SONG is Now in Paperback

I received the paperback proof yesterday.  It's very pretty and everything looks good, so I approved it for sale.  Yay.

Here's the social media release verbiage I just posted:

SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD is now available in paperback (as well as being an ebook from many fine retailers - see comments for the universal link). Sorry it's not easier on the wallet, but it's 422 pages. I made it as inexpensive as I could while still leaving a little scratch for me.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WZBBMHM

Of course, you don't have to go to comments here to get the universal link.  Click there.  And it's also available by clicking the image in the sidebar.  

It's pretty much everywhere Draft2Digital can make it be.  Except for Hoopla.  Nothing of mine has posted to Hoopla yet.  Derp.  

A quick note... I removed all the chapter-beginning wyverns.  I had a nightmare about being sued over use of a clipart image, so after I woke up, I did a bunch of research and since I was no longer 100% certain it was kosher to use those - even if I did change the original image - I ditched them when I woke up.  There are only four copies of it in its original format, and I own two of those (ebook and paperback proof).  It's all good.  I left the arrows.  They're mine.  

For the record, I get my cover images from Morguefile, and their terms state that as long as you change the image in some way and don't try to sell it as is, it's kosher.  I don't think anyone can say the images I've incorporated into my covers can ever even be recognized as the original photos.  Although, I think it would be kind of neat for the dude who owns that lizard to see his pet as a dragon on the cover of SSS.  I got the wings off a pic of a flying fox.  Cut, paste, delete on a microscopic scale, change the aspect, recolor, paste some more, add a bit of artsy so it doesn't look like a Franken-photo... tada, dragon!  Took me FOREVER, but I did it.

Anyway, the paperback is black text on cream paper and the cover has a nice matte finish.  The font size is 11pt, so it's easier on the eyes.  It's $17.99, but like I said, it's a big book, so it's about as cheap as I can make it and still make money.  Wish it could be different, but that's the way of the world right now. 

I'd really appreciate it if you could pick up a copy (print or ebook) and leave a review wherever you buy books.  Thanks.

Formatting for Print

I'm formatting for print today.  Fun fun fun.  

In case you weren't aware, I almost never use smaller than 11pt font in my print books.  I think I did 10pt once to try and keep the price reasonable, but that's it.  If I don't want to go blind trying to read tiny print, I'm sure as hell not going to subject you to that either.

It occurs to me that if I am going to venture into young adult, I probably shouldn't swear so much on my blog.  :shrug:  There are no swear words in SONG, except for the curses they use in that world.  Blast, blaze, etc.  Nothing you wouldn't want your kiddies reading in there.  Here?  Umm...  Parental Guidance is suggested for this blog - language, sometimes violence and adult themes.  No sex.

Chances are that the kids reading this particular book are old enough to have seen and heard many nasty words by this point in their lives.  Probably said a few, too.  Still, I didn't want that for this book, so it's not there.  I might've used damn... :shrug:

Anyway, I should be done with the print formatting and uploading today.  Then I have to wait for my proof copy to arrive and verify it's all good.  Then it'll be available for sale.  Right now, it's looking like it's going to be 424 pages.  Probably like $14-$17 a copy US and near to that elsewhere.  I try to keep them as cheap as I can and still make it worth my while to make print copies available.

Anyway... back at it.

What are you up to today?  How do you feel about print copy books?  Do you think I should try out Amazon's new 'hardcover' option?

2021 Writerly Wrap-up

Well, 2021 is in the can.  Err... yeah, it was a shitcan, but it's over.  Now let's look back at it so we can move forward...

Out of a possible 365, I did something writerly 157 days.  Writing, editing, marketing, publishing, etc.  I only got one book published, but I finished writing it in 2021 and I finished writing the first draft (and the first round of edits) of another book this year.  I also noodled around with a couple other things.  I know I only worked 43% of the days, but that's about all I could manage in 2021.  It was an ass-kicking year whose name pretty much told the story - twenty-twenty WON.  

I did get one book published - Rumor Has It.  It sold 11.38 copies.

Speaking of sales... well, I did worse than 2020.  I only sold 69.92 books overall.  I made a little bit more money over 2020, but I had fewer 99c sales, so there was that.  I won't bother you with the book-by-book breakdown I usually do.  It was bad.  So bad, that I didn't sell a single copy of Unequal all year and only a tiny fraction of Project Hermes (like a page or two).

In case you weren't following along, I am in the process of removing all my books from the Kindle Unlimited program and taking them wide.  All my books are wide except for Fertile Ground (still in KU), Early Grave (waiting on FG to drop), and Project Hermes (also still in KU).  Everything should be out and wide by the end of the month.  

To try and coax more sales, Dying Embers and Wish in One Hand are now 99c for the duration.  This isn't a sale.  It's a price change.  I'll let you all know if I decide to put the prices back to $3.99.

Looking forward, I hope to have this Untitled Fantasy ready to publish by no later than the end of March.  There, I said it.  Now I have to stick to it.  I also hope to write at least one or two books this year and see those published as well.  As long as this year doesn't turn into Twenty-Twenty 2: Son of 2020, I should be able to reach those hopes.  (Hopes, not goals, people.  After 2020 kicked my ass, I was so over making goals, and then 2021 happened.  Blerg.)

How was 2021 for you?  Did you reach your goals?  Did you even bother to set them after the year before?  What are you hoping for this year?

The Worth of a Book

The other day, someone posted about book pricing to a group I follow.  She was merely stating that a series she'd been enjoying had jacked the prices up on subsequent books, making it hard for her to continue to purchase them.  And a load of people jumped on her for daring to say 7.99 was too much for an ebook.  (And it was pounds not dollars, so even worse.)  

