Another Konrath blog on Kindle pricing

[Selah March]

This one is about author Victorine Lieske's success with pricing her single Kindle release (romantic suspense) at 99 cents.

Link to post. (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/02/guest-post-by-victorine-lieske.html)

I think he's right on the money with his observation that her success has hinged on a convergence of circumstances: the right time, the right price, a well-written book, and an unknown quantity of luck.

[smoothseas]

Interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

[HisBoyElroy]

You have to remember Kindle "sampling" in this equation too. Nobody is buying anything from a new author (probably not from *any* author) without downloading the 10% sample. Your sample better be pretty damn good. My opinion, made in utter ignorance, is that the quality of the sample is probably more important than price -- but can be overcome by pricing.

This is why Konrath's rules don't apply here. Konrath's samples are terrific.

[Noah Body]

Wow, that was a great read. I'm one of those dinosaurs who still thinks Traditional Publishing is all that, and haven't been paying attention to ePubbing until... well, yesterday. :D I have to say, it does seem suddenly tempting.

[Sheryl Nantus]

Wow, that was a great read. I'm one of those dinosaurs who still thinks Traditional Publishing is all that, and haven't been paying attention to ePubbing until... well, yesterday. :D I have to say, it does seem suddenly tempting.


*tongue in cheek*

Well, EVERYONE'S making money, so why not?

Slap up that 50K novel on Amazon for a buck... what have you got to lose?

:tongue

*disclaimer*
I think self-pubbing has definite merits - and it's been a viable option for years for certain genres such as poetry and non-fiction. However, I think the market is becoming saturated with sub-standard work and I worry about authors whoring their work out for pennies.

but that's just me. And what do I know?

;)

[FOTSGreg]

Sheryl, in regard to authors whoring out their work for pennies, excuse me, but what have authors been doing for decades now? There's even an old saying (about writers) that goes "First you do it for love, then for a few friends, and finally for money."

If I can make $0.35 on every sale of a 5k short story that I managed to knock out in a few hours (call it 5) why shouldn't I? A pro publication is going to pay me, at the most, $0.06 per word - ONCE. That's all the money I'll ever see from the publication of that story even though 20-30 thousand people might read it . Do you know what 20 thousand sales at $0.35 a sale nets me? And it can happen over and over, year in and year out.

Probably won't, of course, but I look on it as a long-term investment in myself rather than a short-term investment in a magazine.

[Izz]

If I can make $0.35 on every sale of a 5k short story that I managed to knock out in a few hours (call it 5) why shouldn't I? A pro publication is going to pay me, at the most, $0.06 per word - ONCE. That's all the money I'll ever see from the publication of that story even though 20-30 thousand people might read it . Do you know what 20 thousand sales at $0.35 a sale nets me? And it can happen over and over, year in and year out.Or you can sell it to the pro mag, sell it to a few markets as a reprint once you get the rights back (which for shorties is usually around 6 months), then self-pub it... :D

ETA: or, if you're worried about the reprint markets taking away sales from the self-pubbed version, just skip that step and self-pub once you get the rights back.

[FOTSGreg]

Izz, you're absolutely correct. Of course, there's the small issue if the lag times involved and the money per sale (which pales in potential comparison), and the total potential sales for reprints, and a diminishing rate of sales and money per reprint, but I digress.

Authors are whores. We do it for money. There,s very little difference between the two professions except how each is accomplished.

[FOTSGreg]

I don't believe I disrespected anyone.

If that was the perception, I apologize.

'Nuff said.

[Filigree]

Selling reprints may not be worth the effort, unless your 'name' is big enough to get attention. In sf&f at least, I've found very few markets that consider reprints, and they usually offer 1-cent-per-word or less. I've been shopping around a decent little urban fantasy that I sold to an anthology ten years ago, with little luck.

I'll probably put it up on Smashwords eventually. I may or may not get more than the $20 I'd get from a print market, but at least it will have a longer earning period.

Filigree

[movieman]

My opinion, made in utter ignorance, is that the quality of the sample is probably more important than price -- but can be overcome by pricing.

Personally I suspect it's a lot more important than price. If a novel is unreadable, I'm not going to buy it just because it's $0.99; I can find all the unreadable novels I want on fan fiction sites. If it's worth spending a few hours reading, then to me it's worth $5.

And a low price may well discourage purchases as people think 'if it's only worth $0.99 then it can't be very good'. I remember an interesting discussion with one of the marketing guys at a company I used to work for where he was telling us about how often they'd increased sales by increasing prices rather than reducing them (obviously while staying within the limits of what people are prepared to pay).

[artemis31386]

I don't know that a low price makes people think its subpar. I think it just depends on the person. I do like to see success stories though.

[movieman]

I don't know that a low price makes people think its subpar.

So long as you're within the range that people are willing to pay for a product, there are really only two reasons to set the price low:

1. Your product is sub-par.
2. You want to build market share by selling below its real value.

Both of those are legitimate reasons to sell cheap, but buyers know that too; they love getting a bargain, but hate paying for crap.

