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Name your most successful marketing technique
M. wrote: "You are now on the honor roll: Amazon KDP Authors Getting Fancy with their Kindle Book PagesM. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Descri..."
Now I have blogged
http://wp.me/p3M3g8-5a
Philip wrote: "M. wrote: "You are now on the honor roll: Amazon KDP Authors Getting Fancy with their Kindle Book PagesM. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your ..."
Philip,
I read your blog. You gave a very truthful assessment. You've also given just a tiny little bit too much details about the steps -- remember, I'm still trying to sell the book!
But congrats on getting your book descriptions enhance. You've got a nice Amazon carousel working here http://amzn.to/18uvil8. Your Tweet box is not fully functioning because you missed Twitter's one-line JavaScript reference -- I cannot give it out here but you will find that one liner in Chapter 12. It looks like you tried to reference it but some it got lost at some point as you had a " block that has the $ sign, like this:
And it will work.
I'm adding your book page to the honor roll.
M. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed.
M. wrote: "Philip wrote: "M. wrote: "You are now on the honor roll: Amazon KDP Authors Getting Fancy with their Kindle Book PagesM. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and W..."
And lastly, yes, it is a lot of work. But I think we've signed up for it. Self-publishing basically means self-marketing.
M. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed.
M. wrote: "Philip wrote: "M. wrote: "You are now on the honor roll: Amazon KDP Authors Getting Fancy with their Kindle Book PagesM. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and W..."
Thanks will try and sort it when I have a few minutes probably at the weekend.
Please everyone else buy the book it is full of useful info on Author Central and well supported by M and his blog thoroughly recommended.
Has anyone purchased ads on Goodreads. I keep seeing them pop up on various pages and they make me want to read the book. But do they sell?
I purchased one ad on Goodreads and doubt it was a god investment. Facebook and Blogads have been a better investment.
Carmen wrote: "I purchased one ad on Goodreads and doubt it was a god investment. Facebook and Blogads have been a better investment."Thanks, Carmen.
Hi the many of you who have purchased my "Secret" book:Since most of you guys are not on my mailing list, I am copying the email I sent out a moment ago.
I have just released a new book, titled How to Embed Social Share Buttons in Your Kindle Book Pages. To show my heartfelt appreciation for your purchase of my book KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description, I'm offering this book free to you.
The book is here: http://amzn.to/18xrEHq. It will be free for two days, starting midnight Pacific tonight till midnight Pacific Sunday.
I know we live in a viral society and Amazon does not offer a mechanism for me to control who can enjoy the free download, so some people who have not purchased "Secret" will enjoy the free download too. And you might as well do your friends a favor and let them know.
But rest assured that this book is by no means going to devalue the "Secret" book you have bought. That is still and will always be the bible of Kindle book description, forever the holy grail.
So, don't miss the free download. And if you have enjoyed my books and benefited form the know-how's in it, please post a review on the books' Amazon pages. One good turn deserves another, from an Indie to another Indie.
Cheers,
M. Eigh
http://m.eigh.com
Mea Culpa!My free promo did not kick in.
I probably forgot to save at the last step. Now KDP Bookshelf would not let me start from today. Anyway, I've scheduled for the book to be free on Sunday and Monday now.
In the meantime, I've lowered the price from $2.99 to $0.99, just in case someone is in hurry to get his/her hands on it.
Guess I am only human. So remember, it's Sunday and Monday now. It will be free at: http://amzn.to/18xrEHq.
M. Eigh, author of the now popular KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed.
Carmen wrote: "I purchased one ad on Goodreads and doubt it was a god investment. Facebook and Blogads have been a better investment."Hi Carmen.
Do you point your ads to your own website or directly to an Amazon page where the purchase can be made?
I've done several ads on Goodreads. They cause people to add my book to their shelves, but as far as I can see do not contribute to sales. I've done some Blogads with similar results. Haven't tried Facebook ads yet.I wish the Goodreads ads were re-configured. I don't think they are very attractive at this point (the self-serves). I did contact them about the larger ads, but the price was prohibitive so I did not go that way.
