Wow, finally someone said exactly as I feel about 99 cent priced novels. And said it with the same level of frustration I often feel about the topic. Thank you, Zoe Winters.
And I agree about John Locke as well. He wrote some fine books. The reason he sold a ton of books wasn’t the price, it was the quality of his storytelling. He would have made a ton more money, something I know he didn’t care about, if he would have priced those books better. He undervalued his own talent and his own work. I hate to see anyone do that.
Here is how it goes, put simply. I have read a couple of his novels and think they are good. Do I think one of my challenge short stories is worth exactly what his novel is worth to readers? Nope. His novels have more value, are novels vs a short story. And he is clearly working at a professional story-teller level as I am. A reader will get more entertainment value from a novel by him than a 2,000 word short story by me.
However, John Locke thinks his books are only worth what one of my short stories is worth to readers. And that’s his problem. He put no real value on his own work, even though many of us put more value on it. Sad when an author can’t even believe in their own work. Really sad. But alas, common.
And yeah, I know all about his idea to promote himself. Go ahead, folks, try it. I’ve read his promotion book. Go ahead, try it. And it if works, it meant that your writing skills were undervalued. But for most it won’t work because you’re not as good a writer yet as John Locke. Blunt, alas, but true. Work at becoming a better storyteller.
Go read Zoe Winter’s blog. http://zoewinters.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/the-99-cent-ghetto/
Then you can come back and have a discussion here once again about pricing if you want. But you all know how I feel if you’ve been reading here for very long. (grin)
I completely agree with you and Zoe Winters on the pricing point. I have a couple of short stories for 99 cents out, but my two novelettes (I just uploaded the second today) both sell for 2.99 US-dollars. I would never sell a novelette let alone a full length novel for 99 cents except during limited promotions.
But, Dean, if Mr. Locke hadn’t priced his book at $0.99, he might never have sold “1 Million eBooks in 5 Months” for $4.99 ($9.99 paperback). Clearly that’s where the money’s at in this new world of publishing, and I’m shocked that you don’t see that.
Shocked!
LOL, David.
So you are saying I need to write five thrillers, sell them all for 99 cents, wait until I make a name for myself not as a writer, but as a discounter, then publish my “Killing the Sacred Cows of Pricing” book and sell it for $4.99? Wow, what a great idea. I should try that. LOL!!
Oh, sure, we scoff now, but when he’s sold 1 million of the sequel “I sold 1 Million ‘I sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months’ in 5 Months”, who’ll be laughing then?
The power of nesting is that it’s infinite. This is real business.
(Seriously, though, I can’t imagine thinking about price points anymore. Anything between $2,99 short book and $14.99 “A Dance with Dragons” tome will do fine)
Again, David, LOL. He just might do that. Scary and funny and scary.
Hmmm, math… I know Locke does not care about money, but I do.
So say he had priced his books at $4.99 and only sold half as many. And then the “How I did it” book would never have existed. How would the money be now?
His way: 1 million x 35 cents = $350,000.00 Say he sells 100,000 of his “How I did it…” book at $4.99, getting $3.50 each = $350,000.00. Total take $700,000.
If he had sold half as many at $4.99 and done no how-to book. He would have sold of the 5 books 500,000 copies total x $3.50 = $1,750,000.00. Over a million $ more by selling half and no sixth book.
Too bad he didn’t trust his writing. It might have taken longer than five months, maybe up to a few years to sell half as many because his books are good. They would have sold. For a million extra, I would have waited. And given value to my work.
I’ve got to stop doing math.
The bumper sticker argument is “A novel is worth more than a Snickers bar”
Blarkon, wow, that would be a great tag line on my new novel. “This novel is worth more than a Snicker’s bar.” (I would add…) “And it won’t make you fat.”
I love it. Thanks!!
First, I love your blog Dean. I read it regularly and can’t thank you enough for all the great info you put on there.
I found you, Zoe, and many other good writers through the Konrath blog.
The whole knee-jerk aversion to the .99 cent point is wrong. If money is the most importing thing then the only correct price to put your ebooks up for sale is the one that makes the author the most money. Per unit you make more at higher prices, but sometimes the greatest overall profit is made at the lower price.
.99 is not a ghetto.
Saying it’s a ghetto is like saying Wal-mart is a ghetto because they price lower than Saks. Yes, they do price lower, but from the CEO room, the business is pretty profitable at the lower prices too.
Will most authors make more money overall at a higher price. Probably. But not everyone.
Zoe is right about one thing. Books are not commodities. They are experiences and the demand for those experiences will be different for each book based on author, genre, and a whole host of other things.
You will almost always sell more books at a cheaper price than a lower price, and if demand for a particular book is seven times greater at .99 than at 2.99 then you’re going to make more money at .99.
You say Locke could have made nearly 2 million if he had sold his books at a higher price and only sold half as many, but what if he had sold only a tenth as many.
I completely agree that Locke’s books sold because they were well written, but I also think they sold great because they were .99. His sales probably wouldn’t have tanked 90% at a higher price, but Locke and Zoe are both partisans on opposite sides of the .99 price point war and they both have something to prove.
I think I’m right. Going back to Konrath’s blog there are two writers who stick out on opposite sides of the .99 cent issue: Guido Henkel and Victorine Lieske.
Both of them wrote good books. Guido in pulp/horror and Victorine in contemporary sweet romance. Guido had nine books (ten now) and Victorine had one (now has two). Sales for both authors were very poor. Both did lots of promoting and all the right things. They also both tried to lower prices to spur sales.
Guido had negligible increase in sales with a drop to .99. Victorine’s sales exploded from less than 50/month to nearly 30,000 and she’s still pretty good on the sales rankings.
What that says is that the demand for Guido’s book is flat regardless of price and he’ll make more at higher prices. While demand for Victorine’s book is very elastic and she makes more at .99. Now that she is know, could she raise her price and make even more. Possibly, but I wouldn’t. She has only one well selling book and she knows she makes a good income at .99. Why rock the boat. After she gets more slices of her magic pie out then she can price experiment more, but for now I’d stay put.
