Why my books don't cost 99 cents
I was recently asked why my books are so expensive. Surely, the reasoning goes, if my books would cost 99 cents, I'd have more sales and make more money, and besides, it would curb piracy.
No. At 99 cents, I couldn't live off writing, simple as that. I most definitely wouldn't even have attempted becoming a full-time writer. In fact, I wouldn't have walked out of my day job, and would very likely now be doing some (read: any) job out there, leading to less time to write and possibly giving up.
Let's walk through the facts and numbers:
Amazon sets the price bracket
The common price points for books are heavily engineered by Amazon based on the payout. Amazon pays out 70% on books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and only 30% on books priced below $2.99 or over $9.99.
In other words, a self-published writer makes about $0.30 for a 99-cents book, but about $2 for a $2.99 book.
And why is Amazon important? Because Amazon is 80-90% of everybody's ebook sales.
Cost of producing a book
Producing a novel-length book properly (edits, edits again, decent cover, formatting, conversion, etc) easily costs between $1,500 (that's low-balling, because I've cut deals with some people) and $2,000 - all of this is money you have to invest before the money is starting to roll in. There are people who don't invest in an editor, because an editor is by far the most expensive part of production, but a good editor makes all the difference. There are people who cut corners on editing and claim nobody notices. Well, I notice, and I want to publish books that are worthwhile, which means investing enough money to make sure I'm proud of what I'm putting out.
Now, if you self-publish, you need to sell nearly 6,700 copies to make your money back at $.30 royalties per copy. And this is where the kicker is - speaking from my own personal experience, I haven't written even one book that has sold that many copies. Even if I do manage by some miracle to sell 6,700 copies - at that point, I haven't even been paid for my work.
Conversely, let's assume you have a really, really good contract and a publisher would pay you 50% of earnings per copy (publishers pay closer to 25-40%), a publisher would have to sell twice those 6,700 (= 13,400) copies for the author to make $2,000 for a novel. The publisher has to pay for its own expenses, aka marketing, staff, possibly offices, conferences, IT support, corporation tax (that's after footing the bill for production costs of the actual book).
Investment in training/man-hours
I haven't crunched the actual numbers, but let's assume a novel is about 100-300 hours of work (I'm pretty sure that a historical novel, with all the research and fact-checking is a lot more than that) and you do manage to sell those 6,700 copies and do make $2,000 for a book. If you average the production time (200 hours), that would be a theoretical $10/hour (before tax, before cost like internet connection, heating, research books). That's about £6/hour. Minimum wage in the UK is £6.50/hr, while London "living wage" (how much you need to cover living costs in London) is £7.85/hr.
Now, I've made more making sandwiches at gas stations (EUR 9/hr), which required about a 30-minute training. Yes, everybody can write, but to write something other people want to read takes tens of thousands of hours of practice, which isn't paid and incurs quite a bit of cost as well. I'd estimate if you're working very hard and have access to mentoring and how-to books, it will still take 3-7 years to train yourself to become a writer who can write a decent story. I've been writing and learning for 20+ years.
And we often forget all the other hours an author spends on supporting their books and being available to readers: answering reader emails, blogging, paying out of pocket for print books for giveaways, swag, attending conferences, postage and admin for sending signed print books around the world, responding and being present on social media, responding to thousands of messages and questions overall. All those are hours not spent writing or doing a day job. I believe they have value.
Depth of market
I don't have access to actual hard sales data apart from my own and some data from friends and colleagues, but I do have a decent idea about the size of the m/m market specifically. In m/m, I'm considered a "mid-lister", which is a polite way of placing my sales somewhere in between "doesn't sell enough to make money" and "bestseller". I'm in that nebulous area where I'm making some money but still can't afford to GRL on my writing income alone and where a month of bad sales means I'm fretting about whether this whole thing was a crap idea and whether I shouldn't just go back to a day job because every year out of the day job means I'm getting less employable.
I have steady sales on some books (thank you, Dark Soul and Market Garden), but even so, only very few of my books have sold more than 3,000 copies - and those that did were co-written (in other words, I only make half the money on those). I don't think any of them have sold more than 6,700 copies.
Now, obviously there are best-sellers in m/m who sell 20,000 and 30,000 copies of a book, so there's some depth in the market, and you could argue that the high prices keep people from buying the other books. Let's test that theory: I've experimented with freebies (Bookbub/giveaways), and the best performance of those was another 2,000 copies given away for free for a book that had sold 2,000 copies thereabouts.
If that number had been 20,000 copies, that would have meant there's 20,000 people I'm not reaching because of the high prices. But there aren't. Even assuming the "freebie downloaders" would be willing to pay 99 cents for a book, I'd only reach 4,000 people with my average book if I priced it at 99 cents. Still way short of the 6,700 I need to earn the initial $2,000 investment let alone make even a dollar of profit.
Alternatives
Short of becoming a bestseller, who reliably sells 20,000 copies of everything (which isn't really in my control), there are obviously ways to make the numbers work. Considering that 70-80% of those $2,000 production costs are editing costs, there are authors out there who simply don't pay a professional editor. I've tried that: I've had Return on Investment checked by a lot of friends and I gutted it myself, and I'm a decent self-editor, but I know Return on Investment would have been a better book if I'd paid a professional editor. At that point in time, I just couldn't afford it and so I did the best I could. I don't regret it, but I wish I'd had had the money. But then, I expected it to sell maybe 100-200 copies in total.
