Pricing question

gambit924

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Hello, hello!! I just published my first ebook, Tales of the Driss, Krystal Dragons, and I was wondering, what's the best price for a first time author to put on a debut novel? Right now I have it at $2.99, but I am thinking that that is too high. What do you all think? Thank you, thank you!!

Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XCZKB2X/?tag=absowrit-20
 

Catherine

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Congratulations on your first book. I think 2.99 is a fair price for a full length novel. There has been a lot of discussion about pricing. The consensus seems to be that tinkering with the price is less important than working on the next novel. Once there is a second book in a series, a lot of people will discount the first book in hopes of attracting readers to the second book. Otherwise you are sacrificing your royalties without having anything more for your readers. Good luck!
 

ASeiple

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$2.99 is a good entry point. Gives you room to play around.
 

rwm4768

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I think $2.99 should work. At this point, if you aren't getting readers, it probably isn't due to your price. It's more likely that people don't know about your book.

From everything I've heard, getting those early sales can be the toughest part.
 

gambit924

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Okay. Well thank you all. I think it's one of those things where I'll just have to wait and see for the moment. Right now I am trying to get it around on Twitter. I may contact some people who do books reviews in a bit. But thank you all. You've been very helpful!!
 

Laer Carroll

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My rule of thumb, and it's MINE only, is to price my ebooks at about one third of the print version. In your case that would be $3.99 for your $11.99 book. For a first and second book I took off a dollar, which would make your book $2.99. I think something like this practice is a good idea for self-published works. It's a lot easier to sell an ebook than a "pbook" for a self-published author. I sell from a dozen to a hundred more ebooks than my printed books.

Trade publishers do it differently. They price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.
 
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Trade publishers do it differently. They price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.

Laer, have you read any well-informed articles which show that this is why trade publishers price their e-books at this point? In my experience they price them at this point because it's a reasonable reflection of the costs they incur in producing and maintaining those editions.
 

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There's a useful article on how to price our ebooks on the Publishers Weekly website. It discusses, for instance, how and when to drop our price for a few days or a week or two to promote one of our books. (For example, don't begin the drop on a weekend - advice I don't understand. Anyone here have a clue?)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...diy-how-to-price-a-self-published-e-book.html

I follow PW off and on. Another interesting site is BookBusiness Magazine. I most often read the Ebooks & Digital Media section since most of my books sell as ebooks.

http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/topic/ebooks-digital-media/

Trade publishers ... price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.
Laer, have you read any well-informed articles which show that this is why trade publishers price their e-books at this point? In my experience they price them at this point because it's a reasonable reflection of the costs they incur in producing and maintaining those editions.

Those costs are part of deciding on pricing, and they are higher for trade publishers because those costs are more complicated and higher than for self-publishers.

A dozen or more other factors go into calculating ebook costs. One is the location of the market. In the UK, for instance, ebook prices are charged a 20% value-added tax, while print books have a 0% VAT. Most other European books have similar percents, though it's not always 0 for print. In France, for instance, it's 5.5% for both print and ebook.

Another factor is how much will a publisher's ebook compete with their printed book. A very low price is going to compete a lot. But the competition depends on several other factors. Is the "pbook" hardback, trade paperback, or mass-market ppbk? Is the book a blockbuster about which a lot of people are eager to get? Is the book by a debut author or a long-established author with lots of fans? Is the book a reprint or a brand-new title? Is there a movie tie in?

Every publisher has their own secret formula for calculating costs of their books, and they spend a lot of time working that formula for a book. Publishing is a low-margin business, and a fraction of percent can make the difference between a profit and a loss. Isn't everyone here glad we're self-publishing where life is simpler?
 
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ASeiple

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Amen. It's one of the advantages to this path. Lower overhead costs to get our product out the door translates into a tidy profit margin at a smaller price to the consumer.

We can and should exploit this at every step of the way... not least because our marketing options rarely tend to support success at a higher price point, at least in the current environment.
 

ironmikezero

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I agree with Laer Carroll's rule of thumb to price an ebook at about one third the price of a print version. That seems to work out just fine in my experience; of course, YMMV . . .
 

