Folks, a great three or four page discussion on pricing started by Joe Konrath under one of his pen names. Some real interesting numbers if you read through everything. It should encourage all of you. Worth the read.
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,47352.0.html
Bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith has written more than one hundred popular novels and well over two hundred published short stories. His novels include the science fiction novel Laying the Music to Rest and the thriller The Hunted as D.W. Smith. With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. He writes under many pen names and has also ghosted for a number of top bestselling writers.
Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.
Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He is now an executive editor for Fiction River.
WMG Publishing Inc. is now my major publisher of all my coming novels, collections, and short stories.
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I noticed all the comments on the link do not state the length of each story.
I based my pricing on your eRace figures before you wrote the article.
15K 30K 60K = $3.99
I am only beginning and not on Amazon yet! I also write SiFi Adventure (not much demand for it I know), but I am selling on Apple, Kobo and Smashwords.
I followed the link on your site where one writer put steps for formatting for Amazon. Next job is to follow his steps and format and get both novels up on Amazon and see if I get any sales there if Smashwords has not fixed their problem soon.
I will stick to the same pricing to compare with other sites, even if I write in other genres.
Dean,
It is an interesting discussion, and what I like about it most is to see that many writers are wrestling with the same dilemmas that I am in this new age of publishing.
One post that struck me (near the end) was the mention of the very low price range of .99 to 2.99 “making a sort of ghetto for the indies”. I don’t necessarily agree with that, as, on the other hand, I think the big publishers are way overpricing e-books and there should be some sort of balance. But one thing I remember you saying in a recent post that caused me to think much about my pricing was something about writers undervaluing their work. Writers should get paid what the work is worth and not have to always sell it for peanuts. I have my short stories up for .99 and the e-version of my collection for 2.99. I know the book is worth more but I’m an unknown and don’t want to price myself out of early sales. What’s the balance, and how do we avoid undervaluing our work but at the same time stay competetive in the marketplace? I guess it’s the question all the folks in the discussion and many more besides are asking these days.
John,
Thanks for the comments, but your last sentence finally hit for me what has been bothering me about this discussion we’ve been having here off and on, and what I linked to. You said,
“…but at the same time stay competitive in the marketplace?”
And it finally hit me what is wrong with this thinking. Books have never been, and never will be “competitive” against each other. Ever. Doesn’t work that way. Thankfully, or I wouldn’t be here helping as many writers as I can and I wouldn’t have gotten all the help I got back when I was starting out.
Time for a Sacred Cows chapter on that. And right now indie writers say that all the time, how they have to compete for market and readers. Uhh, NO! A book is what sells the book, along with a good blurb about the book, a great opening sample, a great cover. That’s what sells a book. Not winning some race with another dozen books.
Price is not something that’s going to help anyone win some made-up race. New York learned a long time ago that each book has a natural range of numbers of readers. Certain genres are higher than others. Now, with electronic books we can take a longer term approach, so that certain number of readers might get maxed out in six months the old traditional way, but now we can let the book sell over two years or five years to find those readers. And then a new generation comes along and the book has more readers and so on. If you shove your price lower, you might sell more quickly, but you won’t increase your overall readership for that book. If you sell it at a more logical price, you’ll eventually sell the same number of copies, it just might take longer. No competition.
Got to do a long post about this. It’s time. Thanks, John.
The posts I’ve read on this thread seem to be dominated by the people who feel they sell better at $.99 than they ever could at $4.99. Their general level of thinking seems to be that they get more readers at $.99 so there isn’t a compelling reason to raise prices and suffer the drop in readership.
One issue I have with this line of thinking is the assumption that every person who pays $.99 for an ebook is reading it. I think the $.99 purchases are more likely to downloaded to the e-reader and never read… thus defeating the purpose of cultivating readership.
Then there is the idea of being paid a professional rate for professional level work. John Scalzi recently mentioned there was a specific pay rate that required him to even roll out of bed. He sees himself as a professional and demands a professional level rate. Perhaps this line of thinking has helped him cultivate the success he has had.
I tend to think people are less price conscious than the people in this thread are giving them credit for being. I buy several authors in hardcover and happily pay the price. There are other authors I won’t buy until they are in paperback. I normally pay paperback prices for authors I haven’t read yet, but in the world of e-readers I will be able to read a percentage of their book for free and have less reason to fret over price.
