Yes, I know, chapter, but this weekend family and overdue stuff are killing me. Also, I STILL haven’t gone back and got the thing retconned, so it’s hard to go forward.
Meanwhile…
On the threads of Cedar’s post yesterday, the question of pricing has reared its head. We’ll leave aside the very funny idea that we should price books at a bazillion and never mind what the market signals say.
Instead, let’s start by admitting that one of the advantages of self-published ebooks is that you can change the price back and forth.
I’m not going to go into the various “schools of pricing.” At some point two years ago, Dean Wesley Smith had a post on pricing in which he said that you should not price anything, even a short short, for less than 2.99. Someone who used to come to my blog (and who has since quit over my calling him annoying — which he was, though not badly. But political baiting the day after an election and people threatning dismemberment made me use the word directly and he took offense. Which is fine) told me he had all of his at 2.99 and why didn’t I try.
At the time ALL I had was short stories. So I went ahead and made it 2.99. Not only did I make more money, I sold more copies of each story and more stories. For a while my income from Amazon pegged at 400 a month or so.
Now, I figured this was because people were using the 2.99 threshold as a sign of “this is not total crap.”
the money drifted down to about $200 as I was busy and not putting new stuff up, but still respectable. Then came the summer of 13.
One thing I’ve noticed (and I keep in touch with a lot of other indie-writers) is that book pricing is very sensitive to economic movements — actually probably more indicative than our official numbers which are beyond cooked. I don’t know what happened in the summer of 13 — aka “the summer of death” — but something did. It was like suddenly people were willing to troll in the 99c bin, risks and all, because they couldn’t afford the 2.99.
How bad was the die off? well, I even had a few reprint novels up, but from about June through September, my sales dipped to around $12 a month. Yes, you read that right.
I was talking to Cedar and Amanda and a few other people, and we decided to lower short stories as an experiment. Just 1.99 unless the stories were under 5k, in which case we’d make it 99c.
Suddenly I started seeing sales again BUT ONLY ON THOSE STORIES LOWERED. This is a market signal saying “I want to read you but I can’t afford you” and my income went back to around 200. Until I published WF, when it multiplied (thank heavens.) Tax day there was another “of death” which might continue through summer. I’m still doing okay, but my income this month is half of last month, which means I need to get new stories out. I suspect without the one original release I’d be trolling the bottoms again.
Now, original releases vs. old books. Old books, reissued, won’t make much. Part of this is that Amazon links it (even if you have a new edition) with the old edition showing used books at 0.1. Yes, this is very annoying. No, I don’t think it’s nefarious. Amazon, weirdly, has a “big publisher bias” and treats their editions as “real.” I know. Makes no sense. Maybe a few more bites in the butt by the big five and they’ll see the light.
I was of two minds about releasing WF, because up to that point my “best seller” sold 20 books a month. Okay — it’s completely different.
Witchfinder sells more like 20 books a day as a high and 4 a day as a low (this weekend has totally sucked.)
Pricing on novels is… tricksier. A survey found the ideal price is between 4.99 and 6.99. I priced Witchfinder at 6.99 because it’s a fat fantasy and its printed edition is… obscenely expensive. Most of mine are 4.99 or 5.99.
I lowered Ill Met By Moonlight to 2.99 and it has got me some buys on it. OTOH it has not “pulled through” to the rest of the series to any noticeable extent, so I’m not sure it’s worth it. I was making the same from a third of the buys before.
With musketeers, I lowered Death of A Musketeer to 3.99 and it hasn’t even got IT sales. I swear it had more at 5.99. So, it will probably go back up.
I am planning to release a new book in the Musketeer series probably in fall. I’ll let you know how it affects those sales — of the whole series.
For now, I’m just watching the signals, talking to other writers to find if my bust or boom is universal or just me, and then proceeding accordingly.
But 99c? Unless it’s under 5k words, I wouldn’t. And over 6.99 you lose sales for every dollar.
I’m judging by my own financial condition. I used to buy six to seven books a week. BUT our insurance has gone up, college tuition has gone up, food has gone up. I’m buying a lot of used books at the thrift store for 50c, and I’m restricting myself to about 4 ebooks a month. And trust me, you’re more likely to get a sale from me if you’re 4.99 or under, because, well, I can route around that damage and not feel it in the budget.
