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How are you pricing your books?
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Nenia
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Jul 20, 2013 08:30PM
Yay! That's about what I do, although your novellas are cheaper than mine. *gasp* Competetive marketing! :P
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S.K. wrote: "So a pseudonym would be a smart choice for anyone who wants to change genres or write a second book, outside of a sequel or a series, and keeping the books in series or a sequel at the same price w..."I agree with this. In fact, I plan to do so when I get my contemporary fiction published. I know people using up to four names just to cover their love for writing historical fiction, contemporary fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, and erotica.
I know that authors like Anita Diamant who didn't change her name from genre to genre had fans raising their eyebrows after reading her marvelous effort with The Red Tent, only to see she completely took a sharp left when she released Day After Night.
There are so many reviews that would have been so different if they didn't have the tag on them that hinted, "This isn't anything like The Red Tent," making everything else pale in comparison.
Didn't Stephen King even do this at one point with some of his books? And he got some guy that worked as an editor to put up as his author picture on the back of the books? I find that so funny!
Of course when word gets out it's really you then your fans come out of the woodwork to read your books, but otherwise, you can create a whole new following, see which genre is making more sales, and maybe give you an idea of what to focus on writing based on what's more of a success for you.
Yeah, Stephen King wrote under the name Richard Bachman. They are a lot darker than his other works, and include The Long Walk, The Regulators, Thinner, Road Work, Running Man, and Rage.
No, I do not stalk Stephen King the way other people go to church on Sunday.Also, if you saw someone lurking outside his trashcans...it was definitely not me.
New release!.. From Stephen King: "Nenia and the Trashcan"!
Definitely need to request that at Barnes and Nobles.
Stephen King's sequel to his critically acclaimed Misery introduces a new kind of psychological thriller with his new release: Nenia and the Trashcan.Nenia, a curious new author looking for clues from scraps of ideas from author Richard Buckland's trashcan, discovers a chicken's carcass. What was he eating with this chicken? Does it help improve his creativity? Nenia is determined to find out the answers, but by doing so is caught by the man himself one night as she was rummaging through more garbage looking for remnants of chicken stuffing.
Suddenly, criminal harassment takes a turn as Richard holds Nenia captive, forcing her to read manuscripts of bad ideas and threatens to torture her unless she proofreads his next novel -- an eerie, unedited read consisting of over a thousand pages.
Lol. May I hire you to write all my future book blurbs, Holly?WARNING: I can pay only in chocolate chip cookies—or other baked goods of your choice. ;-)
Holly wrote: "Stephen King's sequel to his critically acclaimed Misery introduces a new kind of psychological thriller with his new release: Nenia and the Trashcan.Nenia, a curious new author looking for clues..."
OH. MY. GOD. I love you. Lesbian wedding, plz.
*dies of lulz*
Nenia wrote: "OH. MY. GOD. I love you. Lesbian wedding, plz."OooOOooo!
Briar Kit wrote: "£4 / $6 plus tax ... close to the price of a large coffee at Starbucks or Costa. The coffee lasts a matter of minutes. A novel stays with you a lifetime—can change your life.If people can afford ..."
I sincerely agree. As an avid reader, I expect to pay at least as much as a cup of coffee, a valet parking attendant, or the tip for the pizza delivery guy as I would for a well written piece that very well could change my life, and often has.
I have messed with KDP Select on my first book offering it for free through that programme, now I have settled at 99c for either of my books on Kindle. Yes, I wish I could charge more but at least they sell a bit at this price. At 150,000 words on my second it's fantastic value, I think, but only if the readers enjoy it.
Many publishing companies resist selling at lower than the paperback price I am told. Because I self publish my paperbacks (on Lulu and Amazon) are too expensive and my only sales there, are me buying giveaways for people. Maybe one day I can sell for $7 or £5 and still get sales. Does anyone have any experience of selling at over $3 after having been at 99c? Maybe with my third book I'll change things but that is still a month or so away.
Briar Kit wrote: "S.K. wrote: "Briar Kit wrote: "£4 / $6 plus tax ... close to the price of a large coffee at Starbucks or Costa. The coffee lasts a matter of minutes. A novel stays with you a lifetime—can change yo..."I fear indie authors, like myself, are our own worst enemies sometimes, when it comes to pricing our books.
For me, it's all about sales. I initially priced my debut novel at $5.99, then I allowed the price to trickle down accordingly whenever the sales would stagnate in increments of $0.50.Once you reach a maximum price to revenue ratio, then I figure this is the suitable price to stay at.