Thankfully, there's so many free books out there that people who don't want to pay for their reading don't have to. There's tons of fanfiction and free fiction on the internet, and a lot of it is very good. The Kindle Free list is huge and gets more books added every day. Of my own works, there's Special Forces, which is 1,000,000 words (roughly equivalent to 10-15 novels, which would cost people normally $75-100 to buy if we assume an e-book price of $6.99 per novel).
Other authors are doing it
Some authors are making the 99-cent model work for them. Mostly, these books are very short (flash fiction, short stories) or aren't edited (the "throw unedited crap onto the market" model), and then readers complain about how the book was too short or the novel was so bad it wasn't even worth those 99 cents. However, this is not what I want to be known for - I like to take pride in my work and do the best I can, which does mean some investment in a good team. (And yes, I charge more than 99 cents even for short stories, because they still cost money to produce properly.)
But there are some authors that do edit their stuff and still put it out for 99 cents. These are usually first books in a series, or cheap tasters, and the bet is that the reader will enjoy the book so much they'll pay more for the next installments in the series, at which point, everybody wins and the author earns money from the other books (another version of this is the "permafree" series starter, where the first book is free). A 99-cent book is like getting offered a piece of cheese at the cheese counter - it's always to entice the customer to then buy more of the cheese they liked.
There are also bundle deals - I recently bought two 99-cents bundles. One was a bundle of ten epic fantasy novels, the other a bundle of ten hetero historical romances. These bundles are usually an attempt to break a bestseller list (like the New York Times Bestseller List), so the participants can adorn their names with the very coveted "New York Times Bestseller" bit. I bought those because I was quite ready to discover new-to-me authors in a genre I love (epic fantasy) or do market research in a genre related to my own (hetero historical romance). If I find an author I like, I'll buy their full-priced backlist.
And I think in some genres, the 99-cent model can work. But these tend to be BIG genres, like hetero romance or thriller/mystery. M/M in my view is too small to support the same kind of numbers. I'm hopeful this might change over time, but we're not there yet.
What if writing doesn't pay
If writers can't earn a living from writing, the obvious solution is that somebody else has to pay for them to live. I have writer friends who're on social security (nothing shameful about it - it's never really a choice), or have wealthy spouses (personally, I prefer the power balance in a relationship to be more equal). Others have several day jobs and run the risk of burning themselves out. I can't count the writers who have severe mental and physical health issues because of stress or massive self-exploitation to somehow make this thing work.
Obviously, nobody owes a writer a living. I'm not entitled to sales, but I am entitled to profit off my copyright (I wrote it, I get to sell it by law, so yes, I object to piracy). At the moment, my writing is my only source of income, and it's not enough to make pension contributions or rack up savings (and I'm 39 years old, so I need to plan for retirement, as I won't inherit any money).
At the moment I get by on less than UK minimum wage. I still need to make a profit, because my only alternative is to return to full-time work and that means more stress, less writing, fewer releases. I would even have returned to a day job, if I could have found a job in my field. EVEN so I'm acquiring qualifications to earn money from a career unrelated to writing - I like a Plan A, B and C.
But in the meantime, I need to charge more than 99 cents for my work.
No. At 99 cents, I couldn't live off writing, simple as that. I most definitely wouldn't even have attempted becoming a full-time writer. In fact, I wouldn't have walked out of my day job, and would very likely now be doing some (read: any) job out there, leading to less time to write and possibly giving up.
Let's walk through the facts and numbers:
Amazon sets the price bracket
The common price points for books are heavily engineered by Amazon based on the payout. Amazon pays out 70% on books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and only 30% on books priced below $2.99 or over $9.99.
In other words, a self-published writer makes about $0.30 for a 99-cents book, but about $2 for a $2.99 book.
And why is Amazon important? Because Amazon is 80-90% of everybody's ebook sales.
Cost of producing a book
Producing a novel-length book properly (edits, edits again, decent cover, formatting, conversion, etc) easily costs between $1,500 (that's low-balling, because I've cut deals with some people) and $2,000 - all of this is money you have to invest before the money is starting to roll in. There are people who don't invest in an editor, because an editor is by far the most expensive part of production, but a good editor makes all the difference. There are people who cut corners on editing and claim nobody notices. Well, I notice, and I want to publish books that are worthwhile, which means investing enough money to make sure I'm proud of what I'm putting out.
Now, if you self-publish, you need to sell nearly 6,700 copies to make your money back at $.30 royalties per copy. And this is where the kicker is - speaking from my own personal experience, I haven't written even one book that has sold that many copies. Even if I do manage by some miracle to sell 6,700 copies - at that point, I haven't even been paid for my work.
Conversely, let's assume you have a really, really good contract and a publisher would pay you 50% of earnings per copy (publishers pay closer to 25-40%), a publisher would have to sell twice those 6,700 (= 13,400) copies for the author to make $2,000 for a novel. The publisher has to pay for its own expenses, aka marketing, staff, possibly offices, conferences, IT support, corporation tax (that's after footing the bill for production costs of the actual book).