There are other examples of breakout sales at .99, but the point is that authors should never be made to feel it’s wrong to try lower prices. Their book may have elastic demand and break out at the lower price. The whole argument that it’s undervaluing the authors work is not as compelling as seeking highest total income.
Yes, I agree that most authors will make more at higher prices, but many, especially in high demand genres like romance may make more at lower prices. Books like Locke’s I don’t think are that variable in demand and he’d likely do better at higher prices, but again, Locke is a .99 partisan and almost has an agenda it seems.
Thanks again for writing a great blog. The short stories have been fun to read.
Charles.
Charles, thanks for the very well-reasoned comment. (I did edit slightly because no personal attacks on any author here. Author safe zone. (grin)) But disagreeing with me or Konrath or Zoe is great. That’s what is wonderful about this new world, no real right answers.
What I fight against is the thinking that all indie writers should price their books into what I call the “discount bin” automatically. That I don’t agree, but as you said, there are times and places when a good discount does help. Kris and I have talked already about discounting slightly (not to 99 cents… not ever for a novel) the first novels of a couple of her series. That kind of discount is called a “loss leader” and works great and has been proven to work great.
But just discounting because you want more numbers seems just silly to me. Again just my opinion. I have zero issue with writers trying different things. But I have a HORRID issue when a bunch of writers brand new to the business tell me I NEED to do something like toss my work into a discount bin. That I will fight against just as I defend the right of every writer to try something new.
But my bottom line is plainly this: I think loss leader at a lower price is fine when the book is the first in a series and you have most, if not all of the series already up. Good promotion tool. I think devaluing work to 99 cents because it seems to be a trend on the Kindle Boards is just silly in the extreme.
But writers are not known for being smart with business. This is the same class that lets perfect strangers have all their money and the paperwork with that money and thinks that’s normal. So why am I not surprised at writers making decisions like thinking their novel it took them a while to write is only worth 99 cents.
Again, Charles, thanks for the great reply. Much appreciated.
By the way, Charles, if Locke would have only sold 1/10th of the number of books at $4.99 that he sold at 99 cents, he would have made EXACTLY the same amount of money. Do the math. (grin)
Charles, one more point about your comparison with Saks and Wal-mart, which was a good one. If you are looking for quality, and money is not an issue, you go to Saks. If you are looking at cheap and quality is not an issue, you go to Wal-Mart. Nothing wrong with either and as you said, both do fine. But for my art, I want it sold and thought of as a Saks product, even though I write silly stuff at times. I want quality to just be assumed with my work, no matter the content. Quality is important to me, even though I often don’t hit close to that goal. I always try for it. Thus selling my work out of a discount bin at Wal-mart is not something I will ever do. My choice. Not right, not wrong, just my personal choice and how I feel about my own art.
And I wish more writers would look at the building myth of 99 cent novels instead of a sales tool in all cases, but instead a quality issue. A good book is like a good bottle of wine, to be enjoyed and savored. You don’t shop for a good bottle of wine in the Dollar Store. I hope this discussion makes a few writers think about putting value on their own time, their own work, their own art, and start treating their business and their art with respect.
That’s how I see this. Again, just my opinion, nothing more.
I think that Zoe and Dean are absolutely right. I started by selling my novel at 99c. I did this because I thought this was the thing to do to generate interest.
But I also wonder whether I did it because sub-consciously I felt that self-publishing was somehow second best to being published by a real publisher (even though every agent and reader I sent my novels to seemed to be about 17 years old with only that amount of reading and life experience.)
After a while I discovered Dean’s thoughts on pricing. I was also thinking about the mixed message I gave to readers when I valued a 70,000 word the same as a 5,000 word story.
I learned my lesson and re-priced. My sales declined by half but my profits increased five-fold.
Let’s hope more people get more realistic about pricing or we’ll all be working for peanuts.
Martin Lake
I’m divided in two on this topic.
I do agree with you and Zoe Winters. I don’t think the hard work a writer has to put a book together is worth only $0.99 …
But, if I self-published, I would probably set my price at $0.99 … because, it’s proven that the sales go way up and that’s a good way to ‘catch’ a reader, a fan. Then, later, I could set some books at a higher price.
To me, right now, what matters are readers, not money.
Another thing that influences my decision is that, as an unknown author, the $0.99 is more attractive to the reader and it may bring more readers, which may become fans and always come back for my books. If I set a book for $5, they may think “hum, I never heard of her and she seems to think she is hot stuff.” I don’t want that, especially since I know I’m not hot stuff =P
As you see, my opinion is divergent to the action I would take. But that’s business. Sometimes we have to do what is going to work, even if we don’t totally agree with it.
Yesterday on my blog, I launched a poll asking how much are people willing to pay for an e-book (I ask writers to think as readers for this). So far, the results have been up to $5.
If you want, you can check it out and vote too: http://www.julianahaygert.com/2011/07/25/e-book-pricing-poll/
Thanks =)
Couldn’t agree with you more.
I replied to someone in the comments over at Konrath’s blog, saying basically the same thing: Value your work more.
My novella is $2.99, with my next one being uploaded sometime in September. My third one will go up late November/early December. Although all 3 will be initially priced at $2.99, I may put the first one at 99 cents, but not until all 3 are up.
Meanwhile, back to work.
Regarding the “costs less than a Snicker bar” thing, when I was the sales manager of the university lit mag, we actually used the slogan “Cheaper than a latte and lasts longer, too”.
It didn’t always work, though I did significantly increase sales while I was there.
Dean,
Charles inadvertently raises a question I have not seen broached anywhere — Are there genre’s that have given price points? Possibly light romance novelettes really are .99c. While a SF of the same length and quality might have a market of $1.99.
JohnMc, I don’t think genre has anything to do with it and both those prices are far, far too low IN MY OPINION. (grin) I tend to like $2.99 for short novels and short collections.