Overall, the discussion is interesting but I think volume of content is going to make more careers more than price will. If I have a dozen novels and hundreds of short stories on Smashwords, chances are good that I will be able to make a decent living. The writers who have one or two novels online and nothing else have much less room for error, and will feel more compelled to lower their prices to convince people to buy their novels.
As a reader, I have to disagree a little bit about books being competitive with each other — but they’re competing for my time, not my money.
I have little enough time to read that I don’t want to waste it on crap — so I’ll gladly pay a bit more for a more enjoyable read, and that’s also why I’ll tend to stick with books by writers I know I like rather than taking a chance on an unknown.
That said, an introductory price for a book by a writer I’ve never read makes it more likely I’ll give them a try — it’s less money down the drain if I give up on it after the first few pages — but if I don’t like it (for whatever reason; others may love it) — low price isn’t going to encourage me to buy any more from that writer.
As a writer, I figure my job is to write stories that people feel are worth the time to read, because then they’re worth paying for. (Which is why I don’t sub to non-pro markets unless there’s a strategic reason to do so.)
Yeah, that’s something I try to hit as much as I can: Books are not commodities. The Saudis cannot flood the market with cheap ebooks and bring the price down, and withholding books won’t bring the price up.
BTW, The woman who is selling so well at 99 cents was poised for success anyway, I think. Just a few weeks before she lowered her price, I was hearing all sorts of great things about her book. It’s very possible that the 99 cents was a catalyst for her sudden success, but it wasn’t the reason for it.
At the same time…. she only has one book. It’s all she has to fuss and worry over, so I understand her fear of doing anything to hurt it. She is working on another book. I expect that no matter how well or badly it does, she will still obsess over price until she has bunches of books.
And maybe that’s the ultimate cure for all the anxious indies out there – experience.
(And thanks for mentioning the thread, Dean. The title of the thread was such a common one, that I browsed right past it – I didn’t even notice who had started it.)
Dean,
You hit me back with something, and that is the realization (which I always knew but tend to forget now and then) that any writer worth reading has a unique quality – a voice, if you will – that makes it worthwhile to spend any amount of time – or money – on his words. That’s what we look for in prose. And who wants to waste time on crap, no matter how low priced? And who would not fork over good money for a writer who really turns their key? Actually, reading discussions like the one on pricing actually gets me down after a while because it’s not the main point. The main point is to get the words out there. And God help us if we don’t have something worthwhile to say – then we deserve to sink like a stone. That was my trouble when I was a young writer many many years ago just starting out: I was in love with the idea of being a writer but had no idea what to put on paper. Once you have something to say and people know it they will pay the price to read it. If not, no amount of price tweaking is going to make the difference.
Oh, and don’t worry. I don’t get much feedback in this part of the world and don’t mind getting sacred cows shot out from under me if I find myself inadvertantly riding them.
Dean, if you do a post about that, could you show me where my thinking on this is screwy?
Standard price competition in most industries says that, other things being fairly close to equal (perceived style, perceived quality, perceived convenience), a few things will happen:
1) price (or, at least, list price) will influence the customer’s perception of the quality they’re getting, and thus influence their expectations of the experience accordingly
2) a price-conscious customer will tend to buy the bargain item in a field of competitors, whether it’s the low-rung list price or the marked-down higher priced item
3) a status-conscious customer will tend to buy the marked-up widget in the same space
4) the peak of the sales bell curve will settle out more or less in the middle of that range, where most customers will place bets on a perceived price/status tradeoff
5) this dynamic will exist in any stable open market when multiple producers compete for the resources of a limited pool of consumers. Book customers, being people of finite available time and money, fall squarely into this dynamic
6) In any industry, the customer ultimately sets the price by deciding where she will or won’t buy. The smart producer experiments with price and finds the market’s sweet spot, where the largest number of customers are willing to buy the greatest number of products, thus maximizing profit and stabilizing the price over the long term.
These premises lead to a couple conclusions:
1) Authors/publishers, at least those within the same genre, are in competition with one another for the money/attention of the potential audience. While understanding that this competition is not a strictly zero-sum game, there is a point where customers will chose between alternatives because they don’t have the time or money to afford both. In this eventuality, all other things being equal, price will determine.