If you’re pricing your books at 9.99 it’s possible you’ll make more than double if you lower it to 1/2 that price. It’s worth a try. You can always put it back. The same with raising your shorts to 1.99 or 2.99 (if erotica, for instance.) You try for a month, it doesn’t work, you lower it again.
And that’s the beauty of indie and ebooks.
Mad Genius Club 
47 responses to “A Quick Post On Pricing”
I was the bellwether for lowering the short-story prices. Because I don’t rely on the income for writing, I could risk it. That, and I have always seen my short stories as loss-leaders. Sales picked up with the lowered prices. However, the big thing for me has been releasing novels, and keeping those prices in the “impulse purchase” range, which means below $5. Hence, $4.99. I’m selling quite well, given the level of marketing I’m doing, and the fact that I’m not reliant on the income – it’s nice, and has let me do things this year I might not have otherwise afforded – means I have a very long view of it. My books will never go out of print, for starters. Thirty years from now, I will still have residual income from them, and that means I don’t need to price them for income now. They are my retirement plan, in a way.
Okay, Up it goes. I’ll make the experiment by going up in 50 cent increments, and watch for results for a month or two. each step.
(In other news, the Baen Fantasy entry is humming along. I might even be finished today. Anyone interested in seeing it? (anyone who is not a judge or other contestant, that is…).)
Ah… was going to suggest a trade and then read the last bit. 🙂
Eh, you’ll be able to read it on my DeviantArt page after John C. Wright wins. 🙂
BTW, it’s done, pending any egregious errors I haven’t noticed yet. If anyone is interested in looking at it, drop me a line at mauser as the username, kendra as the host, and com as the top level domain. I’ll make a PDF version with line numbering for easy reference for corrections.
I’ve been looking at pricing. I lowered all my books except for the one that just went through the Countdown Deal via Kindle Select to $2.99. Sales, no increase I can see. I’ll drop Combat Wizard to $2.99 tomorrow.
I actually sold more books at $4.99. Darwin’s World, at $5.99 originally, has never sold very well, even though it was the most popular book when I offered it through a couple of free publishing sites before I revised it to make it publication-ready..
But I suspect your comments regarding economics and pricing is spot on.
I’ve resisted offering my work as a freebie; I get several offers of such books every day, stash them on my iPad for later reading, and I’ll get to them when I can. But at that price I’ll wait, and if they aren’t immediately appealing be prepared to dump them and move on. No coattail purchases, no review to reward the writer for his free work.
My problem is the same as other unknowns; get noticed. I’m hopeful that when I have four books published (next week; three are available now), then five or six (late summer, with luck), sales will pick up. Volume, in numbers published, may be at least as important as price in marketing.
And volume isn’t dependent on the economy.
I’d piddled along with my books priced from $2.99 to 4.99 for a couple of years. Finally decided I ought to experiment with DWS’s advice, which IIRC, was $6-10.
So in January I bumped everything but the short stories and one shortish collection to $5.99, and my new release at $6.99. I took it down to 5.99 after about six weeks. My next one was the Martian stories, and the one last week (back in my main series) I priced at $5.99.
For me, my sales have been steady and rising these months, at a level that for me, as an unknown, has been high. So the price isn’t hurting my slow gradual growth, either in numbers of books sold or income.
Just to give you gauge of what level I’m selling at, I had my first ever 50 sales and $200 earned month in March–and then I did it again, and next week will have to totally bomb to not make it three in a row. Sarah, I think the main difference between us is, as you noted, you’re selling shorts and reprints. But you have name recognition, and a following. Witness how well WF did. So . . . more Indy first, eh?
My break-point as a reader is $5. Anything over that has to be something that I already know that I want. But under that, including $4.99? I can be persuaded pretty easily. (Well, as long as I haven’t drained my “play money” budget, anyway.)
Of course, that’s for novels. Novellas would have a lower threshold. $2.99 would be my sweet spot, but I’ve gone $3.99 without flinching.
I don’t buy individual short stories at any price. Collections of short stories, OTOH, can break anywhere from $5 to $7 for me, depending on the authors and the number of stories.