Maybe someone with just one newly published book shouldn’t enter the fray, but there’s another perspective. My novel sold a grand total of 24 copies in its first month, at $2.99. I’m about to publish a short story, priced at $.99. I’m a complete unknown and my novel doesn’t fit in any of the popular genres. In fact, it’s very much the kind of book that depends on the description to entice readers.
If I’d published the novel at .99, and then the story at the same price, readers would wonder why the novel has so little value. Worse, they might expect to pay nothing for the story. If I’d published the novel at .99, I’d have no wiggle room for a sale, no way to discover whether the lower price makes the book more attractive.
Starting out at the lowest possible price sends the signal that you either don’t value your work or you don’t think others will value it.
Catana, wow, 24 copies in the first month. Actually, that’s a great number. Well done. Remember in electronic publishing, books grow slowly. That is a great start. And, of course, I agree with your thinking on value. (grin)
In my day job, we have a saying – we’d rather have to acquire 100 subscribers at $20/month than 2000 subscribers at $1/month.
@Charles – I am not sure you’re right about romance being a factor. (Background: I write novella length erotic romance with this pen name.) Romance readers, particularly erotic romance readers, are very much accustomed to buying stories and paying by the length.
My publisher prices a 20K word novella at 2.99.
I think as highly of myself as my publisher does, so I’ll price my upcoming novella the same way.
To make a hundred bucks from Amazon with self-pub vs. not self pub at the 2.99 price point, I need… 48 books vs 223 books.
At the 99 cent price point, self-pub vs not self-pub becomes 334 vs 667 books to make that same hundred dollars.
Betcha I can find 48 people faster than *anyone* can find 667 in my niche.
Hi Dean,
I’m just going to add my 2c here, but first I want to state that I don’t think anyone is actually wrong. I don’t think there is a wrong side to this argument. I agree that you sell more books at 99c than other price points, but you very well might make more money by pricing at $2.99 and selling only a fraction of the book volume. I think most writers are arguing in good faith.
However, I think there is a psychological component to the price points at 99c, 1.99, and 4.99 that isn’t being discussed.
(Yes, they’re cheap. Okay, that’s one.)
The problem with Kindle books (and other DRM-bound books) is that you can’t loan them to friends. That hasn’t stopped me from buying a Sony Reader AND a Kindle 3, but it’s an issue when I buy a book.
An average dead-tree-book (so they say) is passed around to 6 people before it hits the recycling bin. Some books more, some books less. I’ve read this magic 6-number a couple times, even before the advent of the e-reader.
When buying a dead-tree book, I kind of mentally dollar-cost average it to the number of people I plan to force to read it. Usually either my mom (lit or women’s lit) or dad (SF or fantasy,) plus ex-roommates, friends, etc. And they do the same. I only buy about 1 of 6 DTBs that I read, because of the passed-around factor.
When I buy a book on Kindle, yes, I can recommend it to my friends, but I can’t press it into their hands and demand they read it, *and vice versa.* There’s no possibility of either lending or reciprocation.
Therefore, a first-run, brand-new hardback doorstop novel might be $29.99, but since an average of six people are going to read it, the dollar-cost average comes out to ($30/6) just about $4.99 each.
That’s what a first-run, doorstop novel on Kindle is worth to me: $4.99.
When I buy a nice trade paperback, I expect to pay about $11.99 or so (+/- $2) and pass it around to 5 more people. Thus, $12/6 is around $1.99, and that’s the price point that I should pay for that book on Kindle.
A mass market paperback is around $5.99, plus or minus a couple, usually plus 1 or 2. Yup, see what that comes out to? $6 / 6 people is around 99c.
That’s why readers are flocking to the 99c price point. It’s not just that it’s under a dollar. It’s not just that they’re cheap or taking advantage of writers.
That’s how much most readers are *currently* paying per read for a DT paperback.
Now, if a book is DRM-free or could be lent to up to 5 friends, say, that would be worth the full price of a DTB.
And this is another reason why “agency pricing” is truly ridiculous.
JM2c,
TK Kenyon
I’m a professional writer. As such, I expect to be paid for my work. ($.99 is not being paid for my work.) Otherwise, I’m not a professional writer.
What really confounds me is the glee I see on some of the message boards from authors who’ve found a way to get Amazon to list their books for free.
Karen, I agree completely. Actually, there are reasons for a publisher to be happy about getting a story on Amazon for free if it is a lost leader that is functioning to push a series. For example, a short story written in a novel series world. Give the story away for free to get people to your $4.99 and up novels. The taste form of marketing. But writers who give full novels away for free just make me shake my head in wonder.
I think it would do a lot of authors good if they spent less time on Kindleboards stressing over their Amazon rankings and start learning how to treat this like a career.
Or, if that’s too complicated, write another book.
Another perspective, Dean, not as a writer who feels my works are invaluable and the market price should reflect its quality, but as a reader. Specifically as a reader of ebooks (self-pubbed or otherwise).
Ebooks have almost no secondary value. I can’t display them on a shelf, resell them on ebay, use them as decorative pieces, put them on a bedside table for house guests to read, loan them to a friend, donate them to the library, buy a bunch of copies to wrap as gifts, get them signed at an author event, or even use them to prop up a shaky table. I don’t FEEL as if I own anything. What it FEELS like is renting. Like Netflix. Every time I’ve paid more than four bucks for an ebook, no matter how much I enjoyed reading it, afterward I felt slightly ripped off. I paid all that money and what do I have? A file hidden away inside a piece of plastic. I’m annoyed at myself for not going ahead and getting the hard version of the book. If it’s a book ONLY available as an ebook? I’m doubly annoyed because then I don’t even have the option. I buy a lot of .99 to 3.99 ebooks and don’t even bat an eye. Those prices seem perfectly reasonable for what is essentially a book rental.
It’s a mistake for writers to develop pricing strategies based on content alone. The packaging counts, the medium counts, the secondary value counts. A thing to consider when establishing value is not just what you, the producer, is putting into the consumer’s hands, but also what the consumer is left holding after the reading experience is over.