It is the conversion that is the difficult part. An ad may get people to click on it, thus eating up your $$, but unless it converts to sales it hasn't done its job. So the question is "How do I get the visitor to buy the book?"I think the trick is to have the ad point to a page with some copy text that invites, nay, demands that the reader go buy the book. :-)
Hi Norm, I have a three-part theory on ads -- not just GoodReads ads, but general ads. The three parts are:1)Never put out a book ad without embedding your Amazon Affiliate ID in the URL. I'm surprised many authors on this forum do not pay attention to it. Advertised or not, I never give out my books' URLs without my affiliate ID in them. And the result is satisfactory. I took a screenshot of my account statement from 9/1 to date: https://googledrive.com/host/0B6NosDC....
You can see that I've earned a whopping $19. Humble, laughable. But hey, it offsets something if I have to pay for ads. But for this month, I have not paid any ads. The income is just from my spreading my books' URLs everywhere.
2)I have to disagree with you on where to direct the click-through. I strongly believe it should be your Amazon book page. Nobody does it better than Amazon. The top portion of the book page is designed with a killer instinct. On the left you have the "Look inside," and on the right you have the Buy button and a Download sample button right there. Anyone who arrives at your book page is instantly fed with those three visual gauntlet.
I would not kid myself that my own blog has that kind of "squeezing" power as Amazon's tested book page.
3)And this one is a MUST. Learn from the grandmaster -- Amazon is the inventor of the "chao algorithm." That is the equivalent of window shopping of the physical world. If a buyer browsed your book and then moved on to Joyland, there is a chance when someone else is looking at Joyland, he is presented with an icon of your book cover, along with a few others under the "Customers who viewed Joyland also viewed these items." Same principle with free giveaway; just more potent as free download counts as an "Amazon verified purchase."
To maximize this effect, you yourself should create random affiliations that favor yourself. My book "Secret" talks about this and gives a specific procedure through which you can drop an Affiliate widget right there in a prominent spot of your book description, to entice the visitor to click on other titles of the book. That way, when you are running a free promo, and you have some caption on the other tiles saying things like "Click to check if it is free," you are going to get clicks. The rest is up to your books. They have to sell themselves when the prospective buyers are looking at them.
Here's what Philip Henley did this morning to his book page http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B72JQTG?t... -- he dropped the Affiliate widget in his book. He also dropped his Tweet box in the description, which in my humble opinion should be below the Affiliate widget. With Twitter you get follows. With the Affiliate widget you get book sales or advertising commission, as I did.
Honestly, a big portion of the Affiliate commissions may be generated from the Amazon widget as I have such widget in every book page of mine. You can see one example here: http://amzn.to/1evdevT.
The end result is when a stranger comes to one of my books, there is a chance he's gonna click on that Amazon widget to view another title of mine. Once he does that, he becomes my captive audience. No matter what he buys that session, be it my book or something else, I get paid.
M. Eigh
M. wrote: "Hi Norm, I have a three-part theory on ads -- not just GoodReads ads, but general ads. The three parts are:1)Never put out a book ad without embedding your Amazon Affiliate ID in the URL. I'm sur..."
Why would you put your affiliate ad in your own book URL? You get paid on the sale of the book and whatever amount you get as an affiliate gets deducted from the amount of your royalty doesn't it?
Never mind the above question I see the answer in your post...if they purchase something else while on that visit you get paid. Nice
Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
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email: Norm Hamilton
M. wrote: "Hi Norm, I have a three-part theory on ads -- not just GoodReads ads, but general ads. The three parts are:1)Never put out a book ad without embedding your Amazon Affiliate ID in the URL. I'm sur..."
Thanks M once more
I agree that I need to switch the twitter part around, not sure if it's appropriate at all rather than a simple follow me button. Will have a think and potential redesign.
As for Ads, I have tried here on GR, Project Wonderful and Ask David Tweet campaign. Result nil additional sales nor even added to To Read Lists. Tens of thousands of views, a few click throughs, and no buys. I have also tried book daily with little if any impact. Done with Ads for a while, will stick to getting more books out!
I can't get Author Central to accept any html other than some basic b and i tags. I see the results of the h2 tag on some descriptions, but I cannot get it to stick. Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
Services for Writers
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email: Norm Hamilton
Hi Dianne, Thanks for the compliment. Yea I think authors are realizing that there is a playground there they can take advantage of. Here's a very short list of authors who have enhanced their Kindle book pages based on my techniques: http://m.eigh.com/amazon-kdp-authors-....Amazon affiliate is a program anyone can join at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/. There is no membership fee. They do require that you have some kind of a web presence -- website or a blog, where you have content and can attract visitor.
