Combining two books in a series into one novel

[Livi]

Hello everyone!
I'm a rookie author and I'd love some advice from all of you veterans!

I'm finishing up the last installment of my series, and this last book should have roughly 80k words. My first two books consisted of 35k and 45k words each. Many readers and reviewers have complained that they are just too short and that they wished I would have combined them. I am open to combining the first two works, which would flow well together, but I don't really want to stick all three together. Re-accumulating reviews and differentiating the combined novel from the two separate works will also be painful, I think.

Have any of you come across this problem before? I could also offer the first book at $0.99, with the second at $2.99 and the third at $3.99, but I'm apprehensive about this. Some reviewers have accused me of being greedy with my pricing, as if I'm trying deliberately to rip them off with a "neverending series". I'm put off by this because this was never my intention, and I'm saddened by the fact that they think that way. I just assumed that a price of $0.99 would deter some potential readers, as many works at that price point are outright awful.

I'm really stuck! Please help me out with any advice or tips! They would be much appreciated :)

[Braxton]

Hi Olivia,

You didn't mention your genre and it can make a difference. Studies have shown that Romance readers seem to prefer books in the 80K range while Fantasy readers don't mind books in the 200K range. Most other genres seem to do best in the 100-115K range. 35K words falls into the range for a novella, while 45K is just above the usual novella word count. Combining the two, if workable, would be a good move.

As for pricing, realize that there is no magic price point for ebooks, but that as a "rookie" you want exposure. More people will be tempted to risk $0.99 on a new author. Even a lot of more established authors like to price their books at $0.99, hoping to earn their royalties on quantity. And a lot of these books are 100K or longer. If you're going to offer 2 books at roughly 80K each, I'd consider keeping the price point low ($0.99-1.99) and the same for each. FWIW ...