Investment in training/man-hours
I haven't crunched the actual numbers, but let's assume a novel is about 100-300 hours of work (I'm pretty sure that a historical novel, with all the research and fact-checking is a lot more than that) and you do manage to sell those 6,700 copies and do make $2,000 for a book. If you average the production time (200 hours), that would be a theoretical $10/hour (before tax, before cost like internet connection, heating, research books). That's about £6/hour. Minimum wage in the UK is £6.50/hr, while London "living wage" (how much you need to cover living costs in London) is £7.85/hr.
Now, I've made more making sandwiches at gas stations (EUR 9/hr), which required about a 30-minute training. Yes, everybody can write, but to write something other people want to read takes tens of thousands of hours of practice, which isn't paid and incurs quite a bit of cost as well. I'd estimate if you're working very hard and have access to mentoring and how-to books, it will still take 3-7 years to train yourself to become a writer who can write a decent story. I've been writing and learning for 20+ years.
And we often forget all the other hours an author spends on supporting their books and being available to readers: answering reader emails, blogging, paying out of pocket for print books for giveaways, swag, attending conferences, postage and admin for sending signed print books around the world, responding and being present on social media, responding to thousands of messages and questions overall. All those are hours not spent writing or doing a day job. I believe they have value.
Depth of market
I don't have access to actual hard sales data apart from my own and some data from friends and colleagues, but I do have a decent idea about the size of the m/m market specifically. In m/m, I'm considered a "mid-lister", which is a polite way of placing my sales somewhere in between "doesn't sell enough to make money" and "bestseller". I'm in that nebulous area where I'm making some money but still can't afford to GRL on my writing income alone and where a month of bad sales means I'm fretting about whether this whole thing was a crap idea and whether I shouldn't just go back to a day job because every year out of the day job means I'm getting less employable.
I have steady sales on some books (thank you, Dark Soul and Market Garden), but even so, only very few of my books have sold more than 3,000 copies - and those that did were co-written (in other words, I only make half the money on those). I don't think any of them have sold more than 6,700 copies.
Now, obviously there are best-sellers in m/m who sell 20,000 and 30,000 copies of a book, so there's some depth in the market, and you could argue that the high prices keep people from buying the other books. Let's test that theory: I've experimented with freebies (Bookbub/giveaways), and the best performance of those was another 2,000 copies given away for free for a book that had sold 2,000 copies thereabouts.
If that number had been 20,000 copies, that would have meant there's 20,000 people I'm not reaching because of the high prices. But there aren't. Even assuming the "freebie downloaders" would be willing to pay 99 cents for a book, I'd only reach 4,000 people with my average book if I priced it at 99 cents. Still way short of the 6,700 I need to earn the initial $2,000 investment let alone make even a dollar of profit.
Alternatives
Short of becoming a bestseller, who reliably sells 20,000 copies of everything (which isn't really in my control), there are obviously ways to make the numbers work. Considering that 70-80% of those $2,000 production costs are editing costs, there are authors out there who simply don't pay a professional editor. I've tried that: I've had Return on Investment checked by a lot of friends and I gutted it myself, and I'm a decent self-editor, but I know Return on Investment would have been a better book if I'd paid a professional editor. At that point in time, I just couldn't afford it and so I did the best I could. I don't regret it, but I wish I'd had had the money. But then, I expected it to sell maybe 100-200 copies in total.
Thankfully, there's so many free books out there that people who don't want to pay for their reading don't have to. There's tons of fanfiction and free fiction on the internet, and a lot of it is very good. The Kindle Free list is huge and gets more books added every day. Of my own works, there's Special Forces, which is 1,000,000 words (roughly equivalent to 10-15 novels, which would cost people normally $75-100 to buy if we assume an e-book price of $6.99 per novel).
Other authors are doing it
Some authors are making the 99-cent model work for them. Mostly, these books are very short (flash fiction, short stories) or aren't edited (the "throw unedited crap onto the market" model), and then readers complain about how the book was too short or the novel was so bad it wasn't even worth those 99 cents. However, this is not what I want to be known for - I like to take pride in my work and do the best I can, which does mean some investment in a good team. (And yes, I charge more than 99 cents even for short stories, because they still cost money to produce properly.)
But there are some authors that do edit their stuff and still put it out for 99 cents. These are usually first books in a series, or cheap tasters, and the bet is that the reader will enjoy the book so much they'll pay more for the next installments in the series, at which point, everybody wins and the author earns money from the other books (another version of this is the "permafree" series starter, where the first book is free). A 99-cent book is like getting offered a piece of cheese at the cheese counter - it's always to entice the customer to then buy more of the cheese they liked.
There are also bundle deals - I recently bought two 99-cents bundles. One was a bundle of ten epic fantasy novels, the other a bundle of ten hetero historical romances. These bundles are usually an attempt to break a bestseller list (like the New York Times Bestseller List), so the participants can adorn their names with the very coveted "New York Times Bestseller" bit. I bought those because I was quite ready to discover new-to-me authors in a genre I love (epic fantasy) or do market research in a genre related to my own (hetero historical romance). If I find an author I like, I'll buy their full-priced backlist.