Once you establish your account, you are on a basic 4% commission rate. (If someone with your tracking id in his session buys a HDTV at $1000, Amazon pays you $40.) The commission goes up quickly every time someone with your tracking id buys something, until you hit 6.5% percent. Then the rate of increase goes down and you have to get a lot more items sold to get to higher commission rate.)
Amazon provide a fool-proof GUI interface inside your account where you can built a set of products (in your case, all your titles) and choose an animation style and scrolling speed and dimension. Another wonderful related thing is you can save that widget under a name you would remember. There on afterwards every time you publish another title, all you need to do is go back to the saved widget, search your new book by its ASIN, add it to your widget. Some 30-40 minutes later the widget live in your book description will start showing that new book. You never have to touch your existing book descriptions.
In Chapter Ten of my book Best-Kept-Secret, there is a segment walking you through the entire process of how to go about building that widget, copy and paste its code snippet and regurgitate it so you can put in your description. As Philip describes it, it works, you just have to adhere to the steps and be careful.
Good luck and if you hit some snag, don't spend too much time trying it out on your own, step over to my book page and drop me a note there http://amzn.to/1evdevT.
The side benefit of getting on my emailing list is I put out free supplements to the book now and then. I also have some great news to announce soon -- enabling authors to track their web metrics/analytics on their Kindle book page. With my DIY methods, you can easily track page views, and how many of those views converted into clicks on the book pages' monetary real estate hot spot -- Look Inside, Buy, Download sample.
With that kind of feedback, we authors will have no excuse not to sell books. Not enough views? You've gotta get yourself out there. Buy ads or create a scandal. Go crazy twerking at your next PTA meeting with a T-shirt printed with your book cover.
A lot of views but very few purchase in the KDP royalty report? Definitely work on the cover design. A lot of sample downloading but not many purchases? Rewrite the first 10% of the book. That 10% must sell the rest 90%!
Anyway, without my upcoming release of such secret methods to track Kindle page metrics, we authors are blind. We will spend the next century having long discussions about general rules of what works and what does not. But each author is a different case, and that uniqueness can only be revealed with the business intelligence buried in the Kindle page analytics which are archived ruthlessly in Amazon's cold storage but never shared with us.
Amazon is a tyranny. Even eBay gives you page view counter and how many watchers you have (sort of the equivalent of Amazon books free sampling, an indicator of in-depth interest on the buyers' part.)
But we can make it happen. I'm going through intense testing this weekend. Whether I can release it soon depends on the result.
Cheers,
M. Eigh
Norm wrote: "I can't get Author Central to accept any html other than some basic b and i tags. I see the results of the h2 tag on some descriptions, but I cannot get it to stick. Norm Hamilton
author of ..."
Yup you are right on. Take a look at my book's page here and you will see I've got everything to stick there: http://amzn.to/1evdevT.
And the know-how is contained in that book.
M. wrote: "Yup, you are right on..."Thanks M.
Donpapachino wrote: "Thanks, some times you need to give out free to gain more exposure. And once you get positive reviews, people will start noticing you.Anyway, apart from Amazon, Kobo, Google Play do have some fre..."
I'm doing my part today. Lethal weapon for Indie author, FREE! How to Embed Social Share Buttons in Your Kindle Book Pages. If you live outside U.S., please remember to replace Amazon.com with Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.in or Amazon.de or Amazon.fr or Amazon.es or Amazon.it or Amazon.co.jp or Amazon.com.br or Amazon.ca or Amazon.com.mx.
M. Eigh, author of the now popular KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description.
Norm wrote: "M. wrote: "Hi Norm, I have a three-part theory on ads -- not just GoodReads ads, but general ads. The three parts are:1)Never put out a book ad without embedding your Amazon Affiliate ID in the U..."
Norm -- Just to clarify: the only thing that gets deducted from royalty is the rather arbitrary delivery cost when you are on the 70% royalty.
Your Affiliate account is a complete identity in relation to your KDP account. So if we disregard the delivery cost, and you are on a 6.5% commission with your Affiliate account and your book is on a 70% royalty, and you lead a buyer to your book page with your tracking code and that buyer buys your book, your de facto royalty becomes 76.5%.
The math there is pretty simple.
M. wrote: "...you lead a buyer to your book page with your tracking code and that buyer buys your book, your de facto royalty becomes 76.5%"Nice. I'm off to add affiliate links on my blog posts.
Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
Services for Writers
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email: Norm Hamilton
Philip wrote: "M. wrote: "Hi Norm, I have a three-part theory on ads -- not just GoodReads ads, but general ads. The three parts are:1)Never put out a book ad without embedding your Amazon Affiliate ID in the U..."