2) price discounting (high list/low retail) will attract more customers, some of whom would not have tried your book otherwise, and some percentage of those will like the book and develop brand loyalty to either the series or the author.
Looking forward to the Sacred Cows post!
-Dan
Dan, your thinking is spot on the money if every book was a tube of toothpaste. And you had four brands all the same. The problem with publishing is that EVERY book is different. You can’t compare one book to another, even inside same genre, because every story is different, and then every reader tastes are different. Readers will buy what they want to read. Period. Price might make them pick up a book and think about buying it, but they still won’t buy it if it isn’t a book that interests them no matter the price, and will pay more if a book is something the really, really want to read.
So by saying there is competition is like saying the tube of Crest toothpaste is in direct competition to that tomato in the produce section and also against the box of Wheat Thins in the cracker section. Nope.
And that fact of having every book being different is why genres were even invented, to try to help stores at least shelve “similar” books, but books and authors are never in competition. Even on the same shelf. Only thing that makes a book sell is the book itself, which is a combination of story, story content, cover art, blurb, and sample quality. Then it must hit a reader’s desire button.
And here’s your problem with price discounting. You buy a book from Author A for 99 cents. You like it and then later go to find another book from author A expecting to pay only 99 cents. But the next book is $3.99 or more. Nope, not likely to buy it. You have lost a reader instead of got one because of your discounting. If the reader had bought the book first for $3.99, they would expect to pay in that range for the next book, so $4.99 is in the range. That’s why this silly idea of selling full novels for 99 cents is just hurtful. First off, you are devaluing your own work and shouting to the world that your book sucks so bad it’s not worth more than 99 cents.
Go ahead, go into a Dollar Store and what do you expect? Crap, cheap products for the most part. Or when you buy a 99 cent hamburger, what do you get? Why do that to your own work? Makes no sense. Let 99 cents be the world of short fiction. That’s a good price for a short story.
So all that wonderful marketing stuff you quote is what drives real business people in publishing corporations so crazy because it just doesn’t apply for the most part.
Just my own pricing system (not that I’m adverse to changing it should I feel I have cause), but I base it strictly on length.
Some shorts I’ve written are SO short, I don’t think it’s fair of me to sell them for any more than 99¢. That said, I sell my long shorts for $1.99, and go up from there. My novels, I put up at $5.99. Some super short novels, novelettes really, I’d sell for $4.99.
Deborah, sounds good. Kris and I have a price structure we are pretty happy with.
Short stories 99 cents. (We have a couple of short-shorts up for free since they feel too short.)
Short Novels $2.99
Five Story collections $2.99
Longer collections $4.99
Novels $4.99
And we have the monster Freelancer’s Survival Guide up for $9.99, although it is still free on Kris’s web site.
We may drop the opening book in a series, such as the first book of the Fey, to $2.99 and leave the others at $4.99. But for the moment that’s our price structure. And it seems to be building just fine.
Dean —
Thanks for the reply. Makes good sense — also makes me wonder if there are any lessons from neighboring industries (movies, music, and games) that might be useful.
Well, there is one thing I learned in my time in the film industry that seems to apply: the more films a director/producer/studio (even a small one) has, and the more they bear the distinctive stamp of the creative team’s style, the more likely the team is to find and grow a lasting audience.
-Dan
Dan said, “Well, there is one thing I learned in my time in the film industry that seems to apply: the more films a director/producer/studio (even a small one) has, and the more they bear the distinctive stamp of the creative team’s style, the more likely the team is to find and grow a lasting audience.”
Wow, got that right, and that also fits perfectly in books as well. Build a list, just as any publisher does, and with writers, we can keep not only the front list in print, but all our backlist. Wonderful times.
Daniel – re the Hollywood “branding” effect.
Yes, that’s something I think that traditional writers understand much better than the new indies – it takes time and volume to get up to speed. Anything you do along the way is not a good measure of what will happen when you actually reach critical mass.
And promotions and pricing and all that have a LOT more leverage when you have critical mass. (I did something on my blog a little while ago comparing it to a dam. It takes a whole lot of power to destroy a dam with no water behind it. It doesn’t take much effort at all when the reservoir is full.)
Camille
I’m not sure that buying a book for 99 cents devalues an author in my own mind.
I did most of my heavy, heavy reading as a child and young adult. I got most of those books free at the library, or as gifts, or cheap at used book stores. On rare occasions I paid full paperback price for the newest book from an author I knew and loved.