And I think in some genres, the 99-cent model can work. But these tend to be BIG genres, like hetero romance or thriller/mystery. M/M in my view is too small to support the same kind of numbers. I'm hopeful this might change over time, but we're not there yet.
What if writing doesn't pay
If writers can't earn a living from writing, the obvious solution is that somebody else has to pay for them to live. I have writer friends who're on social security (nothing shameful about it - it's never really a choice), or have wealthy spouses (personally, I prefer the power balance in a relationship to be more equal). Others have several day jobs and run the risk of burning themselves out. I can't count the writers who have severe mental and physical health issues because of stress or massive self-exploitation to somehow make this thing work.
Obviously, nobody owes a writer a living. I'm not entitled to sales, but I am entitled to profit off my copyright (I wrote it, I get to sell it by law, so yes, I object to piracy). At the moment, my writing is my only source of income, and it's not enough to make pension contributions or rack up savings (and I'm 39 years old, so I need to plan for retirement, as I won't inherit any money).
At the moment I get by on less than UK minimum wage. I still need to make a profit, because my only alternative is to return to full-time work and that means more stress, less writing, fewer releases. I would even have returned to a day job, if I could have found a job in my field. EVEN so I'm acquiring qualifications to earn money from a career unrelated to writing - I like a Plan A, B and C.
But in the meantime, I need to charge more than 99 cents for my work.
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Kaje - Interesting, thanks! :) I know it's a rare book in m/m that breaks 10k. (None of mine, and even among friends it's very rare indeed.) I doubt even my top sellers went beyond 5,000 copies. I expect a non-commercial book (fantasy, sci-fi, historical) to hit 1,000 in two years and a commercial book to do twice that, and a very commercial book to maybe hit 3,000.Sadly, I don't have many of those and too many of the uncommercial ones. In other words, I have to work my tail off.
And yeah, the day job quitting thing wasn't so much a choice as making the best of a pretty awful situation.
And re: pirated copies - they pirate freebies too. Special Forces is everywhere.
Oh I know. I don't bother with takedown messages for freebies, but my MUSO service which finds piracy for me pulls up a ton of them. (I don't know if takedowns do anything long-term - I use the 50 per month, most do come down, and there are always 50 more, but it makes me less mad about it, so worth the 12 pounds a month.)I have sold just over 10,000 copies of my top book out of my 35 releases. I have others that haven't hit 1,000 and probably never will. I think price matters a bit. My $5 book does outsell my $8 book with similar lengths, release dates and reviews. The cumulative royalties are slightly higher total on the $5 too, although the publisher terms are calculated differently which makes the comparison less direct. I think there is a hesitation point these days for ebooks, but nowhere near .99 (more like around $5.99 to $6.99 for a full novel, from what I see discussed.)
You're right about the Amazon royalty driving prices too. I was at one point thinking about a novella release for either $1.99 or $2.99 - the difference of $1 to the readers meant a difference of $1.50 in my royalties, between .60 and $2.10 per book. Amazon is 80-90% of my sales as well.
Yep, I'm using MUSO too. :)And I'd have expected you to sell much more - so thanks for padding out my idea of the industry. and yeah, lots of m/m readers are what I'd call "heavy users" who read a LOT and obviously most people have to keep a budget in mind.
And you mention another important factor: publisher terms and royalty rates. I consider my low-priced books at Carina largely "cheap entry points", although Carina DID produce audio books and in one case a Japanese translation. (They sell a 96,000-word novel for $3.59, which kind of hurts my brain, considering they sell a 27,000-word novella for $2.59 - so it earns $1 more for five times the work... as novels are A LOT more complex than novellas.) On the other hand, they're both good stories and I hope people feel tempted to pick them up.
But with the right terms behind you, you can make more money from a lower price/achieve higher sales boosted by really good marketing - which is why doing one's due diligence before signing on the dotted line is so freaking important for writers.
@Flo - I'm very close to your thinking here. But I'm German too and used to paying anywhere between EUR 8-15 for a paperback - and I did. In many months, I spent more money on books than food. By those standards, e-books are crazy cheap (I'd charge about EUR 5 for a novel on German Amazon - I think that's what the market bears without too much hesitation). And yeah, I agree on the pricing of American books. When I started going to uni in the mid-1990s, I was shocked that American fantasy books were so cheap compared to the German editions. You could buy, say, a Wheel of Time novel for about 8-10 EUR, whereas it would be split into 2-3 novels at EUR 15 each on the German translation. I was in heaven buying them in English! I improved my English (and see where that got us!), and saved some serious cash.
And yes, I buy paper too. I can't resist any book shop I encounter and I drop a lot of money on paper books (and e-books), also because I need certain books for my historical research.
And - please buy your books wherever it's convenient. Amazon is cool, directly from publishers gets the author (and publisher) a lot more money, but really, just buying the books is great. :) Really, any and all support really helps (reviews on Amazon, buying the books, even a kind word/recommendation - it all makes a huge difference.)
