J.A. Marlow did a great post on pricing indie books. He did some nice research and even quoted the RWA recent study on ebook pricing very clearly.
Worth the read if you are indie publishing and worried about pricing your books too high.
http://jamarlow.com/2012/04/amazon-47north-pricing-analysis/
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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$2.99 electronic and $4.99 trade paper editions available.
Just click on the image for more information and links.
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$2.99 electronic and $4.99 trade paper editions available.
Just click on the image for more information and links.
How did you know I was asking myself that question? Thanks. And it’s great to have you back and posting regularly!
I write romance and as a reader those prices of $7-$9 range is what I pay and I think nothing of it so I guess I should price mine the same. Great post!
Thanks for the link. We need to know what a good price for our books is.
Perfect timing! I’ve been mulling over pricing once again, suspecting that I was still underpricing my novel, wondering if I should go higher. Well, this was just the nudge I needed. I’m comfortable with my novelette at $2.99. I’m happy with my novella at $3.99. But the novel of 169,000 words at $6.99? No. It’s going upwards to $7.99 tonight! Thanks, Dean. I know you’ve been saying this for a while now. Sometimes I have to hear it more than once. (Grin!)
Today we took the kids to a bouncy-bounce playroom kind of place. At the place, there is a little mini-carosel (probably misspelled that) with three seats for kids to ride on it. My two older kids love this thing. It takes 4 tokens to make it work, each token being $.25. The ride lasts for a minute? Maybe. I gave no thought whatsoever to plunking a buck at a time probably 6 or 7 times. Not just because the kids like it, but because really, it’s a buck. And I have fun watching them have fun. So whatever.
A buck a minute, and I didn’t feel ripped off or anything. But I surely must charge $.99 for a full length novel that takes several hours to read. Riiiiight. Sure. Whatever. Hell, I’m buying into the notion of $2.99 for short stories as well, now that I’ve thought it through a bit. I mean, how much does a comic book costs these days? Not much more than a short story there, is there?
Just sayin’…
And I wondered where all the extra blog traffic suddenly came from! Thank you for the link, Dean. I’m loving the comments, including those with information about the experiments from others.
That’s one thing I’ve loved about the Indie movement: the openness and willingness to share information and experiences. Sure, you still have to wade through to find what applies to you and what makes sense, but at least it’s there.
So, to all of you reading the post, please continue sharing. You never know who you might be helping somewhere down the line to make good solid business decisions.
Thank you for taking the time to help in our continuing education, J.A.
Very interesting stuff going on here. I experimented with higher prices starting March 1 to see how I would do for the month. Here’s what happened:
–Total sales down 35%
–Revenue per copy up 60%
–Total revenue EVEN
So while I sold a third less, I saw no drop in income. This is not a surprising result. But it leads me to do two things going forward: Play with higher prices even more, and get more material up for sale.
Push it, baby.
You’re welcome, Ramon. It was all about continuing my education, and I like to share. I’m glad to see that what I did is helping others now.