Yes I am charging $1.99 for that novella! (A breakdown of ebooks and why authors price the way we do)

I was supposed to have done this blog post a while ago, but we all know how great I am with keeping up on my blog. So, it didn’t get done.

Well, I really feel like I need to do a blog post on this topic because there are so many people who write short stories/novellas and get a ton of flack for charging more than 99 cents. I have even seen complaints about short stories that are free being “too short.”

So, anyway, I am going to break it down for y’all.

Of course, I am going to use myself as the example here, but remember there are tons of other authors out there who are in the same boat here.

A lot of what I write is called serial novels. These are also known as a short story series. The first of my series is only around 7000 words and its the first part in the series. Because I don’t like people to have to pay for something that short, I made it free all the time. Yup. Free… costs you nothing.

Each part after that gets a little longer as I grew into the story and each part after the first is also 99 cents. Parts 2 and 3 range in at 10 and 15000 words and then parts 5 and 6 are closer to 25,000 each. Your average novel is about 60,000 words. So000, one 25,000 word story is nearly half of a full novel and we are only asking 99 cents.

My compilation of the short story series is 73,000 words and priced at $4.99. That means the you pay just about the same for the compilation as you do if you buy the parts individually.

I believe this is fair as far as pricing goes.

Now, to talk about the pricing for a short story and all that goes into it.

-Your average author will spend anywhere from about forty to four hundred dollars for a cover. (sometimes more) -After that there is the editing. A short story will range you about a hundred bucks depending on legnth and editor used. Mine are usually between a hundred and one hundred fifty dollars.
- Then there is the formatting. Many authors know how to do this themselves, but some pay someone to do it.
- AND THEN there is the advertising. We have to advertise so that our books will get seen. This costs money and most authors whose books sell have to use advertising to sell them.

On top of all of these things, there is the fact that the time it took to write these stories is time we WORKED. Sorry that we didn’t go into a job and clock in like people with a day job. But, you know what, the time it took to write that was time away from my kids. It was time away from my husband. It was time my house didn’t get cleaned. It was time that I will never get back.

Now.

My most recent short stories/novellas are right around 30,ooo words. Yes, half a full novel. I have them priced at $1.99. I don’t see a problem with charging this for the amount of money and time that goes into bringing it into the world. Most places where they are sold give me about 80 cents as a royalty for that. So, see here. I have to sell 100 of those to make 80 bucks!

To pay most of my monthly bills I would have to sell nearly 1200 copies of a novella which is priced at $1.99 (and that is not including the rent) And those are just $1.99 ones, double that amount for the 99 cent ones.

I totally get that there are some books out there that are super short and people are charging an arm and a leg for. But, that is their choice. Most of us authors try to give you fair pricing as far as the length of the book goes. If you look up underneath the title of the book, most retailers will give you a page count or a word count so you have an idea of what you are getting. Also, my stories state clearly in the description that they are a short story series.

We are writers … authors. We love what we do, but we have to make a living too.  I’m sorry if you have ever felt that you were wasting your dollar on any of my books. But, I put a lot of hard work into those stories and I think that they are fair prices.

Thank you for taking the time to read this ranty little post. I love all my fans, friends and fellow authors so much. I love writing these stories for you, but I can’t do it for nothing folks.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.