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There's a useful article on how to price our ebooks on the Publishers Weekly website. It discusses, for instance, how and when to drop our price for a few days or a week or two to promote one of our books. (For example, don't begin the drop on a weekend - advice I don't understand. Anyone here have a clue?)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...diy-how-to-price-a-self-published-e-book.html

I follow PW off and on. Another interesting site is BookBusiness Magazine. I most often read the Ebooks & Digital Media section since most of my books sell as ebooks.

http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/topic/ebooks-digital-media/

Trade publishers ... price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.

Laer, have you read any well-informed articles which show that this is why trade publishers price their e-books at this point? In my experience they price them at this point because it's a reasonable reflection of the costs they incur in producing and maintaining those editions.

Those costs are part of deciding on pricing, and they are higher for trade publishers because those costs are more complicated and higher than for self-publishers.

A dozen or more other factors go into calculating ebook costs. One is the location of the market. In the UK, for instance, ebook prices are charged a 20% value-added tax, while print books have a 0% VAT. Most other European books have similar percents, though it's not always 0 for print. In France, for instance, it's 5.5% for both print and ebook.

Another factor is how much will a publisher's ebook compete with their printed book. A very low price is going to compete a lot. But the competition depends on several other factors. Is the "pbook" hardback, trade paperback, or mass-market ppbk? Is the book a blockbuster about which a lot of people are eager to get? Is the book by a debut author or a long-established author with lots of fans? Is the book a reprint or a brand-new title? Is there a movie tie in?

Every publisher has their own secret formula for calculating costs of their books, and they spend a lot of time working that formula for a book. Publishing is a low-margin business, and a fraction of percent can make the difference between a profit and a loss. Isn't everyone here glad we're self-publishing where life is simpler?

None of which actually answers my question about your assertion that "Trade publishers ... price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books", Laer. I'm still waiting for that from you. And no, you don't have to explain the intricacies of book pricing within trade publishing to me: I've done the job and you haven't. If you had, you might not have made as many mistakes as you did.

I'm happy for us to have lively and robust debates here. But I won't put up with people making claims which just aren't true, especially when they belittle or misrepresent any part of publishing, or writers; nor will I allow remarks which sneer at any route into print. You're steering very close to the limit here, Laer. Watch your step. And next time you're asked a question, answer it properly. Don't try to waffle at me.
 

Laer Carroll

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Trade publishers do it differently. They price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.

Hmm. Yes, Old Hack is right. This statement does make an assumption about the preferences of trade publishers, and that's something unprovable. It was careless wording and unwarranted.

However, I think the basic premise is true: publishers pricing an ebook must take into consideration how that choice affects the sales of the printed book. Price the ebook of a $14.99 or $24.99 printed book for $.99 and even people who prefer print are likely to ignore their preferences and buy the ebook. Especially if it's a recent blockbuster that everyone is talking about.

I'm not alone in believing that setting ebook prices too high is a risky decision. In a Bloomberg report, Robert Thomson, the chief executive officer of News Corp., which owns Harper Collins, in a recent call with investors, said this about how pricing affects ebook sales. “It’s a fascinating question and clearly what it shows is that purchasers make a decision based on price. They are valuing a print book versus an e-book.”

Looking at the prices of ebooks from trade publishers, it appears to me that many of them choose 80-90% as a good compromise between too low and too high. At least for new titles. For an old title it may cost more to create an ebook than to reprint it if, say, the only copy of the old book is in PDF format.

Old Hack asked for some links to how trade publishers priced their ebooks. Some of the info might be useful to self publishers, whom this forum serves, so I've included the following.

The first is from the Italian publishing house Gruppo Editorial Mauri Spagnol, which put the answer into a three-minute video. It lists 10 activities which publishers of both ebooks and printed books must do. Most of them are the same. For instance, every book must be content edited and copy edited. Every book must have a cover. And so on. Conclusion: it costs almost as much to publish an ebook as a printed book. The main difference is in the last two steps. These are turning them into their final form, and distributing them, the ebook electronically, the "pbook" physically.

However, one consideration is that most of the other activities are shared. Theoretically, once a printed book has gone through all but the last two activities, it costs relatively little to create and distribute an ebook version. A publisher COULD price the printed book high and the ebook low.