Really, it's always the market that dictates the going rate for a novel.
Martin, please take no offense, but to me the reader, this sales strategy says the book was not good enough to sell at $5.99 so the writer kept lowering price until it reached a point where readers don't care if the book is good, or bad.
Martin wrote: "Once you reach a maximum price to revenue ratio, then I figure this is the suitable price to stay at."Absolutely. Pricing is a powerful marketing tool. If your publishing goal is to earn as much money as you can on your books, you have to set aside your emotions and ego and be willing to experiment with price to maximize your revenue. That "sweet spot" may be 99 cents or it may be $14.99. You'll never know until you try to sell your book at different price points.
Such a mercenary approach may not be for everyone though. If selling your book for 99 cents makes you feel bad about yourself or your writing, then price it at whatever level makes you comfortable. Just be aware of the fact that you are forfeiting one of the biggest marketing advantages you have as a self published author.
Nick,1. I'd never take offense to anything. Just look at my aviator shades. This is the face of chillness.
2. To reiterate what James said, sometimes the author has to swallow his ego and accept that revenue maximization might come as a result of reduced margins per sale. If that's the case, so be it. If you're a first time author, I don't think you can really afford to be proud. Worry about establishing a solid reader base first and then work on setting your next novel at a different bracket.
Martin,The problem with establishing a reader base in the free, or low $ category, is the writer is setting a precedence and their reader base tends to stay in that category.
Lowering the price for a 24 hrs sale or some such issue is one thing, but to start high and lower the price until the writer sees sales improve just says to me the writer is desperate. I don't tend to follow writers who are desperate because as I have come to learn, desperation does not lead to a better quality product.
The best thing a writer can do is produce a quality product that is worth the price a reader will pay.
Maximizing revenue does not necessarily mean pricing low. Many people assume books follow the classic demand curve where a lower price means higher sales, but that is not always true. I know of authors who sell far more books at $2.99 to $4.99 than they did at lower price points. I'm just suggesting that we should experiment with price. We have that power, and we should use it to our advantage. I would rather be a best seller at 99 cents than languish in obscurity at $2.99, but that was not be the trade-off I discovered. I sell more books at $2.99 than I did at 99 cents. At some point, I may try $4.99 or even higher. "Experimenting" doesn't have to mean "low-balling."
Nick,I agree with your points if you're an established author, but if you're someone who's just breaking into the industry and has literally no previous work to attract readers, then your primary tool is to entice readers to buy your book, and that's far easier to do when you price your novel at a more attractive price bracket.
Ultimately, if you're a great writer and you have confidence in the material you produce, that shouldn't keep you from producing another great piece of literature further down the road. At that point, and with a more respectable fan following, it would make more sense to price your book at higher margins.
If your work speaks for itself and the readers have an understanding of what to expect from you, then price elasticity shouldn't be that high. The majority of the time, a quality product will get recognized on the merits of its content, not what its going rate is.
S.K. wrote: "I have been reading many reader forums lately and I hear a lot of discussion about prices on ebooks and paperbacks. There seems to be a general consensus that if books are priced too low, readers ..."A lot of the concept of pricing should probably be gauaged as to where your niche and market are at. I think another point you need to look at is that a reader, simply by being a reader that buys books is not stupid. I believe the reading public understands the basics of paying money to recieve something even if that is the few hours out of a life they get to spend with your characters.
Those few readers that you allude to that say they would not pay over x-amount for a book are probably very few indeed.
My advice to you, which comes from my publisher, would be: Price your printed copies in the same price range that others in your genre and length of book are pricing theirs. Same with your electronic files. If you find you need to lower your price later you can always run "specials" Or even lower it permanentlay later.
You should not have to appologize for wanting to make a living or being proud of your creation. Keep writing.
KV said, You should not have to apologize for wanting to make a living or being proud of your creation. Keep writing. I could not agree more and I would add, don't treat your writing as a hobby. When you put it up for sale, its no longer a hobby...
I pass this along as food for thought. It comes from Seth Godin's blog. Seth is a tech guru who has sold millions of self-published books on Amazon.com without using any of the marketing techniques we often discuss here. This particular post addresses the issue of pricing. Purple Cow is the title of his first self-published book, which also became a smash hit.Seth Godin's Post
"How do you turn something that is considered to be a commodity into a Purple Cow, when the lowest price is the only thing that seems to matter to customers?"