Philip,
If you are just buying general ads, don't spend money on those guys you just mentioned. Ain't worth it.
If you've got a few dollars to spare, go on SEOClerks.com, Fiverr.com or Fivesquids.co.uk. There there will be a million guys competing for your $1 or $3 or $5 budget.
A lot of these guys are based not in U.S. or UK, but when you pay them $2 to put out 1,000 FB wall posts, some will sift back to U.S. and UK, and end up with purchase of your books. The rest may seem wasted. But with your affiliate id embedded in those posts, someone will get on Amazon and end up buying something. You will always get more than you've spent.
Of course, in the long run, that does not build anything. In addition to what you mentioned as vital -- more titles, better books and etc workshop related items, the single most important thing is your own site or blog. You really have to sink your teeth in it and every time you blog you need to be aware what you are trying to achieve with the search search engines.
If you have a clear goal on what you want to achieve with your blog; you have a clear vision as to how people would find you or your books via search engine, then you can narrow the objectives down to a few search key phrases. After that you look at your competition. Are you up against Steven King or Lee Child on those search terms? If yes, you better tweak and adjust your niche.
Once the goal is set, the rest is technical implementation. This is where you probably need to save a few pints and buy some expertise out of one of those cheap gig sites I mentioned. On SEOClerks.com, for example, with a $30 budget, an experienced guy can probably guide you through the steps of populating strategically important content throughout your site and pay with with Google's algorithm.
I've never had the need to use those guys as I know search engines fairly well. But I've chatted with those guys and read what say in the mission statement. They know what they are talking about.
When picking a guy from those sites, go for those who have high score of positive ratings (both volumes and positive percentage.)
I know traditionally only online plastic slipper vendors would use these outlets for marketing help, and the authors community largely snubs them. But hey, if we are selling our books at $0.99 and getting $0.34 from Amazon as royalty, we are not that different than the online vendors who are touting made-in-China craps. We might as well take advantage of their low price point.
M. Eigh, author of the now popular KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed
M. wrote: "Hi Norm, I have a three-part theory on ads -- not just GoodReads ads, but general ads. The three parts are:1)Never put out a book ad without embedding your Amazon Affiliate ID in the URL. I'm sur..."
If I am publishing a book can I add Affiliate Links within it that point to other books on Amazon? I understand the need for a notice that they are affiliate links to comply with the FTC in the US, but do I have to truncate them somehow and is it allowed. I don't want Amazon to think I am somehow trying to mask the fact that they are affiliate links.
Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
Services for Writers
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email: Norm Hamilton
I wrote several weeks ago that I had paid for a Kirkus Review. The review was completed almost exactly ten weeks (minus one day) after I ordered it. Initially, I was disappointed by the review because it was positive but rather short. I don't want to think about how much I paid per word. But then I realized that brevity is a virtue because people do not want to read long reviews. Since it is easy to print the review off of the Kirkus Reviews website, I can now send it with free books to professors (my book is a memoir narrating my life as an English professor) who might want to use it in their classrooms or tell their students about it. I am still not sure, however, how much attention the review will get being posted on the website. One other point: The reviewer called my book an "improbably comic memoir" and describes its "farcical spirit." Again, I was initially bothered by what I thought was an overemphasis on the humor when the book makes serious points. But now I think the reviewer's description might help sell the book. We'll see.
I have a question: do readers/buyers trust Amazon pages more than CreateSpace pages? I've just been sending them directly to my CreateSpace page, assuming that if that's the only choice, they'd buy. But maybe that's the wrong approach. Many of my books are modernized classics, so there are always competitors (Signet, Oxford, Dover). Do I stand a better chance alongside them? Would the cachet of bigness rub off on my book if it's up right alongside theirs?
I suspect that people will buy from Amazon before CreateSpace.Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
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email: Norm Hamilton
I think the buyers aren't aware that these two are one and the same, or at least they work side by side. The difference being that when you buy a book from Createspace the author gets a larger piece of the pie from his creation. Also, the author gets a great break in purchasing his own books from Createspace. He can also buy as few or many as he wants. The better question to ask is; "Who is watching the cookie jar when books are purchased from either source. Who is watching if the royalties are being applied to every sale? I don't doubt books are selling, but the author is the one out in the cold if these sales numbers aren't applied and translated into royalties.