JW,
Yup, you hit on the one area that most indie publishers are missing. Trade paper books of their books. And marketing to the 85% market that buys most books. But for the moment almost all indie publishers are focused on electronic publishing because, in all honesty, it’s frighteningly easy to do. Maybe not do well, but easy to do. And when Kris and I started getting out our backlist a year ago, we started with electronic also and just the last few months are putting the collections and novels into print and getting them into bookstores. We are also doing the book cards and getting them into holders that look like books without spines to sell as well. Great fun. Books last. Electronic files, as we have all discovered, do not.
I honestly do think that John Locke wrote and sold those novels as a part of a marketing strategy for his book about self-publishing. It sounds backwards to us, but I’ve seen people do it again and again in various niches in SEO writing:
Somebody makes 1000 a month writing articles for an article aggregator and then retires from that when she publishes her bestselling ebook about it, and makes a whole lot MORE money at that. Successful bloggers make most of their cash not by blogging but by writing books about how to create a successful blog. eBay stars make most of their fortunes selling books on how to make money on eBay.
We’re about to see a whole lot more of this as the “get rich quick/success now” industry enters the realm of indie publishing.
Did anyone else look into the publisher Locke said he uses? I checked out their services and pricing. Locke described his writing method as starting with a blank page and nothing more than a vague idea of what he wanted to do, writing 7000 words a day until the story was done, then turning the raw .doc file over to the publisher for editing and formatting (activities he describes as a poor use of a writer’s time). That means he’s using their top-or-the-line $1500 package.
For 99-cent e-books.
He needs to sell 2000 copies on Kindle to cover that expense. Not, I think, and economical model most writers would want to emulate.
The man was a millionaire several times over before he became a writer. And had made his millions through sales and starting sales companies. He says himself that he does not consider himself a writer. He repeatedly states his conviction that anyone reading his how-to book is almost certainly a better writer than he is and that it was his marketing system, not his work, that made his phenomenal sales volume possible.
I take all of his advice very seriously — except the pricing.
..but as to Zoe’s post, in re her point about those who think the 99 cent price point will FORCE everybody’s price down: My response to those people is two words.
Project Gutenberg.
There are thousands of great books out there for free. If books are really commodities, then 99 cents is too high.
As an experiment, I’m not going to self-promote. I have a blog that I was using to give away short stories in support of a cause I believe in (the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network) but DADT is pretty much done now, from what I can tell, and I don’t really want to have a blog (I have nothing interesting in my life to say: that’s why I sit in a room and make stuff up! haha) or spend my time on forums, etc. (I just really like your blog and agree with your levelheaded approach to e-publishing so I comment here; don’t really follow any other blogs). So I’m just going to continue reading your blog because it’s interesting and I’m allowing myself one blog to follow (so hooray, yours is it) and focus on writing, writing, writing and see what happens. If I ever get big (or hell, just make enough to live off of, I’d be so freaking happy to be stuck in the middle class forever but doing what I love) then we’ll know that you’re right that promotion isn’t a necessary condition for success.
And you’ve finally convinced me that .99 cent novels is not a good idea. The fear of missing out on a potential extra million is more than enough incentive to believe in my work and price it at something that might actually make me $ if it does sell.
I’m a new indie author. I published my first book last month. I wouldn’t even have gotten that far if I hadn’t read your “Dare to be Bad” article. (Thank you for that, I really needed it.) I’m lousy at self-promotion, have a very small ego and a loud critical voice in my head screaming at me to give up writing and get a regular job. This is my perspective.
An established author with a dedicated fanbase can set their price point higher. They know their own quality and can properly value it. Doesn’t mean they’ll always be right, but they have an edge new authors don’t have as, collectively, we try and figure out this big crazy world of indie publishing.
I don’t have the skills yet to value my work. I don’t know if it will sink or swim. What I do know is that for the two weeks I had it priced at $2.99 I had three sales on Amazon. Then Smashwords started its summer/winter sale. I joined in and got a sale. (My only one so far on Smashwords.) To coincide with this sale I dropped my Amazon price to 99 cents. I’ve had eight sales. (Plus a few for UK and DE, but for simplification I’ll leave those out.)
Yes, I do look at those sales and wonder if I would have gotten them if my book wasn’t on sale. (I don’t think anyone would argue that $2.06 is better than $0.35. I made more with the first three sales, than I did with the eight.) Bottom line is, I don’t know, and I don’t think a great many newcomers do either.
I haven’t read Locke’s book. I don’t know if I ever will. Just from the buzz going around, I can see a lot of other authors have. And I imagine a lot of those are new authors hunting for the golden key.
The 99 cent price point isn’t going to disappear. Not even if every established author never used it again. New authors will continue to use that price point, whether they’re following Locke’s advice, or just don’t know what to price their work at. I believe you need experience to truly value something. Most beginning authors, including me, don’t have that experience.
I’m working on gaining it. When Aug 1st rolls around, I’ll be putting my book back at $2.99. I’ll be submitting it for review, like I should have done already, and then I’ll let it be. (Like I said- terrible at self-promotion. You can stop shaking your head now.) Meanwhile, I’ll get my fingers in gear, finish my novella and get it ready for editing and publishing while wielding the “Dare to be Bad” mantra as a club to use against the critical voice in my head that refuses to let up.
> The bumper sticker argument is “A novel is worth more than a Snickers bar”
Hey, Dean, I think I’m gonna move over to Blarkon’s blog now. He’s pithier and harder to argue with.
The right price is the one that generates the most revenue, if revenue is your goal — it may not be for some writers. I’m with Charles on that.
But really, I don’t even know why this is discussed anymore. People are going to try all different price points, and as long as $0.99 is the floor there will be a lot of people pricing their work there and some of them will make good money.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think or what Zoe thinks or what any of us individually think. That’s not how market forces work.
And while you can argue that books are not commodities, you can make the same argument for movies, yet we have movies renting for $0.99 now. That doesn’t seem to have devalued them in the eyes of the customer. I don’t think people enjoy movies any less because they can rent them for a buck. It’s simply the accepted market price.
It will be interesting to see what happens when ebook sales are more important than paper book sales. Right now paper book pricing has a big impact on ebook pricing.