If you tell me that price is the only thing that matters to customers, I respond that nothing about this product matters to them.
When something matters to you, you talk about it, care about it, research it, tweak it... If all that we've got to care about is the price, then the price is the discussion, not the item itself.
Businesses have worked overtime to turn things into commodities, telling us that they sell what the other guy does, it's the same, but cheaper. No wonder we've been lulled into not caring.
Every time you say, "all they care about is price," you've just said, "they don't really care, they just want to get the buying over with, cheap."
The thing is, it doesn't have to be a commodity if you don't want it to be. It's easy to forget, but before the smartphone, cell phones were treated as a commodity as well. Nucor figured out how to turn steel from a cheap commodity into something worth caring about. Not cared about by everyone, but cared about by enough buyers. And that's the opportunity in every industry, in every segment, for any product or service that has become a commodity.
No, you can't magically make it interesting to all. But yes, with enough effort and care, you can find those that are interested enough in what you create that they'll choose to talk about it.
And if you can't, go make something else. Something that people will choose to care about and talk about.
We price the Five Directions Press books at $11–17 for the print editions, depending on length, and set the e-book price at one-third of the print edition. Then we do our best to get the word out and wait. And since we are, of necessity, in a trade paperback market, we make sure we produce high-quality trade paperbacks. The care taken in editing and proofing carries over to the e-books, although the formatting and font choices do not.We are not in Hugh Howey or Amanda Hocking territory yet, though, so I cannot argue that this strategy is the way to sell a lot of books. It just feels right to us.
Mine are $3.25 and $3.50 respectively. One is 285 pages the other is about 350. £2.07 and £2.20 or so.I actually see more sales with the slightly higher price.
As a reader I probably won't pay more that about but that is more because I can't really afford it. I might shell out more if I know it is an author I really like. I don't see 99c (77p) as bad, or free as bad. Free does not make a book bad, bad writing does that.
C.P. wrote: "I pass this along as food for thought. It comes from Seth Godin's blog. Seth is a tech guru who has sold millions of self-published books on Amazon.com without using any of the marketing techniques..."Thanks for the thoughtful words. I have a fondness for people who recognize writing as a sort of art form. Some people have no appreciation for art and are just looking for a picture to hang on the wall. I am glad they have Wal-mart. And even the Wal-mart brands have a price. Others seek out gallery. Price seems to reflect quality in many product categories, but it seems that people want authors to write for free.
Philip wrote: "I have messed with KDP Select on my first book offering it for free through that programme, now I have settled at 99c for either of my books on Kindle. Yes, I wish I could charge more but at lea..." I have priced my 3 books at 99p and left them at this. I haven't offered any free at any stage. I don't know if this was a good move but it's what I decided to do.
How much would you charge for a detailed video summary of a business or non-fiction book?
Most of the comments here seem to be about ebooks. Because my current audience tends to like print, I have had to look into it more. From what I have learned through talking to traditional and self-published authors, you should allow for around 40% discount to wholesalers and take off the cost of printing, which normally leaves the author with £1 - £2 profit per paperback book. (Shipping costs also need to be considered). Self-published tends to give about £1 more per book, presumably because of the lower marketing and literary agent / publisher costs.
Renuka wrote: "Most of the comments here seem to be about ebooks. Because my current audience tends to like print, I have had to look into it more. From what I have learned through talking to traditional and self..." I don't know if it helps but I have been advised by many kindle authors to use Createspace to get paperbacks printed.
Toni wrote: "I don't know if it helps but I have been advised by many kindle authors to use Createspace to get paperbacks printed. "Thanks, Toni. The above calculations work for Createspace as well (or at least in the examples I've looked at.)
Yes, I've found the same thing as Renuka. Five Directions Press prices print books so that the author collects $2.50-3.00 (£1 or a bit more) per paperback, whether the sale goes through Amazon.com or through direct sales to bookstores at the 40% discount. That's why the prices vary by length: length affects the base production cost and hence what the press needs to charge.If you sell through CreateSpace Expanded Distribution, which gets you a listing with Ingram, though, you have to raise the price a bit to make anything at all. The average return is 50 cents or less per book. Something to keep in mind.