Cheers, Don Greywolf Ford
Yes, to Norm's suggestion ... go with Amazon first. Some folks will order directly from Createspace, but Amazon has both your POD and your Kindle listed. Besides, Amazon is the big gorilla. Good luck.
Don,RE the "Cookie jar," and royalties from Createspace and from Amazon. Both entities pay royalties directly to an account that you [the author] has set up for direct deposit. CS waits until you reach a certain royalty level before making a payment to you, the author. Amazon, in contrast, pays you at the end of each month. If you have published on CS and Amazon [Kindle e-book] you can go into your personal account, at any time, and look at "reports" and see how your sales are going. Amazon backs those reports up with a rather complex and detailed excel sheet, each month. Sooooo ... you can watch the "cookie jar" whenever you want to see how your sales are going.
Hi Pam,Goodreads is the worst place to bring a complaint against Amazon, since they now own it, and Goodreads will support whatever dealings they are involved in with Amazon?!? We see that these questions have come up before, and will continue to, until a real resolution is found to satisfy those writers who are SELLING books there, but little or no royalty numbers are popping up. Suddenly, I find myself in the company of others who are experiencing like situations regarding their book sales numbers.
http://us-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/laun...
http://jeanettevaughan.wordpress.com/...
P.S. I recently received an order for 6 of my kid's titles, and 2 other random ones. They didn't want to purchase from Amazon or Createspace since they wanted to be sure I got payment as well.
This way the printer AND the writer receive their money. :-} D.
Cheers, Don
Don wrote: "Hi Pam,Goodreads is the worst place to bring a complaint against Amazon, since they now own it, and Goodreads will support whatever dealings they are involved in with Amazon?!? We see that these ..."
This is rather disconcerting to say the least. Hopefully what Jeannette was writing about has been repaired and everything paid. It is disturbing, and to be truthful, for me somewhat implausible, to consider that Amazon would, purposely, be involved in this kind action.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but - sheesh!
Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
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email: Norm Hamilton
Don wrote: "I've never removed wood from large wood pile without finding a rat or two hiding there. I'm retired, so this is my life right now. The little I get every month is not enough to keep this boat of ..."I hear ya Don...recdently retired myself and finding the whole "fixed income" thing difficult to adapt to. The thought of a corporation gouging us is abhorrent to say the least. That's why I'm hoping it is an anomaly.
Norm Hamilton author of The Digital Eye
Indie Writer Book Reviews
Services for Writers
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email: Norm Hamilton
Hi Don,I think i lost the thread in this discussion. Do people actually buy books from Goodreads? Does Goodreads sell books? I'd leave them out of the sales and just go with CS and Amazon, if indeed you really can purchase a book from GR, which i've never heard of before.
Didn't you just go through major hair pulling when uploading your book to CS and now Kindle? I've been through that too, but now i contract it out to very good, very inexpensive friends who excel in that sort of thing. I just want to write ... and well, market too. I leave the techie stuff to the techies! - pam
Pam,If I made it sound like Goodreads sells books, I'm sorry. Goodreads was recently acquired by Amazon, at least that is the last communication I received. Don
Don,Yes, Goodreads was recently purchased by Amazon. I'm really excited about the purchase -- it can only help us as writers, reviewers, and readers. I do like the Big Gorilla, even if my husband considers them a monopoly. Posh! If it helps the Indie's let's go with it! Now, i'm back to my research and writing. ;)
Buying a list of radio shows & hosts, then emailing info on the book to each program, inc. image of cover & author foto. For instance, for the following, I added an image of the author in a T-shirt showing the Founding Fathers with sunglasses & alcoholic beverages in their hands, to make the book's message more contemporary and fun: Foundering Fathers What Jefferson Franklin and Abigail Adams Saw in Modern D.C.!
Hi Patrick, I'm new to Goodreads and appreciate your advice on how to get reviews. I'm still stumbling around the site but so far have liked the questions and comments other writers have. I like the active participation of you and your staff.
Sherry wrote: "I'm fairly new to Goodreads and have mostly been just reading. This discussion about marketing is one of the most helpful I've read so far. I bought a marketing package as part of the publication..."Sherry wrote: "I'm fairly new to Goodreads and have mostly been just reading. This discussion about marketing is one of the most helpful I've read so far. I bought a marketing package as part of the publication..."
I'm also fairly new to Goodreads Sherry, and I'm encountering the same marketing hurdle of selling my book, "The Little Book of Revelation: The First Coming of Jesus at the End of Days." http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Book...