Free and discounted books were for me a gateway drug. I bought a used copy of George R.R. Martin’s Sandkings story collection for a quarter in the early eighties. Decades later I paid full price to get his fantasy series in hardback. (Hell, I’d pay a hundred dollars now to read A Dance with Dragons tonight).
Many of the established authors I still read today were discovered for free or cheap. Now I pay $15 or $25 for a new release because I love that author’s writing.
To my mind, the only thing that devalues an author’s writing is crappy writing.
David
Ahh, but David, the writer got full amount from the library buying the book, or the person who bought the gift, or the person who bought it and took the book to a used bookstore.
And sure, I was talking about readers, but as writers, my point is to not devalue your own work. You are the publisher now, so think like a business person. If you have ten thousand readers maximum for a type of book and story, why sell those ten thousand at 99 cents in three months when you can sell the same ten thousand for $4.99 over two years? Again, New York learned a long, long time ago that at any given point in time, 99% of all books have only a set number of readers who want it. Go for the long haul, think income and value instead of speed and no value. That’s my point is all.
If there’s anything I take away from that discussion (and this one to a lesser extent) is that once I get started posting stuff on Amazon and Smashwords and so on, I’ll avoid examining the bestseller lists. Seems like such a waste of time to be anxious about whether my books are on the top 100 of some list, or the top 10 of another, or whatever.
I figure if I price my books reasonably, and offer my readers worthwhile material, any non-monetary success will come along in due time. All I really care about is writing the next story and sharing it via making available for sale. Maybe it’s my smaller writerly ego, but I don’t care about topping some list or winning an award. Enjoy my story and I’ll enjoy the change you put in my pocket.
Or is that thinking flawed?
Jim, I think that thinking is spot on. Kris and I tend to check every few weeks on our sales, and we never look at the bestseller lists on Amazon or any of that. We also focus on just writing the new stuff, getting up the new stuff, and let the sales be what they may.
David, have you ever walked past the discount rack at your local bookstore and not thought that the books in that bin were probably there because they were too awful to sell? (And here I’m talking about the rack on the sidewalk outside the store, or just inside the entry, where there aren’t security gates to beep if someone just walks off with the book, and no one seems to care.)
If you actually look at what is in the bin, you’ll often find some really good books – but the majority of people walk right past without even a glance because of the subconscious signal we’ve been given that those books are too cheap to bother looking at.
I think the same thing happens when we price novels at $.99 – we do devalue them in the mind of many readers. Not to everyone, true, but I think there are more people who have the mindset that a $.99 book is going to be of lesser quality than one they paid $2.99 or $3.99 or $4.99 for.
(But I don’t necessarily think this price/value thinking applies to hardbacks, at least not in the same way. Sure, I’ll pick up the occasional HB, but seldom think it was worth the extra $$ I spent for it, and usually wish I’d just read something else and waited for the paperback to come out.)
Leigh,
I don’t look at the discount bin as necessarily awful books, but that may be because I know too much about the life cycle of books, or because I see so many bestsellers among the discounts (“Cool, I can get that Ken Follett hardback for three bucks!”).
Personally, I tried pricing my first novel at 99 cents, then at $2.99, and now I’m putting it back to 99 cents because that’s where the money was.
I don’t know if that’s the best strategy, but I’m still experimenting.
Bestselling author Rebecca Forster, who said in her Amazon review that my novel was by far the best book she’d read in years, suggested to me that I increase my price to something higher than $2.99. And she might be right. But my experience was that a price point of 99 cents got me more readers and more money faster.
Dean,
I have some pretty ambitious goals this year for productivity, and have a couple more novels almost ready to go.
If my first novel only has a potential audience of ten thousand readers over its lifetime, I’d rather find them this year at 99 cents than over ten years at $2.99.
Because this year’s readers, if they become fans, can buy the other books I’ll be publishing this year.
In the future, I will probably raise my prices to whatever the market settles at, or whatever my fan base will support.
Of course, I may change my mind about pricing next month (and, lucky me, I can).
David
You know, I never once heard any professional writer say, “Go ahead, publisher, publish my new novel directly to the discount bin.”
And thus we find my problem with these low prices. If a major publisher, or even a small press, did that to one of my books, I would have been in court to stop them. And yet indie writers do this all the time to their own books. Stunning to me, just stunning.