I will also not go over 99 cents for anything in the public domain.
Yeah, only reason I went 6.99 for WF is that it’s HUGE. BUT when I bring third out, I’ll bring it down to 4.99.
Once I finally finish this first book (soon?), it’s hitting Amazon at $4 even. I like nice round numbers, and four bucks is right in the price range of many of the books I buy.
it also lets me “lower the price” to $3.99 for those theoretical Daily Deals they put on, if things work out.
A lot of people like the idea of pricing things at an even dollar amount, but research has shown that having a price that ends in .95 or .99 has a psychological impact on people that tends to get them to buy it more often than if it has an even dollar amount.
Well, that’s the theory, and it works in some cases, but there’s also research that indicates that a lot of folks consider the “.99” as a sign of somewhat lower quality, and it can actually hurt sales for many types of item.
A “.00” pricing model can be a real plus: “Only four bucks!” Seems a bit more honest to a lot of people.
Due to the typical Amazon sales model, you also get a real category jump when you drop from the “above $3.99” to the “$3.99” level.
“BUT our insurance has gone up, college tuition has gone up, food has gone up. ”
You’ve hit on an important point. Officially, inflation is nearly zero – which is why the government and banks can get away with paying such low interest rates. But anybody who spends any time shopping, instead of having their aides and servants do it, knows that we are in a period of rising inflation with a strongly positive second derivative.
And unless you are in a government-workers union, your income is most definitely not keeping pace.
A quick, ironic overview: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-24/federal-reserve-admits-truth-internal-memo-prices-continue-rise-between-3-and-33
In this kind of atmosphere, the psychology of pricing plays a very important role. What discretionary income people have is directed towards real goods – automobiles, appliances, even homes. For sensible people, entertainment is of a much lower priority.
And for those with a grasshopper mentality, I don’t think your writing would appeal to them.
Er… why wouldn’t my writing appeal to people with a grasshopper — working/saving — mentality? Perhaps not the historical stuff, but the SF? I think most of my readers HAVE a grasshopper mentality. Tons of preppers and gun people.
The thing is, same as with me, if I have a price at 3 or 4 or even 5, I’ll swing it once a week or more. 12? It needs to be a series I’ve been reading.
I always thought of working/saving as the ant mentality? Are we crossing wires culturally? Because I understand the grasshopper mentality as eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow the government will raise taxes on the ants to bail me out.
Sorry. No. You’re right. This writer has only had one cup of caffeine today. I read (and typed) grasshopper, but my head said “ant.” head>desk.
I need to increase my caffeine to blood ratio.
Also, well, they might like the fluffy furniture refinishing mysteries. The grasshoppers, I mean.
That’s ok, I’ve been up for several hours, and have been out planting in the garden (but I’ve had enough time to get rested), and I read it the same way. It’s probably because most of the time people don’t mention the grasshopper in quite that understated fashion. It comes out more as a curse.
Grasshoppers vs Ants. Grasshoppers don’t prepare for the coming winter and die. Ants prepare for the coming winter and survive. If your fans are preparing for “winter”, it’s mostly because they are too busy surviving from day to day. We know that “winter” is coming. The Grasshoppers don’t imagine that “winter” even exists.
No, Drak, I know. It was a caffeine failure.
And, as long as you are discussing prices, could you please explain why a new softcover of Witchfinder runs around $18, whereas a used copy – from different sources – runs over $40. There is witchery involved, I wager.
I don’t control the price of used copies, and can’t understand why there WOULD be any, since I’ve only sold five in paper.
Ah, a collector’s item. Any chance of getting one autographed?
If you want one autographed, order from me — and I won’t charge you extra.
How do you order from me, you ask. You don’t — yet. though I’ll have some to sell at Liberty con. BUT I’ll have a “order from me” for all the stuff I’m bringing out on my site soon. I’ll probably give you a discount (I need to check shipping) and sign it.
Well then, start the caffeine IV drip [just hook up a drip brewer to the IV line] and make that “soon” sooner. Looking forward.
A lot of those things work by some computer algorithms that can get pretty wonky at the low supply input side of things. Common paperbacks can end up with irrational prices in the hundreds, even thousands of dollars. I sincerely doubt anyone goes for that though.