And although this a very special and unique book, sadly, I don't have the money to give it the wide attention it deserves...
My book was published November 2012 and I'm new to marketing and promotion. Asking everyone I knew to the launch worked well for me as a start. Chapters (where the launch was held) told me my launch was the most successful they hosted for an emerging author. I then followed up and contacted everyone who hadn't attended. Because my book is non-fiction - Finding Matthew, A Child with Brain Damage, A Young Man with Mental Illness, A Son and Brother with Extraordinary Spirit - I approached the local hospitals (three) and spoke at forums to their lunchtime crowd.A few book clubs have hosted my book and the word-of-mouth praise has sold some books.
I also have a website: www.donnakirk.com - hard to get followers but this is slowly growing. It really helps to join some good sights like Goodreads and participate in discussions.
I'm now considering hiring a publicist.
Selling my book is harder than writing it! But I'm determined to impress the world (might as well think big!) with the gifts and talents of people with developmental disabilities and mental illness.
For anyone who is interested in a free promotion:The Fussy Librarian, a new website whose goal is to compete with Bookbub's matchmaking platform for readers, is launching next week. Presently, The Fussy Librarian is promoting author's books free of charge. My book, "The Writers' Conference," is being featured on Tuesday, October 15th. If you're interested, you can sign up at www.thefussylibrarian.com
Thanks, Marian. A great tip I'll take advantage of...Does anyone have any experience with publicists - I'd love to hear your feedback...
Have a nice Thanksgiving weekend, Canadians!
Thanks, Marian. I'm going to try it, too. Bookbub is great but it's good to see someone else trying to repeat the model.There's another operation called eBook Deals out of Dubai or Kuwait that looks just like Bookbub. I'm not sure how I got on their mailing list. But during my last free days when I was listed on Bookbub, eBook Deals listed me without my asking. Not sure how that works. Are they allowed to list me without my permission?
Folks, I checked out www.thefussylibrarian.com as encouraged in this group recently. Here's a major major problem: the website solicits authors at no fee, but the books the authors have for sale must cost less than 4.95.4.95! so think twice about trying to get into this group, especially if you print books on paper, like I do. My wholesale cost is 8.85! So, clearly this is for ebooks.
Even there, I have yet to understand why the common knowledge seems to feel that ebooks have hardly any value at all. In my opinion the common knowledge is wrong, and ebooks are severely underpriced, but maybe that's just me.....
Robert I was interested in the fussylibrarian site too until I saw what the book ceiling price was. My wholesale cost is about the same as yours. And, I agree with you about ebooks. However I plan to ask my publisher if 4.95 would be a viable price for my ebook sales.
Donna I wish you all the luck you deserve. Oddly enough, even if your publisher agrees that 4.95 is viable, that still would appear to be an outrageous sum by present-day standards. I would love to see the standards rise. But, exactly how to do that is an unanswered question.My thinking on it is that when I do bring an ebook out, I don't want to compete with myself. In other words, since my hardback has a price in the 20s, I don't want consumers to buy my ebook at 1.99. What would be the point? There would be no profit and it would cannibalize sales from the higher priced hardback. Admittedly it is difficult to motivate consumers to pay in the 20s for any book, but that's a different discussion.
But, since I have no motivation to offer an ebook for 1.99, it's unlikely that my ebook will be priced at less than 10.00 or so. Now this is the entry point into a very long discussion which can resemble beating dead horses, so I won't go on, but the point is, think about who wins and who loses with these ridiculously low ebook prices. If you have a quality book, one that has been carefully groomed to be attractive and compelling for a consumer, why would you want to leave money on the table? And why would you want to take away from your paperback sales? Just saying.
Best of luck with this important decision.
Yes, you're right Robert. My book price is in the 20's as well. I'll let you know what my pub. says about the matter. I do know that Amazon, Chapters/Indigo do discount the price of my book. But like you say, it's a viable amount (and I am getting royalties!)and doesn't destroy the integrity of my work.Thanks for your common sense approach.
Donna, right you are, the discount that Amazon et al. take away is not as important as the initial selling price. One can also debate discounts till the cows come home but if you start with a realistic MSRP that's most of the battle, because the varying trade-offs with offering discounts are all predicated on the MSRP. It's no sacrifice to see one internet seller pricing your book at 10%, 20% or even 30% off, if at the end of the day you get the same royalty.
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M. Eigh, author of KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description