What happened to self respect and belief in one’s own work???
David does have a point, though. One of the things that has supported the higher prices of paper books is that the overall cost is often shared by multiple people (through the library or used books or trading). It is a part of the overall economy of the publishing industry that tends to be overlooked. There are some buyers of new books who ONLY pay full price because they know they can resell or trade.
That model breaks down with ebooks, and I am curious as to how it will shake out. Of course, the more moderate prices fixes some of that, but there is a still a huge market in the “bargain bin only” crowd. Then tend to be voracious readers – but even more voracious buyers. (As Dean pointed out, many of the people who scoop up 99 cent deals buy lots and lots of them, and may never get around to reading many.)
I suspect that, where once the same book filtered down to multiple audiences through the aftermarket, there will instead be a fracturing of audiences – with some books positioned for the higher paying market, and some going for the lower paying ones. Some higher priced books will probably run sales – as the big publishers do sometimes right now – dropping a 9.99 book to 2.99 for a week or two to get a little crossover.
And I suspect that different books and authors will be successful at both levels. So I don’t think this is a bad thing.
And I think some audiences will buy a little of each level of book. Just like we used to buy some literature, and a few pulpy paperbacks and a comic book in the old days.
The thing to keep remembering is that it isn’t a commodity – so the price of one book doesn’t have that much effect on the price of another. However, the prices won’t change the behavior of the audience either. Both sides of this equation are independent. What you’ll actually do with a price change is shift audiences.
Camille
AndrewV,
I agree that many ebooks purchased at 99 cents won’t ever be read, and thus won’t increase an author’s readership.
But that’s also true for books at higher prices.
I’ve probably only read about half the books I’ve purchased in my life. Some sit on shelves, waiting. Others have long since been given to friends or charity.
When I try to decide which book to read next, how often do I make that decision based on the purchase price?
Never.
In most cases, I don’t even remember what I paid for a particular book sitting on my shelf. All I know is that it’s there, I have some time to read, I’m in the mood for that book, and it will fit nicely in my lap.
But there is one big advantage to selling a lot of 99 cent ebooks that no one ever reads.
That advantage is the Amazon bestseller lists.
At 99 cents, my first novel was one of the top ten bestselling Kindle ebooks in the category of historical fantasy. I was outselling most of my fantasy-writing heroes. Being on the list got my book noticed, and sold more and more cheap copies.
Then Amazon offered authors 70% royalties for books priced at $2.99 or higher, I raised my prices to get those royalties, sales dropped immediately, I fell off the category bestseller list, and I stopped getting noticed on Amazon. I still sold respectably, I suppose, but at a much lower level. I made less money per month, and had far fewer readers (or, at lease, buyers).
For now I’m going back to 99 cents and we’ll see what happens.
David
Dean,
“What happened to self respect and belief in one’s own work???”
This is more about finding out what works.
If pricing my books at $4.99 or $499 works, I’ll do it.
The evidence isn’t in yet. But low prices have worked better for some indie authors, and they worked better for me at the start.
I believe in my work. That’s why I’m self-publishing, rather than kowtowing to agents.
My self respect is not based on the price of my book.
David
David, that might be right for David the writer. But from where I stand, David the publisher is not treating David the writer with much respect.
As I said, I would go to court to stop a publisher from publishing my work that low. No matter how many sales I might make from that level. But again, that’s clearly just me and you are correct, this is too early. But even if it becomes acceptable for indie-publishers to use the 99 cent number for full novels, I will never use it as a publisher for anything other than a very short term promotion on a series. Or for short fiction.
But what do I know. I only have published 119 different products now under WMG Publishing. It’s still way too early to tell anything. I’ll let you know how things are going when there is real evidence, and I have over 500 products on the WMG List.
Now I remember what happened the last time I brought up this price discussion. Stupid memory.
Camille,
I think you’re right about the levels.
I see this breaking into a “farm league” and the “the majors.” And not a lot of middle. Some authors will break out of the farm league and into the majors. Some majors will be sent back to the minor leagues.
And there will probably be a qualitative difference between the lower and higher prices.
The quality in question will be the ability of an author to please a mass audience.