This is what self publishers often do. Why? One of the best reasons is to consider what we do as a startup. Hachette Digital’s executive director Neil De Young, who was talking about innovative ebooks such as interactive ones, said something that relates to us as well. "A startup isn’t generally concerned about revenue for the first couple of years. They’re concerned about eyeballs."

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2014/06/27/what-is-an-ebook-how-do-publishers-price-it/

Publishers don't public discuss specifically how they price their products. It's proprietary information, which made public would give their competitors an advantage over them. And it might open them up to prosecution. As happened in 2012, when Apple and five big publishers got into a war with Amazon about ebook pricing which went to the courts. The case was finally settled only March of last year. The clearest discussion I've come across is here.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-big-publishers-pushed-e-books-toward-failure

Another link which might interest self publishers begins "What if the major book publishers inadvertently shot themselves in the collective foot by raising ebook prices to protect their paper book business?" What I found most useful was how the article breaks down readers into three categories: early adopters, mainstream, and laggards.

http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/post/publishers-shot-foot-costly-ebooks/

Two other links I found interesting are below. The first discusses the drop of ebooks sales in 2016, as reported by 30+ trade publishers. Various reasons are suggested. The second shows a shift of ebook sales from the larger publishers to indie publishers between Feb. 2014 and Jan. 2016.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...article/72563-the-bad-news-about-e-books.html
http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2016-author-earnings-report/
 
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rwm4768

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Honestly, I'll be very happy as a self-publishing author if trade publishers keep their e-book prices high. As self-publishers, we don't have the seal of quality that a trade publisher gives you. That doesn't mean your book isn't as good. It's just harder for the reader to know it's just as good, especially before you get a lot of reviews.

I know I'm more likely as a reader to take a chance on an unknown author when the book is $2.99 or less. If it doesn't work out, I'm only out a few dollars at most. I'm hesitant to try new authors for $12.99 or $14.99. It's more likely that I'll check if my library has their books (in any format).

Personally, if I were a publisher, I'd price e-books for debut authors lower. People will be willing to shell out money for books by their favorite bestselling authors. They may not be so willing to shell out the same for an author they don't know, even if they do have that seal of quality from a trade publisher. At the very least, as a publisher, I would run discounted promotions. I know that some do this because I've seen quite a few trade-published books on BookBub.
 

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Laer, you must have skipped the part where I asked you not to waffle at me again.

Hmm. Yes, Old Hack is right. This statement does make an assumption about the preferences of trade publishers, and that's something unprovable. It was careless wording and unwarranted.

Thanks for that.

Old Hack asked for some links to how trade publishers priced their ebooks.

No, I didn't. I asked you to tell us where you'd read the claim which you've now said was wrong. Don't twist my words like this again, it's dishonest.

Publishers don't public discuss specifically how they price their products. It's proprietary information, which made public would give their competitors an advantage over them.

Yes, they mostly do. Pricing is pretty standard: most mass market paperbacks fall into the same price-bracket as each other, most trade paperbacks fall into the same price-bracket as each other, and so on. All you have to do to see how books are priced is go to a bookshop and look at the little numbers on the backs of the books.

To work out the pricing and the advance you can pay you fill in a pretty standard spreadsheet which details all the costs which will go into the production of the book. You add in the number of copies you think you'll sell, and from there you can work out the advance you can afford to pay; or you put in the advance you want to pay and see how many copies you'd have to sell, and see if it's viable. There's no mystery to it.

Two other links I found interesting are below. The first discusses the drop of ebooks sales in 2016, as reported by 30+ trade publishers. Various reasons are suggested. The second shows a shift of ebook sales from the larger publishers to indie publishers between Feb. 2014 and Jan. 2016.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...article/72563-the-bad-news-about-e-books.html
http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2016-author-earnings-report/

Don't rely on the author earnings report site for anything more than a little entertainment. We've had several threads here which explain why their conclusions are unsafe and the data they provide is deeply flawed.
 

Laer Carroll

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Trade publishers … price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.

Laer, have you read any well-informed articles which show that this is why trade publishers price their e-books at this point?