I personally, find myself agreeing with you about the .99 price of ebooks.
I also find the comments here enlightening and fascinating as I weigh other opinions. Thanks for sharing your input.
As a newbie writer, I like the sliding scale, although my first ventures at Smashwords I put up 2 free short stories — my reasoning, the learning experience with e-publishing. New stories I submit will start at the 99 cent price for shorts, and an anthology at $2.99, higher for a complete novel. These seem popular price points with both authors and readers.
As a reader, I like the sliding scale because I assume a higher price indicates a longer work. In all cases I only make a purchase when the synopsis description appeals, or I know the author, or enjoy the sample pages.
On the other hand, for ebook fiction, I must have a very compelling reason to spend over the $10 mark — but one thing I am glad to learn, that authors are receiving a larger slice of the pie for their work. Somehow, it seems to me both authors and readers have been left out of the equation by publishers agents and retailers when they argue price points.
A range of prices isn’t that unusual. Anyone who thinks that one 99 cent novel sets the price point should look at movies on Amazon. You can find three dollar movies and thirty dollar movies and everything in between; and most of the time, the thirty dollar movie sells far better than the three dollar movie does, because it’s the hot new film everybody wants. Then when the initial surge passes, they lower the price to rejuice the sales.
I might take a chance on a movie because it’s only three dollars. But I almost never expect much when I do. One or two of those bargain films have become my surprise favorites; most I’ve forgotten. And almost universally, the good ones are OLD films. If I see a new film in that price range, I assume it’s either an amateur effort or a Syfy schlocker (but I repeat myself).
Similarly, my expectations for a 99 cent novel just ain’t very high. Add a handful of glowing 5 star reviews, all rambling and non-specific, and I assume the worst.
Dean beat me to it. I was just going to point out the quality argument. Yes, some of it is perception, but let’s be honest here, real honest.
If you see a 3 bedroom house on 2 acres of land on sale in Westchester County, and the asking price is 50k, are you really going to assume it is in great shape?
Hell no.
You are only driving by (seeing the cover) but it has a big ONLY $50,000! sign on it. Let’s get real. You are thinking ‘What the HELL is wrong with that house? Foundation? The inside was gutted by fire? Freddie Kruger lived there?’
It’s about expectation and we can set it for ourselves. If I see .99 on a book, I think crap. If I see it on a short story I think ‘fair price’. If I see it on a novella, I think loss leader/possibly crap.
Yes there are exceptions (Locke). But they are as rare as the old lady selling her house worth 400k for 50k because she just wants out of her mortgage so she can move to Florida.
Keep in mind that Joe Konrath has sold far fewer books than Locke @ 2.99 vs .99 and made ALOT more money. He is pretty damn open about his numbers – they are all over his web site.
I even think 2.99 is a bit low, but at least it isn’t insultingly low to the author. Anything 3.99-5.99 feels good to me. 6-10 makes me think it over and get some opinions of people I trust first. But hell, movies are 6-10 bucks and I don;t pay for one unless someone I know says it was worth it.
It’s not that $10 will break me. It’s that I don;t see the sense of pissing away money.
On the flip side, I don’t see pricing something at .99 to give some one the impression that piss is about all it’s worth.
And for the record I must be paying through the nose here in NY! Snickers bars are 1.29!!!
Normally I stay out of these discussions but since my name is in the title of the post, I’ll jump in.
Thanks for the shout out on my post btw!
For me the whole thing just comes down to basic respect. I expect my readers to respect me enough to pay more than 99 cents. I respect myself enough (now) to charge more than 99 cents. I publish under multiple pen names and while someone can say: “But Zoe, you’ve built your name up enough”… BS. It’s not about that. I have names with FAR less platform than Zoe that sell better. And I don’t have any 99 cent books there either.
I sold at 99 cents for WAY too long. It was a mistake. I regret it. If I had it to do over again, I might have left Kept at 99 cents for a short period (because 3 years ago when I started, 99 cents was an ACTUAL strategy. Now it’s a bandwagon with seriously diminishing returns. It’s just not a great strategy NOW and it’s not going to make or break you NOW.) I know people can say: “But what about John Locke???”
That’s not a strategy. (I’m not saying he didn’t use strategy. I’ve read his promotion book, highly recommend it, and believe he definitely used strategy… I just don’t think 99 cents was what made him.) Selling a million copies at 99 cents is a lottery. It’s just not happening very often. If you’re basing your marketing plan on the fact that one person sold 1 million copies at 99 cents, your plan might not be rational or sustainable.
When you start out in this you learn that it’s hard to get ANYONE to give up the time to read your work. Forget the money. You can give it away for free and until you start plugging in with your first serious fans it’s going to be really really hard. I used to see 99 cents as a trust-building exercise with readers. But over time I came to see that readers did not see it that way.
I did 99 cents long enough to see the ugly side of it. Discount shoppers are often difficult people to deal with. There is a sense of entitlement. So many people complained that Kept was so short (20,000 words) when it was 99 cents. When I raised it to 2.99 I stopped attracting the demographic that wants a lot of something for nothing and the complaints stopped.
(I also got a lot of whining when it was free. I Just don’t understand how/why people are like that. But some people are, and I choose to price my work in such a way to avoid those people as much as possible.)
If you WANT to discount and you WANT to appeal to the discount consumer, that’s fine. Do it. But like Dean, I feel that no indie should be encouraged to do 99 cents to “build an audience”. It’s not a great strategy. You have to build buzz. You have to find people passionate about your work. For most people I’m STILL a “new to them author”.
The indie model is different than the big NY model. You’re just unlikely to get famous as an indie and then sell higher off your name recognition. You’ve got to figure out how to sell people on your work at a higher price point if you want to make a living at this.
If you don’t want to make a living or you are happy doing this as a hobby or whatever, again, fine. I honestly don’t care what other people choose to do. But it seems as if some people out there have this sort of undercurrent of glee as they look on at those of us selling our work for $5 or so for a novel… as if we are all high and mighty now but just wait, we’ll be reduced to 99 cents someday too.