And yay, I'm glad you enjoyed my private equity boys. :)
This is a really interesting post, thank you, Aleksandr. Feeling valued for your work as an artist also comes into pricing, I guess. I've got to admit that publishers pricing for novellas vs novels surprises me too. Generally, a hell of a lot more work goes into a novel, not just increased word count.
@Suki - Agreed! The value/price ratio is definitely off when it comes to shorts, novellas and novels. Say, short stories are generally difficult to sell - at 99 cents, you might never make the money back (especially if you use an "expensive" cover), at $2.99, lots of people balk, so pricing shorts is VERY difficult. I'd still go for $.99-2.99, but that means the short story has to be really good. I still get reader feedback where readers say they're unwilling to pay *anything* for short stories. I'd say short stories are texts up to about 10-15,000 words.Novellas of 15,000 to 55,000 words tend to be priced at $2.99 and $4.99, and it *seems* to be a good compromise between amount of text and value. They are meatier than shorts and the author gets a decent royalty out of it.
Novels of 55,000 and over tend to hit a pricing ceiling at about $6.99/7.99. Few readers seem to be willing to pay more for a novel, even though it's likely twice or three times the work of a novellas (novels are MUCH more complex and therefore take more time both in planning an execution).
Pricing-wise, it seems shorts are too expensive and novels if anything too cheap. The thing about novels though is that they sell better overall - readers *are* looking for longer reads, so I assume some of that gets compensated.
In my case, I'm focusing my efforts on novels this year, because that seems to be what people want/like. (And it suits me - most of my ideas are too complex for novella length and I only write short stories if they are chewing my face off).
There's still a huge amount of downwards pressure on pricing, and we've all experienced the effect of Kindle Unlimited - my sales wet down 40%. If not for a couple *strong* sellers (thank you, Hostile Ground), I'd have been toast.
As always Aleksandr, some great food for thought! Length vs. cost vs. how many I already bought this month often dictates my purchases (I’m usually flush in the summer-holidays and the month after big holidays are lean but luckily I stock up!). Ebooks, while wonderful have definitely influenced my buying habits, and I spend much more now than I ever did. When I used to read paperbacks, half of my library was supplemented with second hand bookstore buys as well as flea markets finds, thrift store purchases, library cast offs and so on, none of which benefited the author’s pocketbooks. I regret to say I never gave the authors much thought before, mostly just my wallet. It’s the way I was raised, second hand everything!
Now even though you can get bargain ebooks and free or temporary mark down copies, most of the time you have to pay full price which limits the number most of us can buy per month. Also as you mentioned the first ‘teaser’ tends to be affordable but the rest of the series will cost you big. And I’m one of those people who after I’ve read the first in a series and liked it, will go buy the rest but not read until I have a good 3-4 books lined up, which takes time to get collect and get good deals on and then the series might go downhill and not even be worth it. (I know that’s on me, but man I hate when I do that! S.L. Viehl broke my heart and my wallet!)
I tend to buy books around the $5 mark more quickly. If it’s $6.50 or more, it feels closer to spending $10 and I’m a bit more leery to do so. I really like buying directly from publishers and authors (like the one I bought from you!) as you tend to get a better deal, can own the file and read on your app of choice. I dislike Amazon books though; sometimes the prices are just absurd! I adore Charlotte Mistry but can only splurge here and there on her work. $3 for 16 pages? Yikes. Yet ‘Think of England’, which was a great length and nicely rounded out, was only $4 at B&N, and I absolutely would have paid more! The pricing seems inconsistent, and the authors often seem to get a bum deal, but with probably the largest readership worldwide, Amazon reaches the widest market and therefore holds all the cards I’m guessing.
I also found your comment interesting about the Kindle Unlimited program being a detriment. I was sort of looking into something similar-Scribd, I believe it was, obviously to save some money (their selection was lacking so I cancelled my trial service). I was told that the author gets paid if a certain percentage of the book gets read-is that true for Kindle Unlimited? How did it cause your book sales to fall if that was the case?
I know right now the ebook industry is evolving at a very rapid pace and it feels like the mega-book sellers are overtaking the authors and readers both. They are the ones making all the money! What are your thoughts on that and do you have any possible solutions?
"In my case, I'm focusing my efforts on novels this year, because that seems to be what people want/like." Yup.
"(And it suits me - most of my ideas are too complex for novella length and I only write short stories if they are chewing my face off)."
Dude, we can't have that.
Thanks for sharing all of this. I think a lot of people understand in a way how much it takes to publish, but not in such specific terms in relation actually clicking "buy" for a book. I get it.
I also know I'm very fortunate that my current position employment wise means that I can spend on books how I wish. Still, I get it and just because it comes in ebook form doesn't mean it's worth any less or takes any less effort for all of the reasons you outlined.