I often wish there were a link to the reseller so I could e-mail them “What were you thinking?!” messages.
Ma’am, I feel compelled to point out that this is muddled Biz School jargon.
😐
I think the price flexibility of ebooks may be the most significant factor in new era publishing, and may contribute to the salvation of reading as a pleasurable pastime. Factoring in indie and the ability of authors to control the price schedule for their work, to actually become interested parties in the business of their profession… Great days ahead.
Unfortunately, this also means writers have to learn some things about the new business model. And major business execs are struggling to find their feet these days.
Which is funny, really. Any vendor in any flea market, garage sale, souk or swap meet could sit down and teach the basics of interactive sales. They’re inheritors of a tradition with a few millenia behind it.
Each of those markets you mention is an example of truly interactive sales – a major component of which is haggling. E-bay has a best-offer modality, but that is nowhere near as interactive.
Figure out how to sell hundreds of volumes a week over the internet to individuals, including haggling and ensuring that one buyer does not discover a great deal that another buyer got, and you have solved the indie pricing conundrum.
Yes, the difference between true interactive sales and where we are now is the sticking point. A solution is surely around somewhere. But — those markets are closer to the idea than the old fixed price model some folks are trying to hold to.
What we need is an algorithmic haggler that could pass the Turing test. The merchant enters suggested price and minimum acceptable price. The AI haggles based on total sales, total recent sales, perhaps the history of the prospective customer [which would be somewhat intrusive but corresponds to sizing up the mark/customer].
If no agreement is reached, the AI might contact the potential customer via e-mail after several days and make a better offer. In computer games, it is very common for new, premium games to go for high prices; after a few months, the same games can be had at major discount. This idea is incorporated into the various shipping rates Amazon offers – you want it now, pay more; not so much, save some money.
Alternatively, I am familiar with the “pay what you want” model at indieGameStand dot com, where you make an offer within a given range, but the higher the offer, the more “bonuses” you get. Also, if your offer is more that the current average, you also get a bonus. However, the current average is always listed, so this tends to raise the average higher at a very slow rate.
There’s some ideas in there I think are interesting, but I don’t think an AI is necessary. For this sort of evaluative selling, a distributor like Amazon could be very effective. They already have the data from purchasers, and the data from sales trends in multiple categories and across time. If we let the idea of haggling aside for the moment, a dynamic pricing mechanism could be developed, one that takes into account trends on individual books as well as the genre and factors in the purchasers buying history to ‘make an offer’ within a range set by the author.
Alternatively, a notification function for author’s letting them know weekly? daily? what the sales trends are would be interesting. The author could then make decisions about pricing on their work with some reference to the market.
These require we, as buyers, surrender some control on comparative advantage. My value received from a book would have to be an individual assessment, rather than compared to what ‘bargain’ somebody else caught. Big hurdle.
As to early adopter sales, Baen and the eARC follow this model. I don’t know what kind of movement they get, but they keep doing it, so…
I am a reader. I read a lot and am 76 years old. You can understand that i am on fixed income and price counts, except for certain authors.
“Hi Sarah”
This month has been tuff for me. Grand Kids graduating from college and
High School. Some still in grade school getting there $10 per “A”. The older I get the more there are. The are G.G.’s coming along! I am almost reduced to eating noodles. But, I will still buy books! You all can debate on the price, and the pressure will ease up next month.
By the way, Have seen how much the price of bacon has gone up?
Oh my LORD on the price of bacon. Don’t even. All meat, really. I have a teen and a young man in the house. Meat is….
Have you considered sending the menfolk out to hunt [or pulling a Palin yourself]? In my neck of the woods, many families have a freezer stocked with venison and, believe it or not, bear sausage. I joketh not; think of the future.
we have to get Dan a bow and arrow — he used to be an archer. Right now we don’t have hunting-worthy weapons.
As for me, if I tried to shoot anything, the trees would be dead. I have the worst aim in the universe.