It’s a nasty attitude, and it’s total BS. It’s not how the market works because there isn’t just ONE market. There are many markets. And even though discount shoppers see the world through the Wal-mart lens, people for whom money is not THAT tight just aren’t seeing the world that way.
I personally don’t go to Walmart. I don’t like the place. I’m thankful I don’t have to shop there. But I don’t begrudge Wal-mart their existence.
I’m also sorry for people who are poor and don’t have enough money for anything but 99 cent ebooks. However I don’t feel it’s wise for me to market to people with little to no spending power just because I feel bad they don’t have much money. It would be like me starving myself because I feel bad people are starving in Ethiopia.
It’s also REALLY hard to sell big enough quantities at 99 cents CONSISTENTLY to make up for it. My best sales month when I was at 99 cents was 6,500 copies. And that’s still just not a lot of money.
The way I look at it, I’ll write and publish as long as there are enough fans willing to pay my price, which isn’t an unreasonable price to begin with. I understand the economy is crap, but people are still buying gasoline for their cars and still eating at McDonald’s. Even in this crap economy, for most people $5 just isn’t a lot of money. The mentality that says it’s just too much for an ebook and the prices are coming DOWN to rock bottom, baby, … well it’s a crappy mentality. And I don’t think it’s one that authors who have taken the time to learn how to write a compelling book and cultivate a fan base really have to worry about.
Thanks for all the feedback. You’re totally correct. At 1/10 sales Locke would have come out even at 4.99. Being a price point partisan I’m sure he’d say he was still better off at .99 since more people got to enjoy his work, and he’d probably be correct. Usually having more fans is better than fewer, and at this point, most of his fans would probably follow him at a higher price point. In his case, I’d assume he go to 2.99. So I’d expect that someday when he feels he’s made his point that he raise prices of most of his novels and leave only a few at .99 to introduce new readers to his work.
Hitting up wal-mart for wine doesn’t sound like much fun either.
Am I a .99 snob. Heck no. I buy at all prices and think the myth busting that you and Konrath have done is a huge service to all authors smart enough to take it.
It seems that prices in ebooks are falling into particular ranges based on source. Legacy prices at 7.99+; self pubbed prices at .99, 2.99, and 4.99; and occasionally legacy & selfpubbed giveaways at 0.00.
How does all this work in the real world of buyers.
I can only speak for myself, but at the top end, after I finish this post I’m going to happily download on my kindle for 14.99 the released only this morning Ghost Story by Jim Bucher. I like his work, I’m a fan, and that’s what I have to pay.
I don’t think I’m unique as a book buyer. There are buyers available at every price point, but in most cases to get people to buy your work at higher prices they need to get to know you. You’ve taken the most logical alternative to pricing novels at .99, by being a prolific short story writer and having them plus your collections available to lure new readers.
No author should believe that they have to price at .99 to be successful. But .99 can be useful to break out in sales for new work, and it can be invaluable for some of your work once you have a few titles under your belt.
One author I read got me at the 0.00 price. I downloaded the free giveaway and moved up to some of the .99 work and picked up a few of her 4.99 titles. I got to know her and by having novels at different prices she moved me up to her more expensive work.
Price to her was just a tool to increase sales, and by having lots of work available at various prices, including free, she got a new fan.
Authors should want to make the most they can, and most always that will mean pricing the bulk of their work at 2.99+, but keep in mind that many buyers will seek the .99 or free titles to find new authors and they should have something to sell them at those prices.
Price is a tool and authors should use it to their best advantage.
Public service notice: I do know one indie author who decided to try the free thing and managed to get 400,000 downloads on her first book, hopefully getting lots of new fans. Problem was she didn’t have her second book available (sometime in 2012 I hear) to buy and made nothing. Not good. Never do free unless you have something else for people to buy too, and only do .99 if it’s part of a plan to make you the most money.
Cheers,
Charles
Charles, spot on the money. And Zoe, also spot on. Price is a tool that if used correctly can be powerful to draw readers to more expensive work. When used without thought because a bunch of people on a board think you have to is just silly.
In the last workshop about thinking like a publisher, Scott and I both taught how to use lower prices effectively. There is a time and a place for a low price or a free sample. But the indie publisher has to think like a publisher, just not follow a myth that you will be rich by selling at a certain price.
And I also have nothing against a Wal-Mart shopping. In fact, I go into Wal-Mart at times. But not for high-end clothing or items where quality is a key. I go because I need something quick, cheap, and workable. And that thinking is fine for some writers on some books. And I am sure as I get series running, I will use a discount method to help draw readers into a series.
And Holy CRAP, I’m so sorry that was so long. Comments get away from me in these comment boxes where I can’t see at a glance how much I’ve typed.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA @ Joemontana:
“You are only driving by (seeing the cover) but it has a big ONLY $50,000! sign on it. Let’s get real. You are thinking ‘What the HELL is wrong with that house? Foundation? The inside was gutted by fire? Freddie Kruger lived there?’” <—- love it!
To me 99 cents attracts REALLY price sensitive people and everybody else worries about Freddie Kruger. I'm not saying you can't sell copies at that price. You can. But can you sell enough to make decent money consistently? Maybe, but odds are no. Also, a LOT of people let 99 cent books languish without ever reading them. So you don't necessarily gain fans. Basic human psychology says that we continue to nurture what we invest in. If we spend 99 cents on an ebook and $5.95 on an ebook, odds are good we'll read the $5.95 book and may or may not read the 99 cent book. I've got a ton of 99 cent books I'll never read. I bought them on impulse to fill up my kindle and I just don't feel that compelled to read them. If I had spent $5, I would have at least had a genuine intention of reading the book. Not just collecting and stockpiling.
Zoe, I have heard that from many, many Kindle and iBook owners. They often download a free or 99 cent book and never look at it. Common practice it seems.
I want to echo something Zoe said in her comment above about “entitlement.” Many of my stories and stories of friends of mine are available for free on various sites. Holy crap do some people have a sense of entitlement! The emails to authors who aren’t producing to that given reader’s speed are amazingly rude, vulgar, and pushy. For free stories! They want the next installment and they want it NOW and how dare the writer have a life or other commitments beyond working 24/7 to produce another free story?
