying:
Apparently, 20p will become the new default price for ebooks as this is what Sony are doing by way of promotion, and the books featured are gobbling up market share. Can someone remind these nitwits of the old, tried and true saying “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality’?
Oh, wait, maybe this has nothing at all to do with books, readers or writers. Forcing Amazon to price match is costing Amazon millions. That reminds me of another saying. “When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.’
Which made me think about NO DOMINION, which is doing pretty well in its first couple weeks of release. It’s been hanging out in the top 50ish of Amazon’s contemporary fantasy ratings for a fair amount of its release time. I’m hoping it’ll get up to the top 20, because that’s where it becomes self-sustaining for a while (if you want to mention it to your readers, the Kindle version is here… O.O), but the top 50 is very good.
Actually, it’s excellent when you take into account that I released the book at full price. , who is the person who suggested I try crowdfunding in the first place, said recently that he’d have suggested I set NO DOMINION at a lower, entry-level price to get up in the Amazon ranks. But since he didn’t suggest it and I didn’t even think of it, I didn’t. I just set it at full price. Between Amazon Kindle, the print edition and the Nook edition, it’s sold about 700 copies in the two weeks since it was released.
“I,” Bryant said, “would have been wrong.”
And so are the publishing companies. People will pay for a product as long as they can 1. get it easily*, and 2. believe it’ll be worth the price.
I mean, maybe I’m missing out on millions of new readers by doing it this way, but at least I don’t feel like I’m undervaluing my work.
And as Bryant also pointed out, pricing it at full price and still having the book in the top 50 or so Amazon rankings for contemporary fantasy means that the writers I’m hanging with–others in the top 50 who are at full price–are the big boys: Jim Butcher. Kim Harrison. Charlaine Harris. Kevin Hearne.
Everybody else in the top 50 right now is priced at under $5, and (without trying to sound self-aggrandizing, and indeed with the awareness that I may just not be Up enough on the latest releases), I don’t know any of their names. Obviously this wouldn’t be a good strategy if I was new to the field, but with my career so far, this approach seems to be working just fine.
And I really do believe that if the publishing industry wasn’t running around in such a panic that there’s a lot they could do to strengthen sales and break Amazon’s back. (Seriously, it’s like Napster happened in a separate universe from them.) They could:
- bundle an e-edition with the purchase of any print book
- release mass market and e-books first, then release the hardback several months later for collectors
- work together to create an alternate storefront to Amazon, followed by
- going in with ANYONE ELSE, Kobo or Nook or Sony whatever, to push that brand of DRM-free e-reader on the storefront
- a major advertising campaign about how books never run out of batteries/etc, featuring the new storefront, followed by
- ceasing to give Amazon deep discounts (which the publishing industry needs to do anyway, not just with Amazon)
They’re coming from behind, so it would require a hell of a lot of work, but it’s not impossible. And I recognize that speaking and acting as an individual, I can respond a great deal more quickly than the behemoth of the publishing industry…but at the same time, the publishing industry really is following the music industry’s mistakes slavishly. Looking toward where the music industry has gone could save them time and trouble.
But wait! What about pricing? Everybody knows that people won’t pay more than $.99 for content!
Well, first go up and re-read the first part of this blog about the NO DOMINION sales. Then bear in mind that a song is usually released for in the region of $.99, but if you buy every song on the album for that much, you’re paying anywhere from $12-20 for the album in most cases anyway. People *will* pay full price for digital material if they think it’s worth it. And I personally believe my stories are worth it, or else why would I even be doing this job in the first place?
Furthermore, it certainly appears readers also think my stories are worth it. As a rule, the only people who don’t seem to be sure are the publishing industry, which is just all messed up. There are much better ways for the publishing industry to break Amazon’s chokehold than cutting their own throats.
*I need to get it up via Smashwords. *sighs & adds something else to the to-do list…*
newest »
I am so for the idea of bundling. I like paper books, and there are a handful of writers for whom I will go to hardcover. But if I buy the new Michelle West in hardcover (for example), I don't want to carry it around with me for reading at lunch and in line. If I could, for example, pay an extra dollar or two and get a download code for the ebook, that would be worth it! But paying $25 for the hardcover on my shelf, then another $14 for the ebook that I can carry around with me? Not a chance.
Here's where I'm coming from: I am a voracious reader. I used to get through a book a day, easy, and still get through a dozen or more a month (sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on length, density, and how compelled I am to keep reading outside of commutes and breaks at work). I don't make enormous amounts of money and for many years made none or hardly any. I've been a faithful library user and it was never previously my habit to buy any books that I did not cherish and want to return to over and over and share with anyone I could convince to sit down with them. (I have several of your Walker Papers books in print for this reason, as well as the Negotiator trilogy and the Inheritor's Cycle). As it was, I never bought hardcovers and tended to gravitate towards used purchases, both for the thrill of discovery and to make my dollars stretch.
Then I got an e-reader, and suddenly I just couldn't deal with print anymore when I could be reading a light, portable collection of dozens or hundreds of books that fit in my pocket. And libraries hadn't yet caught up with the ebook market and even still have significantly more limited selection and availability than print. So I've grudgingly had to adjust to the sight-unseen purchase, but I really can't afford to make them at $10 a pop (much less the higher prices the Agency Model tended to command), given my reading pace and inclination, and prices at that level mean I wait for a deal or a library copy to come available. I'm comfortable paying $5-6ish (about what I would have typically paid in print for a used copy, or a bit more) for titles from authors I've already established I enjoy, or who come recommended by authors I enjoy, or similar, and $1-3ish for completely novel things that look interesting (I've had wonderful luck with B. Justin Shier, Zachary Rawlins, and Hugh Howey). I have very occasionally paid more if the author had previously written something that absolutely blew my mind (David Wong, Nick Harkaway), but, alas, experiences of that calibre are exceedingly rare.
I don't know. Maybe I'm alone in this. And if I read slower or had more discretionary cash (and, for that matter, didn't have a bunch of other hobbies to spend it on), I'd be much more inclined to pony up more for the stuff I know I like, like your books. But I don't.
PS: For my money you're at least as good as, if not better than, the "big boys" you list above - and no, none of them have gotten me to pay $10 either. Actually I don't believe I own any of their books, whereas I own several of yours, so that should say something.
PPS:
You're not paying $12-20 for an MP3 album unless you buy them a song at a time. Full albums tend to be <$10 - on Amazon, many albums routinely rotate into being $5. It's possible that this shouldn't be the case, but I appreciate it.
PPPS:
People will in fact pay -more- than full price for digital material if they think it's worth it and have the ability to do so, if you look at crowdfunding. Sometimes extravagantly more. I sometimes wish I could afford to make gestures like that.