Old Hack asked for some links to how trade publishers priced their ebooks.

No, I didn't. I asked you to tell us where you'd read the claim which you've now said was wrong.

I believe you DID ask for "some links to how trade publishers priced their ebooks." Still do. I did not intend to "twist words" or be "dishonest."

I think my original statement was wrong in imputing motives to trade publishers, and correct in that they on average price their ebooks to 80-90% of their printed books.

Publishers don't publicly discuss specifically how they price their products. It's proprietary information, which made public would give their competitors an advantage over them.

Yes, they mostly do.

Good. I'd be interested to read any well-informed articles on how specifically publishers price their ebooks and print books. The general process you describe sounds reasonable, but I couldn't find articles on the net which goes into even that much detail, much less specifics. Maybe if we had a couple of links to such detailed info we could apply it to our ebooks.
 

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Good. I'd be interested to read any well-informed articles on how specifically publishers price their ebooks and print books. The general process you describe sounds reasonable, but I couldn't find articles on the net which goes into even that much detail, much less specifics. Maybe if we had a couple of links to such detailed info we could apply it to our ebooks.

You want to know how publishers price their books? I already told you. Perhaps you missed it. I'll repeat.

Pricing is pretty standard: most mass market paperbacks fall into the same price-bracket as each other, most trade paperbacks fall into the same price-bracket as each other, and so on. All you have to do to see how books are priced is go to a bookshop and look at the little numbers on the backs of the books.

To work out the pricing and the advance you can pay you fill in a pretty standard spreadsheet which details all the costs which will go into the production of the book. You add in the number of copies you think you'll sell, and from there you can work out the advance you can afford to pay; or you put in the advance you want to pay and see how many copies you'd have to sell, and see if it's viable. There's no mystery to it.

It really is as simple as listing all your costs, working out how many copies you're likely to sell (using previous experience and sales records as a guide), and filling it all into a spreadsheet.
 

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It really is as simple as listing all your costs, working out how many copies you're likely to sell (using previous experience and sales records as a guide), and filling it all into a spreadsheet.

Just out of curiosity, this sounds like there's no model of price elasticity being used in the spreadsheets (since you plug in the copies and output a price rather than the two being an interdependent range.) Is this just for simplicity, because trade publishers consider books fairly inelastic products in the viable price range, or some other reason I'm not thinking of?
 

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Just out of curiosity, this sounds like there's no model of price elasticity being used in the spreadsheets (since you plug in the copies and output a price rather than the two being an interdependent range.) Is this just for simplicity, because trade publishers consider books fairly inelastic products in the viable price range, or some other reason I'm not thinking of?

If you google P & L or Profit and Loss for books, you'll find some models.

The same basic principle is used for UK books, but they call the document produced something else, and I can't at the moment remember what.

I'm accustomed to the initial P & L, the one generated for internal decision making, having costs of various sizes of print runs, for instance, since larger print runs have lower per book costs. Some publishers have separate line-items for ebook production; some don't, just the production cost in a lump sun.

Some of the same abbreviations are used though; PPB (Printing, Paper and Binding). SRP Standard Retail Price, Plant costs (set up costs for the print runs, etc. ) COG cost of goods.
WO or W/O write offs. Other costs are direct marketing, and that's listed differently with different kinds of costs, too; it depends on the publisher.

There are closely held numbers within publishers (and even within lines) for expected costs of returns, etc. Those are usually percentages.

Here are some sample P & Ls

https://janefriedman.com/book-pl/

This one is a little bit dicey looking:

https://microcosmpublishing.com/blog/2016/08/business-of-publishing-how-to-write-a-pl-statement/
 

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Just out of curiosity, this sounds like there's no model of price elasticity being used in the spreadsheets (since you plug in the copies and output a price rather than the two being an interdependent range.) Is this just for simplicity, because trade publishers consider books fairly inelastic products in the viable price range, or some other reason I'm not thinking of?

As Admin has already said, there's huge potential for price elasticity (I like that phrase).