I don’t get those emails for my paid stories. That’s motivation alone to not give them away for free.
Zoe, I completely agree. Pricing my six books at $0.99 seemed like a good idea early on, when I was getting 1,000 sales per month (total) on the Kindle Store. It seemed like a GREAT idea in April when I earned $4,600 in royalties. And it seemed like a FANTASTIC idea in May when I made $6,800 from sales of over 18,000 books. Sure, many of those were no doubt impulse buys, but it was hard to care.
Then came the Amazon Sunshine Deals, and my bestselling book, which was ranked #45, began to drop like a rock. For 29 days it had been selling 600-700 copies per day. This month it’s lucky to do 50 per day.
And thus ended my love affair with the $0.99 price point. I raised all of my prices to $2.99 (my books are 36,000-63,000 words) two months ago, but Kobo is dragging their feet, so most of the books are still discounted in the Kindle Store. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.
What is the correct price for an ebook? It depends how much you want it. I rented the “Million Dollar Baby” movie for $1.00. I paid $10.00 for movie theater tickets to “Super 8.” I paid $100.00 each for tickets to the Jersey Boys musical. Yet in each case, I don’t regret one penny I spent, and the only thing I have to show for my purchase…is a great memory.
Thanks, TK Kenyon, for addressing price from a broader psychological perspective. I think the borrowing ratio/dollar cost averaging concept is a valid (albeit minor) factor when people buy an ebook. I just don’t think it weighs that heavily, however.
For eg, I just borrowed Catching Fire via Kindle and noticed that it can only be loaned once. (My stories on Amazon are drm free, so I assume they can be loaned without limit.) But, I assume, this had no impact on my friend who initially bought Collin’s book since she didn’t even know most Kindle books could be loaned/borrowed.
For me, I think the biggest factor in why ebooks are relatively cheap is their non-physicality. Psychologically, I have a hard type paying for “nothing but bytes” – although, Zoe Winter’s point about reading being an experience is definitely why I do pay, and why we all pay for fleeting, insubstantial experiences.
This will have to be the main motivation for authors and buyers as this whole digital revolution shakes out…those who provide the best experiences will command the higher price point. This is simply an example of a free market at work.
“They often download a free or 99 cent book and never look at it. Common practice it seems.”
Guilty as charged. 99 cents is almost a “curiosity” price. I might like it, so I’ll take it, and plan to read it. Then Jerry Pournelle will release his latest novel straight to Kindle (today!), and it jumps straight to the front of my queue. By the time I finish “Birth of Fire”, I’ll probably forget that 99 cent bargain. It goes into the heap right next to that copy of Les Miserables that I keep imagining I’ll read someday.
Oh, and this is somewhat tangential to the discussion on pricing: I have no bloody clue what “Birth of Fire” costs. Not even a guess. I saw on Chaos Manor that Pournelle had a new novel direct to Kindle. I clicked the link to get to the page, and clicked the Buy It Now button. Price wasn’t a consideration: it was a new book by a favorite author, and that was all that mattered. If my bank statement later shows a charge for $152.37, I’ll learn a valuable lesson; but I don’t think that’ll happen.
Charles Findlay, Victorine may have sold 30,000 units per month of her first book, but right now her three books are ranked no higher than 1637 with her two other books getting one sale a day. 99 cents was only profitable for the short term and it didn’t translate into a loyal fan base who bought her other books. She might have seen $50,000 in total royalty payments combining all the months that she sold well at 99 cent, but unless she release ebooks more often and raise her prices I just don’t see how she’ll be able to sustain her living releasing 99 cent ebooks.
Vincent Zandri even warned that 99 cents was not a profitable price point for him when The Innocent hit #1 on Kindle and sold 100,000 downloads. His total profit after splitting 50% profits with his e-book publisher: $15,000.
Dean W. Smith is clearly correct in his assessment, and Zoe Winters just gained a new blog follower.
So far, I’ve been pretty happy using a “tiered” pricing structure – $0.99 for short stories, $1.99 for novelettes (the 10,000 – 20,000 range), $2.99 for novellas, $3.99-$4.99 for full length novels. There have been one or two people who have complained about paying $.99 for a short story, but I’m sorry, I’m doing this for a living, and I’m not going to just give my work away except as an ocasional promotion.
I did use a Smashwords coupon to make my latest novel (Synth) free for the first 24 hours after it went up – and while the free giveaways gave it a nice boost out of the gate, people didn’t all of a sudden turn their noses up at it when the regular $4.99 price kicked back in. So there was my short-term “loss leader” strategy.
Anyway, thanks, Zoe, for your “rant” (it needed to be said again), and thanks, Dean for pointing us to it and letting us talk about it here.
“JohnMc, I don’t think genre has anything to do with it and both those prices are far, far too low IN MY OPINION. (grin) I tend to like $2.99 for short novels and short collections.” – DWS
You have been in the business far longer than I. Maybe for fiction books the author matters more than the segment. I just note some products that cross various industries value those products at different price points. Time will tell.
I got a complaint regarding the length of a *free* short story.
*pause*
That’s right. I wasn’t offering enough for free.
*pause*
Like Zoe, I have no interest in appealing to those folks.
Books are still some of the best entertainment value for the money out there, even at inflated ebook (or discounted retail) prices.
I’ve paid $10 for a movie, $50-100+ for performance art (ballet, symphony, etc) that lasts, what, two or three hours max. Dont’t get me started on prices at sporting events. (g)
Books, on the other hand…. I’m a reasonably fast reader, but Jim Butcher’s latest still took me about 5 or so hours to read. 5+ hours of pure absorption for $14, and I get to reread it any time I want. Harder to do that with the movie/theatre/ballet/ball game.
Since books are already such good value for money–and since there are books and authors you could not pay me to spend the time to read–seeing writers price their books at 0 or $0.99 just to follow the crowd instead of as part of series promo makes me shake my head. People value what they pay for and devalue what they got for free or cheap for the most part. Why devalue your work before the market even gets a look?