David
David, I edited your comment slightly because I don’t allow badmouthing any writer here. When you sell more copies than the author you badmouthed, maybe then. But I don’t sell that many copies, so I don’t have the right to allow that on this sight. Sorry.
John Walters wrote: “any writer worth reading has a unique quality – a voice, if you will – that makes it worthwhile to spend any amount of time – or money – on his words. That’s what we look for in prose.”
And there are simlar comments above about “branding” and identifiable voice, etc.
Writer, editor, and publisher Lou Aronica has a phrase for this which really resonates with me, which is the writer’s “signature.” To quote him exactly, I’d need to go dig up the article (it was in NINK about 2 years ago) where he clearly defines what he means by this, but the gist of it was: A writer’s “signature” is the intersection of what they’re interested in writing about, what they’re good at writing, and their individual voice, which intersection produces the unique experience which only THAT writer can provide, and which is the signature that readers expect, seek, and anticipate in any book they buy by that particular writer.
That’s not just something that writers don’t necessarily understand when they’re new or starting out, a “signature” is also something that it can take a lot of practice and experience to find–not always, but in many cases, a writer’s signature develops along the way, rather than being born fully formed in the author’s first published book (let alone the author’s previous unsold MSs).
David wrote: “That’s why I’m self-publishing, rather than kowtowing to agents.”
Choosing to work without an agent, as I have done, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with choosing whether or not to work with professional publishers.
Yup, Laura, my thought exactly when I read that.
You folks seem to forget with my blogs that I have said over and over and over that I had three wonderful agents who did me a great job. I have watched many writers have trouble with agents, but nothing against them myself.
Self-publishing has nothing to do with agents. You can sell just fine to traditional publishers without agents. That’s just a made-up reason to self-publish and if it’s the only reason, you might want to think the entire plan through again.
“David, I edited your comment slightly because I don’t allow badmouthing any writer here. When you sell more copies than the author you badmouthed, maybe then. But I don’t sell that many copies, so I don’t have the right to allow that on this sight. Sorry.”
I’m confused.
I don’t recall badmouthing any writer, and the posts I wrote look unedited to me.
If I badmouthed anyone, I apologize.
But this doesn’t ring a bell, and really doesn’t sound like something I’d ever do. I’m a writer myself, a big fan of other writers, and I champion indie writers on my site.
You have my email, so you can tell me in private who you think I badmouthed.
I don’t think it happened.
If it did, it was unintentional.
I again, I apologize as a general issue. But I’d like to know specifically what it was I’m apologizing for, so I can correct it in the future.
Thanks.
David
David, no big deal at all. I just tell people when I edit a post and your post had great comments in it except for one sentence, so I just took the sentence out. And in normal blog world, that would not have been noticed, but I have a few issues with writers saying things bad about a writer who makes more than they do in sales. Sure, we all have different tastes and some writers are not to my taste just as some are not to yours. But on this site my silly rule is that unless you sell more and make more than another writer, you have no right to say things negatively about them. (On this site… just my silly rule… so no big deal.) Thanks for the great comments on the other stuff.
Thanks for your blog. It’s the most informative that I follow.
Okay, Dean, you were right. Thanks for clearing that up.
David
Andrew V:
“John Scalzi recently mentioned there was a specific pay rate that required him to even roll out of bed. He sees himself as a professional and demands a professional level rate. Perhaps this line of thinking has helped him cultivate the success he has had.”
John Scalzi gave away his first novel for free on the Internet.
Not 99 cents.
Free.
That helped build his fan base, his website, and his stellar career as a novelist.
David
David, I give stories away here every week and so does my wife, all free. What’s your point. I still, as Mike Resnick said once and I loved it and have used it, “If I don’t make $500 a day, it’s not a good day writing.”
So missing your point, David.
My point is that competing on price can get a writer noticed, especially a new writer like John Scalzi (then) or Amanda Hocking (now).
John Scalzi was held up as an example of a writer who won’t devalue his work by taking less than professional pay, but that’s not, I think, what his career as a novelist demonstrates.
He gave away his first book as shareware (and later as freeware), asked for $1 donations, got donations from a small percentage or readers, made a few thousand dollars, and created some fans and some buzz that no doubt helped him when his second book was ready to market.
I don’t think putting out his first novel for free, and asking for a buck donation, devalued John Scalzi’s writing or meant he had no self respect. He tried an experiment, and it worked.
