Anthologies and box sets

[Will]

So, I'm thinking of putting several of my Banned Underground books (say 3 at a time) into one volume to sell.

Anyone any thoughts on doing this? Box sets can be popular, but unless you want the hassle of creating all the packaging, rather difficult to manage. So 1 volume, which I could also then sell as an ebook, I thought.

Feedback very welcome!

[Darren]

Will, I offered up the first three Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. novels as a trilogy at a reduced price. Effectively, they get the first book free (saving a whole 99p). I really ought to have called it an anthology rather than a trilogy, since there's no overarching story, but that's by the by. I did it as a single volume with appropriate links taking the readers to the start of each.

It sells OK, but the single books sell better. I think that it's real worth is in showing browsers that there are at least three books in the series and that gives some sense of credibility. After all, would anyone write more than one if they were rubbish?

I have absolutely no idea how the box set stuff works, so a single volume was easy to do (since most of the work was already done in the original volumes) and required little more than a new cover.

I do think that offering the customers choice in how they want to consume the series, as single volumes or one set, is a good idea, though.

[Darren]

I should also add that the trilogy does its best work in the 'pages read' section where people find it more convenient to have just one volume on the kindle rather than all the rest.

[M.T.]

I haven't tried it yet but I've heard tell of folks making a lot of cash selling Box Sets on facebook and then getting knock on sales of all their other books... although as I have a 4 book series which I'm just boxing up now and only one other book out, it's going to be tricky for me to discover if that works.

Cheers

MTM

[Tim]

Would a box set work if the first book was permafree?

[Alicia]

I am looking forward to being able to create a box set - Pride's Children was meant to be one really fat book - but I have to finish writing first, the first third is already published at 167K, and Createspace doesn't have a binding that big.

So I read all these posts and store the info away.

[Tim]

It would be really nice if they could do a proper paper box set, with the slip case and everything (I think Lulu might do it?), but I suspect it'd be so expensive I'd only sell one & the occasional giveaway/prize!

[M.T.]

Tim wrote: "Would a box set work if the first book was permafree?"

I would do mine for £6.99 so they'd make a £1 saving on books 3 and 4 if they were mailing list people and get the second book free if they were just buying in bulk... Although Amazon keep dicking with the price of book 4. No idea why. Google play probably.

Cheers

MTM

[✿Claire✿]

I've just seen this. I sometimes buy boxsets of ebooks if I have read the first one (usually got it free) and it's more economical to buy the next few as a set rather than all together. It doesn't generally matter to me whether the first one is included or not, as long as there's a couple I haven't read.