Dean, please forgive me for double posting. Still getting the hang of posting from my phone!
What a brilliant discussion. I am a UK writer and it is great to be able to learn from the greater experience of people in the USA. Zoe’s comment about people valuing what they pay for reminded me that when I worked in colleges and offered free courses the drop-out of students was very high. When we charged we had a much better retention rate.
Like most writers I want people to buy not only one of my titles but lots of them. For this, I guess I need people willing to invest a little bit of cash and time rather than just shelf-stack their Kindle and forget about what they have.
Martin Lake
@ Zoe & Dean — So true. I’ve bought a few 99 cent novels, but never got around to reading them. Oddly enough, whenever I buy a 99 cent short story, I always read it.
It really has to do with value, as Dean said. 99 cents for a short story is just the right price where I’ll buy it, but not on a whim, as is the $2.99-$4.99 price for short story collections and novels.
@Leigh — Completely agree with you about writing for a living and charging for stories. Oddly, when I finally accept the fact that I wanted to MAKE MONEY doing this, writing became far more fun. As Samuel Johnson said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
@ Krista — I’ve had this happen. Amazing, isn’t it?
@Double Gizzle, thanks, but I don’t talk primarily about publishing on my blog, so those kinds of posts are few and far between. It’s too draining. Even after this one rant and ONLY coming here to DWS’s blog to talk about it I’m already feeling icky and wanting to crawl back into the bat cave. I honestly don’t know how I managed through all the rants and debates I got into on the Interwebz. My passion for the subject was obviously outrunning the big fat energy drain.
@Leigh, lol no problem. I’m also glad Dean chose to open up comments here. Occasionally people get cheesed off at me because my comments are closed on my blog. Often if they’ve just read one “controversial” post they’ve been directed to, they think I merely shut down the conversation because I can’t stand people disagreeing with me. But if they’d look a little closer they’d see that most of my posts are not about publishing now. And ALL of my comments are closed since the end of April. (I think that’s when I made that decision.) It was one of my better decisions, IMO.
I think it does piss some people off, mainly writers who want to argue with me, but they have plenty of outlets to tell me I’m a douchenozzle if they don’t like me: Facebook, Twitter, my freaking contact form… etc. My blog is one of the first places my readers see and since my readers are the ones who feed me and pay my bills, I honestly don’t care if writers can’t come there and start arguing and going off topic and making it look like my blog is a “writer hang-out” instead of a place for readers to get to know me. It’s the latter. Rants about publishing are just a side thing I “sometimes do” when I can’t manage the self-control not to.
@Krista It’s unreal isn’t it? I really was resentful for awhile about writing in general while I was doing that. I still give Kept Free from my blog, but with newsletter sign-up. So in a way they’re paying. It helps me build my list.
Folks, when I teach, I try to get writers to NOT BLOG, but have basically informational web sites. Blogging about writing, like I do here, is just a crazy thing to even try. And won’t help your sales. One of the smartest things Zoe did was kill the comments on her blog and move to mostly non-writing topics. I follow a lot of writers who talk about other aspects of their life. Karen Abrahamson’s blog talks about her travels and how sometimes her books come from those travels and it is wonderful. She doesn’t blog often, but enough to keep it interesting.
So if you must blog, blog about the topics in your books, not about writing. Let the blogging about writing to the writers like me and Konrath and Stackpole and Block and Passive Guy. We have nothing to lose and are already set in our ways and are trying to help out newer writers. We have nothing to lose. And trust me, an audience of writers does not mean you sell many books or stories. (grin) Or do it like my wife does. She only has one industry post per week and the rest of the time it’s fun stuff and posts about her books and free fiction. That’s a good balance.
Dean wrote:
“So if you must blog, blog about the topics in your books, not about writing. Let the blogging about writing to the writers like me and Konrath and Stackpole and Block and Passive Guy. We have nothing to lose and are already set in our ways and are trying to help out newer writers. We have nothing to lose. And trust me, an audience of writers does not mean you sell many books or stories. (grin) Or do it like my wife does. She only has one industry post per week and the rest of the time it’s fun stuff and posts about her books and free fiction. That’s a good balance.”
Funny how things happen. I had just come to the same conclusion after reading John Locke’s book on promotion. While I think some of it is silly, what he showed me was that as a writer, I should be blogging FOR MY AUDIENCE, and that I should only be blogging every four weeks or so. Never expected to get that out of JL’s book.
This makes things so much more relaxing. I enjoy blogging, but not daily. And I don’t like superficial posts. Whenever I tried to get into daily blogging, I always came up short. But with JL’s method, I can mull over topics, have fun with it, and slowly — SLOWLY — create a webpage that I hope my readers (those who actually visit author sites) can enjoy.
My goal is that any blog readers I might have will say what you said about Karen Abrahamson’s blog: “She doesn’t blog often, but enough to keep it interesting.”
Dean,
I dont see how you can say with any certainty that he would have made more money if he charged more for his books. He is known as the 99 cent guy. That’s what has propelled him and he’s done well with it. I read the first book. It was good. But I bought it because it was a buck. Actually, I bought it because I wanted to check out the 99 cent guy and see if he was any good. The price point worked for him. Perhaps another route would have worked too. Perhaps not.
I think the time where 99cents could make you into a bestseller is going the way of the dinosaur. Why? Because too many people are doing it now and the most common reason I’ve noted is because they put their book up and it didn’t instantly sell. Welcome to the club.
When I put my indie books up, or my publisher puts up my contracted stuff, I don’t instantly see dozens of sales rolling in. Nope, I get a trickle, so I market, and the trickle grows, and I market some more and get some reviews, and guess what? If the book is good, those sales keep growing.
Could I sell more at 99cents? Maybe, but I’d like to think that I don’t need a 99cent gimmick to get people to buy me. I want them to buy me because my writing sucks them in and they need more. And more…
Eve
PS @Zoe, keep the intriguing blogs and books coming