On the other hand, for an established writer with a backlog, giving away a story for free, or pricing a book at, say, 99 cents or $2.99, could be a great way to find new readers.
I think that’s smart.
It’s worked for Konrath and others. Not only with backlist titles, but new titles as well.
The key, of course, is to stay productive, as you and Kris have always done, so you can upsell your new readers more stories and novels.
My basic point is that a low-priced first book can be a smart move in the long term, as a way to establish a career.
It isn’t necessarily short-term thinking.
David
David said, “My point is that competing on price…”
I am in the middle of a Sacred Cows chapter about the myth of writers competing. I snorted my tea when I saw your comment. Nice timing.
How about writing a great book as a way to start a career? And then sell it to a traditional publisher who might get out a few hundred thousand copies of it. Hmmmm….Just a thought. Seems a little more sound than giving a first book away. But what do I know?
I also wonder if the digital age might reverse the price cycle of new books.
With print, publishers window their releases from most expense to least. Hardback, then trade, then paperback, right? At least sometimes. Hardbacks sell to the most dedicated fans at the highest price, and get reviews. They also sell to libraries. Once that market dies, you move to the next lowest price level.
I’m thinking digital media may work better in the reverse. Start selling an ebook at a very low price, like 99 cents, then increase the price after positive online reviews, and after building a large and vocal fanbase.
Of course, most books won’t make much of splash. Mediocre books will get mediocre reviews, or none at all, and stay at the lowest price level. Bad books will stay obscure.
But a book with a strong buzz can take advantage of the acclaim by jumping from 99 cents to $4.99 and still make sales.
It remains an untested theory.
Maybe I’m crazy, but it’s a thought.
The only thing I know for sure is that things are changing fast, at least some of the old rules no longer apply, and it’s worth testing out new ideas to see what works.
David
“John Scalzi gave away his first novel for free on the Internet.
Not 99 cents.
Free.
That helped build his fan base, his website, and his stellar career as a novelist.”
Scalzi himself has pointed out many times that he didn’t post his book for free on his website as a professional strategy, but because he was too “lazy” to look for a publisher. He has also pointed out many times that while that worked out well for him, 99.9% of the time, it does NOT work out well, and statistically, a writer who wants a professional career is better off submitting the book to publishers than posting it for free on a website.
In his blog in November, he corrected comments similar to the ones you make here, i.e. suppositions that posting the book for free was instrumental in his subsequent successful fiction career. He proposes that he’d have been better off selling the book the old-fashioned way, and he also says that the book’s publication attracted readers to his blog rather than the blog attracting readers to his book. See comment #22 in the discussion are of this blog:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/11/22/comments-are-a-lot-of-work/
Also worth pointing out that blogs and electronic self-publishing online were new and unusual back when Scalzi did them, and he was then a rare example of someone writing well and professionally in that free online format. Good blogs are very common now; they were very unusual in 1998, when he started his. Posting a free book online was also unusual when he did it.
Just as it’s very hard to get attention for a new blog now, in this overcrowded electronic world, it’s probably also hard to get attention for a novel posted for free on a blog or website now, when that practice has become common, too.
Similarly, I gather from the discussion here that posting novels for $0.99 is becoming common among self-published writers.
That which is common and done by a lot of people rarely attracts attention. There’s a lot to be said for being the first (or among the first) to do something.
I myself am not a fan of the loss-leader idea any more. I think that there is a 99 crowd of readers who don’t often pay more than that. They are a different group than those who are willing to pay more. And buzz doesn’t come from the cheaper group, because that group is only interested in price.
I do think that 99 cents, in a temporary sale, can get beyond the resistance of someone who is thinkng about your book but unsure. But most of the time the lower price just gets you additional customers who would never buy at a higher price.
IMHO, you’d be better off to price higher on all books, and occasionally drop the price and have a sale to gain the additional readers. But one book always low, and others always high would not be as effective, because the bulk of the customers are different.
I’m a professional writer and I see a lot of beginning writers that choose to price themselves way below what they’re worth to get clients. It’s usually a bad idea.
My experience as I’ve raised my rates is that most clients won’t follow you past a certain price range, and I suspect that this may well be true of .99 readers.
I think there is some merit to the idea of starting people off with a short story to get them into your sales funnel, but giving them something cheap and then hoping they’ll stick around is probably not going to work for most.