Renuka wrote: "Toni wrote: "I don't know if it helps but I have been advised by many kindle authors to use Createspace to get paperbacks printed. "Thanks, Toni. The above calculations work for Createspace as we..." Thanks Renuka
Briar Kit wrote: "I fully respect authors' personal pricing decisions, but I think it is tremendously unfair for an author to make a nugatory amount on an individual sale. I, personally, won't buy an ebook for les..."That's a very interesting stance Briar and one that I will think about. As a newly published author (first ebook in February this year) I didn't feel that I should ask more than 99p for my book, despite the amount of work put into writing it in the first place then getting it ready to publish. Perhaps I was wrong and I should be charging more. Do you think that asking £1.99 is a more realistic price? Mine are not long books.
Briar Kit wrote: "Hi ToniIMO, it isn't about quantity, it's about quality.
I'd happily pay £10 for the pleasure of owning, reading and rereading a really well-written short story of a thousand words.
Art and c..."
I seriously agree that it is about quality not quantity. Art and creativity DO have value. Those were precisely the points I was trying to make when I started this thread. I see so many authors price at $0.99 to $2.99 in the bargain basement just to move numbers, either sells to see ratings go higher based on sales, or for some dollars rather than no dollars. There seems to be no patience to let the book get discovered. They want immediate sells and when they drop for a day or two or for several weeks they get highly upset. (I see this in the author bloggers who watch and report their numbers almost daily.) I personally feel we are not doing ourselves any favors by perpetuating such a low ceiling for the quality work we put out. It is time to raise the ceiling, even if it takes a little patience to accomplish that ends.
S.K. wrote: "There seems to be no patience to let the book get discovered."You seem to be implying that getting discovered is a function of time, but I don't believe that's true. Every month, something like 50,000 new titles appear on Amazon.com. If you don't *do something* to get your title noticed (and price is only part of that effort), it will languish down in the 500K+ rankings and never appear in the recommendation lists. Readers will never discover it under those conditions.
S.K. wrote: "I see so many authors price at $0.99 to $2.99 in the bargain basement just to move numbers."
The price writers choose for their novels is dependent upon many factors, most of which have nothing to do with the value they place on their work. Some writers make their work free because they want to share their stories with as many readers as possible and don't care if they make money from them. Some price in the "bargain basement" for similar reasons: they care more about the exposure than the income. Others price low because they've found that "moving numbers" gives them the best revenue stream.
The question of "value" keeps coming up. What is the value of a few hours of disposable entertainment? That figure is up to the individual author and the individual reader. I won't price my Kindle books above $4.99 because I won't *pay* more than $4.99 for a Kindle book.
Your ceiling might be higher than that or it might be lower. Your choice of price is as arbitrary as mine and actually says nothing about the quality or value of your work or mine.
Price is strictly a marketing decision based on your personal goals for your book. "Value" is in the eyes of the readers.
S.K. wrote: "Briar Kit wrote: "Hi ToniIMO, it isn't about quantity, it's about quality.
I'd happily pay £10 for the pleasure of owning, reading and rereading a really well-written short story of a thousand ..."
This makes very good sense Briar.
Everybody in this world loves to get something for free. Anything. If its free, they'll take it.Same with ebooks. I doubt if the actual price (within reason, of course) plays such a crucial role.
If you have paid for something, you have attached a value to it and you'll probably read it.
Any comment or stats on how many freebes are actually read with the same appreciation as a purchased book?
I know a lot of free books are only free for a limited time; so I download if remotely interesting so as to not miss that window of opportunity. It might take me months or years to actually get to (big tbr pile and I pre-order a lot). I've stopped reviewing so not likely the target market for freebies but I do at least try to read the first few pages eventually or when reminded by a new release in series.It's not just indie/self-published authors who do freebies. Usually when a traditionally published author has a freebie it's a multi-year running series and coinciding very briefly with a new release in series will.be the first in series up for free or drastic discount.
With a new release in series, I do think discounting first in series can be effective both for getting new readers introduced in series and for promoting the new release. Ditto for older books/series being re-released in ebook format.
As a reader, my opinion of some of the indie/freebie series unfortunately is that some series should have been condensed to a single, better/tighter-edited novel. Just because a lot of the New York Times and Hollywood bestsellers were trilogies or longer .-- does not mean everything needs to be. And I am not fooled by novella or short story length "books" in a series charging $3 or more for each entry in the "series" when the entire series page count is less than an average $3-$10 novel.