In addition, you're better off with a tenth of the market share but making twenty times the profit per sale, so even if you are trying to increase market share with a loss leader you still need to reach the point where you can actually increase prices on future books to take advantage of it.

[Henri Bauholz]

Konrath's blogs are fun to read and it's good to learn about someone making a profit with e-books. My experience with his e-publishing has been a bit of a disappointment so far.

What's Cooking At The Blue Fox Cafe (http://bluefoxcafe.wordpress.com)

[PortableHal]

Konrath's blogs are fun to read and it's good to learn about someone making a profit with e-books. My experience with his e-publishing has been a bit of a disappointment so far.

What's Cooking At The Blue Fox Cafe (http://bluefoxcafe.wordpress.com)

Henri, if you're comfortable sharing, have you been disappointed because of the process, the sales, the overall experience?

I posted a three-set of s-f short stories in December without strong financial return (and only one review) but I'm thinking of offering my YA paranormal mystery novel, too. Since Konrath doesn't highlight struggling e-writers, I'm curious about the other side of the fence.

[Old Hack]

Since Konrath doesn't highlight struggling e-writers, I'm curious about the other side of the fence.

Go to Amazon and look at the number of Kindle editions which are available. Then compare that to the number of writers who have done well via that format. That should show you something.

[valeriec80]

Harrell, since we've talked, my ebooks at Amazon are doing a lot better. I think the December rush helped everyone. Of course, in my case, we're talking I went from selling a total of 10 books a month to a total of almost 100 (and that's total for all titles, not 100 each), but it's a significant jump and means my Kindle earnings per month have gone from $20 a month to about $200. I'd still categorize myself as struggling. :) Those sales have stayed steady since December, though. So anyway, I guess my point is that while we're not all going to be Lieske, I am (for the first time) beginning to have hope that I might someday be able to make enough money from self-publishing to write full time. I crunched some numbers last night, and I think it'll be a long time coming, but I think it's possible.

Since you've gotten so many different responses to The Atheist's Daughter, from some thinking it was great to others thinking it was not so much, maybe it's a good candidate for self-pubbing. If I remember correctly, the feedback you got from your target audience (a teenage girl, right?) was pretty positive. YA fans really are the best. Teenage girls who read your stuff are seriously the sweetest thing ever (even if they seriously can't spell). Anyway, maybe it's time to let the audience decide how good that book is.

[PortableHal]

Harrell, since we've talked, my ebooks at Amazon are doing a lot better. I think the December rush helped everyone. Of course, in my case, we're talking I went from selling a total of 10 books a month to a total of almost 100 (and that's total for all titles, not 100 each), but it's a significant jump and means my Kindle earnings per month have gone from $20 a month to about $200. I'd still categorize myself as struggling. :) Those sales have stayed steady since December, though. So anyway, I guess my point is that while we're not all going to be Lieske, I am (for the first time) beginning to have hope that I might someday be able to make enough money from self-publishing to write full time. I crunched some numbers last night, and I think it'll be a long time coming, but I think it's possible.

Since you've gotten so many different responses to The Atheist's Daughter, from some thinking it was great to others thinking it was not so much, maybe it's a good candidate for self-pubbing. If I remember correctly, the feedback you got from your target audience (a teenage girl, right?) was pretty positive. YA fans really are the best. Teenage girls who read your stuff are seriously the sweetest thing ever (even if they seriously can't spell). Anyway, maybe it's time to let the audience decide how good that book is.

Thanks, Valerie, for the scoop. And congratulations on the big bump in sales!

[valeriec80]

Harrell--Oh. Just read your blog. Never mind! Congrats on the upcoming (probable) sale of T.A.D.!!

Sorry everyone about the personal message. We now return you to your regularly scheduled posts.

[corygraves]

Slap up that 50K novel on Amazon for a buck... what have you got to lose?


any particular reason you said 50k? i'm just starting to browse around for info regarding kindle/ebooks and the likes...was wondering if there are limits to how big the book can be in size or such...

(i was going to make a thread regarding how big of size it can be for eBooks/Kindles and such, since I saw this I figured i'd ask)

also, i see her book is now in paperback form via createspace... did she use the earnings from kindle to eventually get the paperback version made?

[valeriec80]

I don't think there is a limit of size for kindle. Sheer text files don't take up that much room. Most novels aren't even a mb.

It technically costs nothing to put up a book on Createspace. You can opt into the ProPlan, which costs $40 per book, and that makes your author copies significantly cheaper and means you can bring down the price of your book quite a bit. Either way, it's not a significant expense to put out a POD paperback. I'd imagine she published both at the same time.

[corygraves]

thanks for the response !

[Subcreator]

Go to Amazon and look at the number of Kindle editions which are available. Then compare that to the number of writers who have done well via that format. That should show you something.

How is this different than the number of people who don't end up selling well via traditional publishing?

[kaitie]

So long as you're within the range that people are willing to pay for a product, there are really only two reasons to set the price low:

1. Your product is sub-par.
2. You want to build market share by selling below its real value.

Both of those are legitimate reasons to sell cheap, but buyers know that too; they love getting a bargain, but hate paying for crap.