If Dan shoots well enough for a primitive style to be usable, there are “U-Finish” bows from various makers for reasonable prices. (wanders off to check a site..brb). I got one in 2005 from Attila Keresztes at attilasarchery.com and he has a second site at attilasbow.com for the price they still are today of $150. They are very fast and one doesn’t need to do anything but seal the bow with a varnish to use it, unless like me you need a rest higher than ones hand, then just make or buy something from a spoorting goods store and start practicing away. I made a handle from wrapped leather glued in layers.
I’m considering getting a second weaker draw bow as I have had issues with my shoulder and hand so I have not shot in quite some time. I can’t draw near 70# very often to get good practice.
For arrows I just get the cheapest carbon shafts I can get or the Alloy Easton shafts from Academy or WalMart and add feather fletching to them (If one shoots off the knuckle this is mandatory) and use some heavy broad heads. I was getting good enough again to go hunting when my shoulder acted up from work and since then arthritis has moved into my hand plus there is some silly nerve issue that makes my fingers tingle or hurt from time to time … my body seems to have decided to give me quite a hard time in recent years.
For compound bows one can look at garage sales and whatnot but the newer stuff can get in the “buy two low end but servicable rifles and some ammo for the price of one” range easily
Oh, and a usable longbow of hunting draw (45#+ draw weight) can be made for real cheap from Red or White Oak from Home Depot/Lowes. They are slow compared to modern stuff, but will easily kill a deer.
Best site for a how-to is here:
http://poorfolkbows.com/oak.htm
We’ve been meaning to buy, have a few slated… we just have not had time.
Also there are a few traditional bow that are cheaper than Attila’s but they are not as fast. gibow.com is one.
Time does seem to be everyone’s nemesis with money running neck and neck.
Don, I’m ten years younger than you are, but in much the same boat. That’s one of many reasons I write — because I can (I think…), and because that gives me pleasure. It also brings in enough bucks I can afford to buy a new book once in a while. There are lots of sources for free books online, and I use most of them. That keeps my reading habit fed, without destroying my budget. If you need some help finding them, email me and I’ll send you a long list… 8^). Right now, I’m catching up on a bunch of books I missed that were written before the 70s crash of independent thought — everything from Zane Grey and Mark Twain to Randall Garrett and Robert F. Howard, with Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James H. Schmitz, Poul Anderson, and a hundred others thrown in for grins. I’ve also volunteered to be a beta reader for a few authors whose works I enjoy, and will provide a detailed edit for those that ask for them. All of that has certainly increased both my breadth of enjoyment and reading pleasure, without cratering the wallet.
When the cost of ground beef costs as much as I used to pay for top sirloin only a few years ago, the inflation level is definitely much higher than what the chattering heads and overpaid politicians claim it is.
In regard to the price of food, some has doubled, other tripled. In the last two years I have planted a mini orchard (12) of pecan trees. Another one of which is an old tree and good producer; sixty grapevines (wine) and berry gardens, Black-blue and straw, and regular garden- bean, orka, pea, peppers, and tomato. Plus learning to can and freeze. Today’s investment will pay for itself next year. And since I think next year is going to be worse. I hope to glide in well stocked.
Another thought though- As mentioned above, Ebay allows haggling; but, I had the thought that someone, maybe housebound or such might consider. Ebay has web-based advertizing as well as on their regular portal. By webbased, I mean that if you look at motorcycle parts at a site, for the next week, you keep getting little popups on the side recommending Ebay bike parts. If someone opened a consignment bookstore on Ebay, and Indie’s were willing to send the vendor a copy, the vender read and review the book or story making sure that quality and story was present, then put it up like Amazon, does but with the sale going through the vendor to the author. Etc. Someone could look at Nook, Kindle, B&N, then the next morning the little Ebay sidebar pops up, with ‘try verified quality books on our site’ I’m not good at business, but, someone else might be and it’s exposure that I would sigh up for if I ever get something published.
Thank you for reminding me. I need to hit the farmers’ market, get cheap bulk veg and dehydrate.
Still working on my strategy for pricing forthcoming stuff. I put some non-fiction up on lulu.com ages ago, has pulled mebbe $20 in four-plus years (but that’s about what I expected going in, given the nature of the material AND Lulu’s structure at the time…)
As a less-than-known, some of my “trunk” shorts will probably be started out at 3-for-99cents. Non-fiction articles slip in at 99 cents for singles, and collections To Be Determined (probably in 10-packs at 3.99, or thereabouts). Longer fiction I expect to dole out at 2.99 / 100k – 175k novel unless and until I see better guidance. That’ll leave omnibus trilogies for the 4.99 and higher ranges.