Teetee wrote: "I also found your comment interesting about the Kindle Unlimited program being a detriment. I was sort of looking into something similar-Scribd, I believe it was, obviously to save some money (their selection was lacking so I cancelled my trial service). I was told that the author gets paid if a certain percentage of the book gets read-is that true for Kindle Unlimited? How did it cause your book sales to fall if that was the case? ..."My royalties also dropped about 40% when KU began. Basically part of what happened was that Amazon gave everyone a free trial - they could read up to 10 books at a time, unlimited total, for free, from 600,000 titles. The heavy readers who are our bread and butter still bought the titles they really wanted, but instead of also buying a book here and there by an unknown or less preferred author to try out, they borrowed them. They bought far fewer books over all that way. If you weren't in KU, and none of mine are, then those were lost sales.
But to be in KU you have to be Amazon exclusive and you have to accept an unknown but low payment for each borrow (for a novel, much lower than the royalty on a sale), and borrows can cannibalize your own sales. It's been a trip so far...
Although, Aleks, I don't know about yours, but my same-book sales are back up a bit this last month (might just be holidays I guess.)
Teetee - Thanks for commenting!Length vs. cost vs. how many I already bought this month often dictates my purchases (I’m usually flush in the summer-holidays and the month after big holidays are lean but luckily I stock up!). Ebooks, while wonderful have definitely influenced my buying habits, and I spend much more now than I ever did.
Oh yeah. Ebooks *rule* the impulse buys in this house. I've bought ebooks all hours of the day and night. :)
When I used to read paperbacks, half of my library was supplemented with second hand bookstore buys as well as flea markets finds, thrift store purchases, library cast offs and so on, none of which benefited the author’s pocketbooks.
True! I did the same and I'm still buying some stuff second-hand if the new price is way too high (or I wait for paperback in the case of hardcover). That said, many of the stuff I bought cheap and fell in love with the authors, and then I'm a lot more likely to pick their stuff up new, so I don't really mind second-hand purchases or library loans. Done it all and it tends to help in the long term. Since I'm planning to be writing until they carry me outside feet forward, I'm good with that.
Now even though you can get bargain ebooks and free or temporary mark down copies, most of the time you have to pay full price which limits the number most of us can buy per month.
True. Hey, I went into every Half Price Books I spotted over in the States. Most people's budgets are limited, and I had some damn lean years where I had to find ways to feed the reading habit while still being able to make rent. :)
And I’m one of those people who after I’ve read the first in a series and liked it, will go buy the rest but not read until I have a good 3-4 books lined up, which takes time to get collect and get good deals on and then the series might go downhill and not even be worth it. (I know that’s on me, but man I hate when I do that! S.L. Viehl broke my heart and my wallet!)
I tend to buy into a series only after it's done and I don't buy in advance anymore because Wheel of Time. 'nuff said.
I tend to buy books around the $5 mark more quickly. If it’s $6.50 or more, it feels closer to spending $10 and I’m a bit more leery to do so. I really like buying directly from publishers and authors (like the one I bought from you!) as you tend to get a better deal, can own the file and read on your app of choice.
Thank you! And buying direct means a LOT more money in the author's pocket. And yeah, I have an impulse buy threshold, too. £2.99 or something is a no-brainer, anything under £5 is cool. Above that, I definitely read the sample first, unless I know the author already and they haven't disappointed me yet.
I dislike Amazon books though; sometimes the prices are just absurd! I adore Charlotte Mistry but can only splurge here and there on her work. $3 for 16 pages? Yikes.
There seems to be a strange market for very very short fiction springing up, and yes, some of it is absurdly priced. I *think* many of these are plays to get the Kindle Unlimited payout, which is often above the regular royalties.
Yet ‘Think of England’, which was a great length and nicely rounded out, was only $4 at B&N, and I absolutely would have paid more!
Agreed. Joanna Chambers' Enlightenment trilogy was cheap too. Maybe it's how Samhain prices. I'd have to check. I think both of those were Samhain books. Carina also seems pretty cheap.
The pricing seems inconsistent, and the authors often seem to get a bum deal, but with probably the largest readership worldwide, Amazon reaches the widest market and therefore holds all the cards I’m guessing.
Yeah. I know Amazon has artificially increased my price on Return On Investment at times, so there's an algorhythm behind the scenes that maximises price based on sales or category or whatever Bezos had for breakfast - I really don't know.
Generally, I think the publishers that also do m/f price the m/m more in line with the m/f - but m/f is a different market (like, twenty or thirty times the size of m/m), while pure m/m and/or queer publishers tend to price a bit higher because they don't have the big sales that come in from the m/f part. I *think*.
I also found your comment interesting about the Kindle Unlimited program being a detriment. I was sort of looking into something similar-Scribd, I believe it was, obviously to save some money (their selection was lacking so I cancelled my trial service). I was told that the author gets paid if a certain percentage of the book gets read-is that true for Kindle Unlimited? How did it cause your book sales to fall if that was the case?
All right - there's three different services: Scribd, Oyster and Kindle Unlimited (KU). Both Oyster and Scribd pay full royalty when you read a certain percentage of the book. KU pays a LOT less than that. Say, on Return on Investment, I make $4.11 royalties per sale. Both Scribd and Oyster would pay me the full whack. Amazon pays me whatever they feel like, essentially - when my book launched in July, the payout per borrow was about $2 (so about half of what I'd make off a sale), but by now, the payout is in the area of $1.30-1.40, which is a third of what I'd get from a sale.