In addition, you're better off with a tenth of the market share but making twenty times the profit per sale, so even if you are trying to increase market share with a loss leader you still need to reach the point where you can actually increase prices on future books to take advantage of it.

And the biggest problem to be considered with option 2 is that, while this might be a good way to get your name out there if you actually have a really good product is that if you've sold it for that much already, a lot of people are going to expect the same price for anything you do later. Even if you sell a hundred thousand copies at .99, you are going to lose a lot of those people if you raise it to what you consider a more legit price later. People don't like having prices raised on them. You might actually create more animosity just because of the negative opinions people have toward price hikes.

Personally, I think considering the amount of time and effort I put into my work, particularly considering that I spend a year writing and editing a novel, it deserves more than thirty-five cents. I don't think it's too much to ask considering the amount of effort that goes into this and how little writers get paid in the first place.

My main concern is that people will start thinking .99 is what they should pay for books in general--not just these few people are selling. The more people who do it, the more customers are going to begin to associate that with the ideal price and not be willing to pay more from anyone. I think that's worth some serious consideration.

[kaitie]

How is this different than the number of people who don't end up selling well via traditional publishing?

Though at least with traditional publishing you've probably been paid an advance. If it doesn't sell well, the writer is still making something for his/her effort, right?

[Old Hack]

Most books from trade publishers sell a fair amount more than a few hundred copies; the majority of self-published books sell fewer than two hundred.

Not that I'm suggesting self-publishing isn't a good route to take: just that it's not a good route for everyone; and I've seen a lot of writers regret their decision to self-publish, and very, very few writers who have regretted publishing via the trade press.

[Shadow_Ferret]

You have to remember Kindle "sampling" in this equation too. Nobody is buying anything from a new author (probably not from *any* author) without downloading the 10% sample.

You can sample the stories? I didn't know that.

[AmsterdamAssassin]

You can sample the stories? I didn't know that.

If you check on the right side, where the buying options are, you can see 'download sample (chapters) for free'.

[AlekT]

My main concern is that people will start thinking .99 is what they should pay for books in general--not just these few people are selling. The more people who do it, the more customers are going to begin to associate that with the ideal price and not be willing to pay more from anyone. I think that's worth some serious consideration.

I'm willing to pay $10 for a e-book by an author I am familiar with and admire. I'm willing to pay $1 for an author I'm not familiar with (and that's after reading a sample). I've read and reviewed several well-done $1 e-books.

I'm more concerned about the quality of some of the self-published books and e-books. There are a lot of poorly-written and badly formatted titles diluting the market. For me, there's nothing like formatting errors to throw me out of the flow of an otherwise good story.

In the end, I think that books will sell for what the market will bear, regardless of some folks pricing their books at $.99.

So, am I expecting too much of a $.99 e-book that it be professionally written, edited, and formatted?

[Henri Bauholz]

Here's what's behind my e-publishing experience (http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2010/11/e-book-self-publishing-roundup.html). After unsuccessfully shopping a novel for a year, I decided to self-publish parts of the manuscript as e-books, while I worked on my second manuscript. Since my novel started out as a series of short stories, this process was not as difficult as it might sound. During the first month, I published several short stories and one novella (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/41504), which was actually part one of my novel. I used both the publishing platforms at Smashwords and Amazon. Sales were definitely better at Amazon, both still dismal, to say the least.

A couple of weeks ago I published a free short story (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42994). Downloads have been way up, but like everything else, that I self-published as a e-book, there has been a definite drop-off in downloads after the initial listing. However, a couple of days ago the downloads on my free short story took a big bounce upwards, but so far this event has not translated into any new sales on the paying titles.

So that's where I am at right now.

My Blog (http://bluefoxcafe.wordpress.com)

[kaitie]

I'm going to link this in two different threads, but that's because I feel it's valid in both. Nathan had a great blog entry (http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/03/amanda-hocking-and-99-cent-kindle.html) today that is highly relevant. Read it. It's fascinating.

[AlekT]

Nathan had a great blog entry (http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/03/amanda-hocking-and-99-cent-kindle.html) today that is highly relevant. Read it. It's fascinating.

Thanks for the link.

Statistics for the hardcover vs. e-book were interesting. With publishers making more on hardcovers than the e-books, there's no need for them to push e-books. I would have liked to see a paperback vs. e-book comparison also.

Not mentioned is that most hardcovers are discounted 20-50% -- who pays $24.99 for a hardcover these days? -- so the $24.99 hardcover price is somewhat inflated. I owned and operated an independent bookstore for many years, and, in most cases, the bookseller takes the hit on that discount.

It'll be interesting watching how the whole thing plays out.

[kaitie]

I'm under the impression that the bookstores are the ones eating the discount, though.

[AlekT]

I'm under the impression that the bookstores are the ones eating the discount, though.

That's right. Nate's stats would imply that bookstores receive half the profit on a hardcover. Bookstores "take the hit." E-books, of course, cut out ALL the middlemen but you're on you own as far as marketing, etc.

My take is that both physical books and e-books will be around for some time yet. E-publishing is just another way to get your product to market.