BUT I’m definitely going to be watching what happens with the rest of yins.
I was going to release my first book in the spring of 2011, but was ambushed at the pass and didn’t release the first one until the summer of 2012. I have a simple formula for calculating my sales price: add two dollars to my cost and voila! So, must of my books are at $2.99. Just double my books sold a month and I have a close approximation of my royalty income.
I had a number of finished books, (I’ve long posted them on a free site) and published four by the end of 2012. And I sold 70 copies of copies of everything combined. I published two more before May, April 22 of last year something happened. I’m not sure what. Thru April 21 I’d sold 142 Kindle books — on April 22 I flatly couldn’t believe my sales numbers — I was over 400 for the month. And it wasn’t just my latest book selling well, it was across the board. By the end of the month I’d sold more than 850.
As you can probably tell, I’m rather anal about keeping track of my sales. I’d be a helpless cripple without Excel. Sales stayed good through May, then began to slide, Last October my sales had bottomed out at less than a hundred. Since then, sales have gone up and down like a yo-yo with good months and bad months. Even coming out with two new works hasn’t affected it. One of the new books is priced at $3.99 — but it’s a 280K boat anchor and the other is a 28k novella at $0.99. Neither of which is doing well.
I unabashedly write to entertain — I post my stuff for free for a while, then have put some of it up for sale. I might be anal about my sales, but it is a form of counting coup. I have never advertised, actively discourage “fanboy” reviews (“She’s the new Heinlein”, “the best thing since smoked pepper cheese!”) and admittedly, I would be disappointed if I never sold another book but that’s not why I write. I’m selfish — I write to entertain myself, and those others who enjoy my work are just so much gravy!
Ms. Wylie,
I haven’t even posted en-mass for free much less for profit. You and the other authors (I count anyone who gets $ for words an author versus a writer…) are my heroes! Maybe one day, I’ll grow up and be big like you.
I wish you knew what happened to boost your sales. Did you reach a critical mass of reviews? Get mentioned in an Amazon email? Sacrifice to the moon god? It’s a very heartening story.
My first book went up in May 2013. I had read Krish Rusch on pricing and charged $5.99. I sold 19 copies that first month, mainly to friends and family. I had no also-bots. Just also-views. I decided that price stuck out like a sort thumb and made me look like an idiot. All sorts of better known people with more books out were charging 2.99. So I went to 3.99 because I still was beguiled by the Rusch logic. I sold 110 copies of that one by May this year. I put the second one up this month (May 4) at $3.99 and it clearly brought the first one along. I’m averaging over a sale a day and am very excited. Some days there are several sales and I do the happy dance.
I meant to do the Kindle Countdowns, but I had wanted to charge less the first month, and it doesn’t work that way. I would feel pretty bad dropping the price after a month for a countdown when a bunch of people had just paid more. So I’ll save all that for short stories, and just not promote them until the countdowns.
I wish I knew what it was as well. I thought at first it was being included in “The Kindle Daily Deal” email. My newest book was doing very well, but so were most of the rest. I don’t think it was a review either. It’s been a mystery that I wish I could unlock.
Trust me (and most other authors I’ve read or talked to) the thing about writing is to start. I started writing character sketches, little short snippets about a character I liked faced with something interesting, Conflict isn’t always about people punching others in the nose. It can be as simple as overcoming obstacles to get a scoop of ice cream. My sketches turned to longer vignettes, then novels (I have trouble writing anything short). The important thing is to start, then finish. And like anything else, practice, practice, practice. Yes, it’s hard the first time you submit a story to an editor — I got a lot of rejections (most writers do!) and I cheated by submitting to free sites who publish most anything. No worry about rejection there! Indie publishing is the cat’s miaow. You decide when your work is ready and if you have any success at all — that’s all yours. Yes, there are tricks to the trade, but that’s what practice is for…
Thanks for the advise Ms. Wylie!