This is why lots of authors only keep their short fiction in KU (if you only make 30 cents per sale on a short story, getting $1.30-1.40 instead is SWEET), and most people pull their higher-priced (read: above $2.99) books out of there.
I know right now the ebook industry is evolving at a very rapid pace and it feels like the mega-book sellers are overtaking the authors and readers both. They are the ones making all the money! What are your thoughts on that and do you have any possible solutions?
My best solution is to try and write the best books I can, try to build a loyal readership, work hard and have a Plan B (read, an alternative income). The market is moving so fast all we can do is stay on our feet, really, and keep those eyes open what people are doing and how they're behaving. :)
Irish - Thanks for the comment!Dude, we can't have that.
I KNOW! Really unpleasant, that.
I also know I'm very fortunate that my current position employment wise means that I can spend on books how I wish. Still, I get it and just because it comes in ebook form doesn't mean it's worth any less or takes any less effort for all of the reasons you outlined.
It's a huge step forward - I think lots of ebook readers get that now. Just a few years ago it was like, "hey, it's basically FREE BOOKS" because people were still hung up so much on paper. :)
Kaje - Great discussion, thank you. :)My royalties also dropped about 40% when KU began. Basically part of what happened was that Amazon gave everyone a free trial - they could read up to 10 books at a time, unlimited total, for free, from 600,000 titles. The heavy readers who are our bread and butter still bought the titles they really wanted, but instead of also buying a book here and there by an unknown or less preferred author to try out, they borrowed them. They bought far fewer books over all that way. If you weren't in KU, and none of mine are, then those were lost sales.
I was in KU during that time, and I'm pretty sure it cannibalised my sales, so people who *would* have bought the book normally borrowed it. I ended up with 40% sales to 60% borrows.
But the whole MARKET took a nose-dive when KU was introduced. I tend to analyse my royalty statements by frontlist and backlist - frontlist titles are all books published in the last 6 months. Backlist is everything older than that.
Now I was lucky and had strong frontlist sales thanks, singlehandedly, to Hostile Ground, which had a strong run, but the picture in the backlist was GRIM.
To understand what that meant, my whole financial planning was based on my backlist. I can never predict if a frontlist title will earn money, but my backlist has been very steady over the last 2 years, yielding a certain amount per book on average every month. I was basically calculating for my backlist to feed, clothe and shelter me, otherwise I'd never have walked out of a day job that was stressing me to hell, but based on those numbers gathered over two years, I really thought I could make it. All my numbers were based on backlist sales.
So suddenly in July, the bottom falls out of the market, and my backlist sales overall are down 40%. Which basically meant I was earning as much in mid-2014 as I had in late 2012 - more than a year's worth of progress and releases were just wiped out, so I panicked a bit. IT's like getting a 40% pay cut out of nowhere. I didn't get any warning, there was nothing suggesting this would happen, and my conservative worst-worst case scenario in terms of expected income was suddenly 40% too optimistic. Hence the panicky blog post.
But to be in KU you have to be Amazon exclusive and you have to accept an unknown but low payment for each borrow (for a novel, much lower than the royalty on a sale), and borrows can cannibalize your own sales. It's been a trip so far...
Yes. I'll go with KU for what makes sense - that is, I'm pulling my one self-published title out of KU and go wide (B&N, ARe) because KU is just destroying the royalties on that book, and I worked too damn hard on it to let that happen. I might write some short stories specifically for KU, but mostly, I'll just leave short stories in there so people find *some* Aleksandr Voinov in KU, but not my crown jewels or full novels.
Although, Aleks, I don't know about yours, but my same-book sales are back up a bit this last month (might just be holidays I guess.)
I think it's all the money from the Xmas Amazon giftcards. :) I'll see how January sales did in, I think, April (Amazon takes a while to pay out), but my self-published title is up since Xmas. It did get some good reviews roughly at that time, so it might be word-of-mouth. It's hard to tell. The big thing I need to see is my backlist recovering, or I need a day job pretty soon.
I hope it happens. My backlist did a bit better in early December already, before Christmas, and I doubt I'm a gift purchase, so I'm very cautiously hopeful.
Kaje - Yeah, me too. Other than that, my game plan is to work my tail off and not spend money I might not be able to replace.
Thanks to both of you for this great convo. The more the "mysterious" aspects of publishing, especially these days, can be brought into the light, the better.It sometimes feels like the nostalgia a lot of people equate with books/publishing/libraries is the same world in which today's reality is attempting to be defined. In other words, a square peg in a round hole. It's just not the same anymore. I mean, hell, the fact that I am able to buy a book without having to go to the store or wait for it to arrive at my house is an advantage I'm happy to feel is included in the price of e-books lol.
Not that uhhhhhh I don't buy real live tree books... three just arrived today. ;) :D
Thanks Alek and Kaje for the discussion, its so great to get a writers insight. Authors used to be these black and white photos on the back of the book; lofty characters whose talent we admired from afar but didn't get to know. Now we get to have discussions with you all and education and understanding into your side of things. Lots of food for thought!
Dear Aleks,Your post is well pondered and interesting. Still, I'm offended in your name that you had to explain why your books don't cost 99 cents.