Some costs are fixed or at least standardised (for example, in-house editing), but many of the costs are variable. Printing costs depends on the extent of the book, the numbers printed, the time of year they're printed (to some extent), how quickly you need the printing done and brought home (it's common for books to be printed in China, India, etc., then brought back to home territory on a ship, which will take months: but you can fly some of them back if they're needed urgently), and then special effects like foiling or spot gloss on the jackets add to the cost too.

If you spend more on marketing and promotion then you can expect more sales, but where does the best balance lie? And how does this affect the advance paid, and the numbers printed?

What's usual is that you produce an initial spreadsheet (as Admin has said, it can be called a profit and loss sheet, but there are lots of other names: I've seen Cost Price Build Up used in a few places, which always struck me as odd) and use that as a guide to acquisition (for working out advances, marketing budgets--which often are included in publishing contracts, so are significant here). Then once the book is signed and approaching production you work it all out more closely. It's a fluid spreadsheet to some extent because you will always have unexpected costs or changes. For example, if the book is delivered late the whole spreadsheet has to be redone because it costs more to rush something through, or you might have to alter publication date which will bring in other changes.

Then you have to remember that prices are pretty standard, and so you only have pretty narrow ranges to price your books in. Most trade paperbacks in UK bookshops are priced at £7.99 to £9.99. You wouldn't want to price one at £15.99 unless it was a very special edition, or several books bundled together (but they're usually priced more cheaply, not higher). So you have to wiggle those figures around to make sure you can get that lower price point.

Remember, too, that in publishing margins are very narrow. Profits are low, pay is mostly low. So everything is adjusted to the last penny. It's a big deal. But it's not a secret, or anything mysterious. My husband is a chartered surveyor and has lots of clients who specialise in waste recycling and disposal. Their P&L spreadsheets look very similar to the publishing ones I've worked with, except that the names of the processes included are different: so, instead of editing, they have sorting or transport or baling. The big difference is the profit margins.
 

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The key bit, I believe, was 'at this point', ie at 80--90%

The part I most objected to was this:

Trade publishers do it differently. They price their ebooks at about 80-90% of their printed books because they would really prefer to sell the printed books.

It's a ridiculous assertion.

Publishers just want to sell lots of books. They don't price one edition out of the market in order to manipulate the reading public into buying other formats: more formats means more reach, and so more sales.
 

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I'm not finding your book on Amazon. Do you have an updated link? I'd like to check it out! :)

Please either address posts to the member in question, PM them, or quote the post (see the reply with quote option) you're responding to; makes it easier to follow the conversation.
 

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Writers are in the retail business . The overwhelming power and lord of the retail business is supply and demand . There is the old greengrocers trick . Open a box of apples . Place some on the top shelf and mark it Top Quality, and sell them for as much as possible. Put most of the apples on a middle shelf, and price at the best going rate . Place the box on the floor and mark bargain basement. It is the best way to sell an identical product to as many customers as possible, and get the best return for your box of apples . There is a production cost difference in a hardback , paperback and e-books , but the pricing motive is the same, get the best price you can . If you are selling your own E-Book , start at the top and work your way down , until you find a point where your book sells .
 
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Laer Carroll

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What's usual is that you produce an initial spreadsheet … and use that as a guide to acquisition (for working out advances, marketing budgets--which often are included in publishing contracts, so are significant here). Then once the book is signed and approaching production you work it all out more closely. It's a fluid spreadsheet to some extent because you will always have unexpected costs or changes. For example, if the book is delivered late the whole spreadsheet has to be redone because it costs more to rush something through, or you might have to alter publication date which will bring in other changes.
The good thing about using spreadsheets is that once one is set up you can change individual numbers in cells, click a button, and all numbers depending on that cell gets recalculated. Over time the spreadsheet design gets added to and changed to better fit your marketing/production/distribution model.

Too, each spreadsheet can be copied (if, say, a big publisher acquires a new imprint) and the new one redesigned to better fit the new subsidiary. That's assuming the new imprint has a radically different model.

Another good feature of spreadsheets is that they work equally well for PCs, Macs, Posix computers, and even smartphones. The individual computer has a different version of the same program, such as Microsoft's Excel, but the spreadsheet remains the same. The company's workers can use what computers best suits their situation and preferences, but still quickly exchange info.