(A real example is a six "book" series by indie, unknown author priced $2.99 each for a total of $17.94 and adding up to less than 450 pages -- why would I want to pay $18 for an ebook novel from an author or I have never read? There are very few authors I even buy in hardcover instead of waiting for paperback or ebook edition of paperback.)
There is a lot more to it than price. I have absolutely no idea how or why books sell.Stange, unexplicable things happen: When I published in March 2012 ($3.99)nothing happened for the first month. So I made it a freebie, and over the next two months there were thousands of downloads. It shot through the "free" rankings like a rocket. Then I put the price back on, and everything stopped dead.
I did not do any marketing because I had neither the time nor a clue how to.
Then, for no apparent reason, the book started moving in March this year. Sales have been improving steadily, and the two sequels also started selling.
No breathtaking breakout, but Poacher made it into the top 1% on the Amazon.com sales list a month ago.
So then I woke up and started getting active on Goodreads, and I've learnt a lot since. Even started blogging.
If it is going to make any difference only time will tell.
I think it really depends on the genre (romance and erotica sell better even at higher prices), and how many books an author has out there, and also and the most important, how well the readers like the sample they download. I downloaded Anthony Ryan's Blood song and immediately bought the book at 4.99$ because I couldn't wait to read the rest of the story. but I wouldn't pay that much for an unknown writer if the sample fails to capture my attention.
I read a lot of free ebooks, fiction, mystery, & sci fi.Perhaps 75% of them seem to be written by high school kids who write long running narratives with limited dialog, using multiple adverbs, etc. It is obvious they never took a fiction writing class. Only occasionally do I find a well written ebook.
I'm sure not all teenagers and younger write badly; but, I do wish amazon and other booksellers would note when an author is under 18. Could create more downloads from other under 18s and reviews/ratings might take it easier on the books knowing had to be an extremely beginning author. A lot of Teenagers are very avid readers. Admittedly in my case, and for a lot of other 18+ readers, the books by the younger set (even if free) would move way, way down theTBR pile—just because I concede that not all teenage writers suck doesn't mean I have high hopes of freebie offerings from teenage writers. I have read very few free books that were any good (I have no way of knowing how many were because written by teenager versus an equally inexperienced adult writer but a lot of them sure read like it).
Leon wrote: "There is a lot more to it than price. I have absolutely no idea how or why books sell.Stange, unexplicable things happen: When I published in March 2012 ($3.99)nothing happened for the first month..."
Hi Leon, I was intrigued to read that your sales started to improve for unknown reasons. I am in the process of setting up a new website to help promote my books and music. Re free books: I haven't put any of mine for free on kindle. The general consensus seemed to be that it didn't help sales.
Leon wrote: "Then, for no apparent reason, the book started moving in March this year. "Sales can take a year or so to gain momentum. They can also increase for other reasons. I don't know where most of your sales were, but in UK there was a surge in interest in safaris after an Attenborough TV documentary in January 2013, which may have had an impact.
Hi Tony,I couldn't agree more. I may sound a little cynical, but I simply don't trust things that are free. You get what you pay for in life, unfortunately.
Renuka wrote: "Leon wrote: "Then, for no apparent reason, the book started moving in March this year. "Sales can take a year or so to gain momentum. They can also increase for other reasons. I don't know where ..."
That's useful to know - that it can take some time for sales to start to build up. I'm hoping that my new website, that I am in the process of building, will help draw people to finding out more about my books.
Toni wrote:"I'm hoping that my new website, that I am in the process of building, will help draw people to finding out more about my books. "A website and Twitter / Facebook seem to be essential for an author. They don't in themselves bring huge amounts of sales as I understand it, but the more of an online presence there is, the more chance of a lucky break. Good luck with your site.
Hi Renuka,I totally agree with Tony.
Don't buid a static website as you will end up with the same problem - how do you motivate people to look at it?
I think a blog is better. Post stuff people will want to read, and post regularly. At some stage the reader will say "who is this guy?", click on your profile, and there they might find your books.
Like all things worthwhile, its not plain sailing - its hard, hard work.
Leon wrote: "Hi Renuka,I totally agree with Tony.
Don't buid a static website as you will end up with the same problem - how do you motivate people to look at it?
I think a blog is better. Post stuff people wi..."Hi Renuka I have almost(!) finished building my website. I will be able to update the books and music (CD) section whenever I like. Re the blog idea I find it take me all my time to keep up with my Inspiring Ideas page. Also, I don't know if people ae more likely to join in with a blog than they are with a Fb page. What is your experience with this?