Hugs!
Thoughtful, Aleks-- things we've all talked about at one time or another, but not put down so intelligently. Thank you-- this is important to get out there.
Thank you for info I never knew that. I don't know why a reader would ask that question but I can say as a reader an author often offers book one free or .99 cents in USA money then will offer remaining book between $2.99 and $4.99~ and I think that's a good deal as a buyer as a reader I won't fork out as much money on an author I'm not familiar with but if at lower price I will to try out the author. I think I bought dark soul at .99 as was great deal ( which is how I got to know your books) then loved so paid more for higher books I thinks it's a good thing and I've seen many authors do ~ I've also read like let's say 3 part instalments at .99 as word count low and they were good and not crappy non edited books however I do think the author could have done one book at higher price. To get the 70% verses 30% which is big difference so I clearly see your point! As a reader I was also surprised dark soul didn't sell the above 6,700 copies as wow awesome series. But overall I was shocked a reader would ask you that especially since you often offer deals in the first place. I will say as well as a reader I've bought books at $9.99 and not one did I feel was worth it on my kindle - so I personally gear up to $4.99 I will also buy in actual hard book or paperback if I love the series as well that's just my experience as a reader. So I'm glad you wrote this as I never realised for all the work authors do the payout isn't great but I live your books so am glad you are still writing!
Irish - Completely agreed. :)Teetee - I do love being able to talk to my readers directly, so this is a great new environment. :)
Antonella - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one feeling the pressure to price everything at 99 cents. And why not - there's stories about how Amanda Hocking et al made a million dollars or more with books priced extremely low - but they're in much bigger genres. I wouldn't mind pricing at 99 cents if I sell a million books (that's still 300,000 USD payout, which i easily enough to wipe out my mortgage debt). But I don't and the genre just doesn't support it. :)
Amy - Thank you!
Hi Kimberly,I don't know why a reader would ask that question but I can say as a reader an author often offers book one free or .99 cents in USA money then will offer remaining book between $2.99 and $4.99~ and I think that's a good deal as a buyer as a reader I won't fork out as much money on an author I'm not familiar with but if at lower price I will to try out the author.
Agreed! I buy a lot of new-to-me authors at those special deals myself. (Like most readers, I'm constantly looking for an author I can fall in love with.)
I think I bought dark soul at .99 as was great deal ( which is how I got to know your books) then loved so paid more for higher books I thinks it's a good thing and I've seen many authors do
It's definitely a sales strategy that works. Dark Soul I is about 20,000 words long, so about novella length. With editing and editing and editing again, I assume it represents about 20 days of work, and at 99cents, I make about 15 cents per copy (Amazon takes 70%, publisher takes about half of what's left over).
So even a thousand copies sold means I make $150 - and a thousand copiers is a LOT. In other words, this has to work as marketing and to get people interested in the series, because money-wise, it doesn't make anybody rich, especially considering how slow I write.
~ I've also read like let's say 3 part instalments at .99 as word count low and they were good and not crappy non edited books however I do think the author could have done one book at higher price.
The problem with 99 cents installments is that Amazon always takes 70% of the money, so, say, you break a book into 10 parts, all selling at 99 cents. You'll get readers angry at the high price ($9.99). The author only makes $1.50 from selling all of them, whereas the book priced at $9.99 and sold as one book would make the author about $3.50. So that's a bad deal with everybody - the reader and the author. Unless the individual parts are priced at $2.99 (where Amazon only takes 30% of the sales), it really hurts the author.
As a reader I was also surprised dark soul didn't sell the above 6,700 copies as wow awesome series.
Dark Soul is one of my stronger books, and it's way, way below 6,700 copies. I don't think it reached even half that since it launched in late 2011.
I will say as well as a reader I've bought books at $9.99 and not one did I feel was worth it on my kindle - so I personally gear up to $4.99 I will also buy in actual hard book or paperback if I love the series as well that's just my experience as a reader.
I agree. I buy books without much thought as long as they cost up to $4.99. :) The only reason why I'm pricing Return on Investment at $5.99 instead is that it's nearly twice as long as a normal novel, so I have to charge more for it.
So I'm glad you wrote this as I never realised for all the work authors do the payout isn't great but I live your books so am glad you are still writing!
Thank you! It's very much appreciated!
Aleksandr wrote: "Hi Kimberly,I don't know why a reader would ask that question but I can say as a reader an author often offers book one free or .99 cents in USA money then will offer remaining book between $2...." Wow I must say authors get a bum ass deal for sure ~ I think with you though as an author people will pay the 5.99 easily as I would to knowing you r good and you have also run those specials ~ I must say I am shocked about dark soul~ I couldn't even attempt to write a book ~ but I'll tell you knowing how bad authors get paid I want to say thank you for continuing so we can enjoy your great work!
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I have a day job. I'm not complaining one bit about my sales, but I'd be cutting to the bone to live off them alone. I admire anyone like Aleks who does take that plunge. As for the "cheap books are pirated less" claim, I see books that are .99 shorts listed on pirate sites when I check for my stuff. People who pirate books tend to do it wholesale, and I'm not convinced price means much there.