The people jumping on her like she was a witch who needed to be burned seem to have forgotten a salient point - books, like any other commodity, are only worth what the BUYER wants to pay for them.  

Yeah, sure, writers put hours and hours of work into their product.  They pay for editing and cover art and marketing, too.  The last time I checked, I'd spent over $11,000 on publishing my books.  If we priced each book at the amount it was worth to us, no one could afford them.  As Hubs says, if I price them at $11K each, I only need to sell one.  But who'd buy it?

I know, I know... thinking about a book as a commodity gives some authors a case of the vapors.  But that's all it is... to the reader.  It's a thing to buy.  Versus all the other things a reader has to spend money on.  Sure, books provide hours of entertainment.  They can enrich your life and your mind.  But they are still only worth what the reader is willing or can afford to pay.  

Some made the argument that a book costs less than a movie, but provides longer lasting enjoyment.  Maybe so.  Lord knows, I'd rather read a book than go to a movie.  (Do people even go to movies anymore?)   But when the choice is buy a book or put that money toward groceries, the groceries win.  

And, by the way, we aren't the ones to say what the value of something OUGHT TO BE to someone else.  Maybe for them, a movie is worth more than a book.  

Again, the worth of the book is subjective and dependent on the buyer's whims, not the author's.

The poor gal who originally made the post about pricing had to shut it down to comments due to all the blasting she took.  I felt sorry for her.  She was only expressing an opinion.  I was right there with her and I said so before the comments went down.  They were saying things like 7.99 is nothing and trying to make her feel ashamed for questioning the price of someone else's hard work.  Maybe for them 8 per book is nothing.  For the gal, it was definitely something.  For me, it's definitely something.  

Would I like to get that much for my books?  Oh, hell, yes.  But I'm not going to berate anyone who can't afford that.  And I'm sure as hell not going to ask readers to shell out that much for a book when I can't do it myself.  Hell, I feel bad sometimes that my books are 3.99 or 4.99 because I know how it goes when you would like to read a book but can't justify the outgo in your budget.  

Those people who were blasting her for not considering what a writer puts into a book are guilty of not considering what a reader might be experiencing with regard to their finances.  Treating your readers like they're cheap assholes is not the way to go.  

Jus' sayin'.

International Paperbacks and Pricing

Recently, I received an email from Amazon that my paperbacks would now be available in Australia, and if I didn't go in and specify what I wanted those books to sell for, Amazon would choose a price for me.  When I went into each book to see what Amazon thought was a good price for my paperbacks, I saw that in each case, the amount they'd chosen would leave $0 for me.  

Umm... no.

So, I went through each and every book to change the price of the Australia paperbacks.  But in doing this, I noted that the prices I had let Amazon choose for all the other countries where paperbacks are available (based off my US price, supposedly) left very little meat on the bone for me. 

Noting this, I changed the prices for all international paperback copies.  I mean, come on.  I should be allowed to make a little somethin-somethin for the effort, eh?  I tried not to be greedy.  I mean, I make less on each paperback copy than I do on the ecopies of the same books - no matter what country it sells in.  

Unfortunately, with the amount Amazon takes for doing the job of printing and distributing, my paperbacks are not as cheap as I'd like them to be.  When you see the prices, don't curse me.  If I could give you all the same prices the trad pubs offer, I would.  I've got them all as cheap as I can make them - which is also why they aren't available for wide-distribution.  To give all those other sellers a cut,. I'd have to add even more money to the price just to eke out my dollar and change.  

It's the curse of being self-published, I guess.  :shrug:  There are quite a few of us self-pubs who don't even bother to offer hardcopy books because the expense versus the profit just isn't worth it.  I don't blame them.  But I wanted all of you to have a choice.  There it is.  

And, like I said, they're ALL now available as paperbacks in Australia.  Yay!  

And, if you're an author with paperbacks being printed and sold through Amazon, get in there and check your prices before you end up selling books and not getting any money for you.  Jus' sayin'.  

Paperbacks

Monday, I received the paperback proof of DUKE NOBLE, P.I.: RUMOR HAS IT and it's a beaut.  So, I approved it and yesterday morning I got the email letting me know it's now available for sale on Amazon.  I set it up at the price of $9.99.  It's the best price I can set and still make a little scratch for myself.  A little somethin' for the effort, eh?

I have 5 author copies due to arrive here April 14-17th.  One will be a gift to a friend.  One I've already got a buyer for.  

You know, I didn't realize it until now that I missed having paperbacks.  There's nothing quite like holding a physical copy of your books in your own hands.  Prior to this, the last book I published with a paperback version was Sleeping Ugly - which went live in August of 2018.  :sadface:

To rectify that, I will be creating paperbacks for the remaining books that don't have them - Ugly and the Beast, Cinder Ugly, Blink of an I, and Unequal.  Not sure of the time frames on those.  I have to format them for print and then I have to contact my cover artist for UatB and CU, to see what her schedule looks like.  And whether she'll want more money since it's been a couple years.  She shouldn't but I wouldn't blame her.  Then I have to create covers for Blink and Unequal.  Busy busy.  

If you've been waiting on these, I apologize.  Paperbacks cost money up front and I just haven't been able to part with it.  I'm going to try to do better this year.  

As to the paperbacks being only available on Amazon, well, you see, in order for me to make a paperback widely available, I have to jack the price.  If I made RHI a $10.99 book, I wouldn't make any money when it sold at any other vendor.  $0 to me, so what's the point of that.  I could raise it $11.99 and make a little money out there in the world, but I don't want to pay $12 for a paperback so you shouldn't have to either   So I took it out of wide distribution and set the price lower.  At $9.99, I'm making a little over a dollar per book at Amazon.  If you hate Amazon and still would like a copy of any of my books, contact me directly and we'll see what we can do.  

Of course, it's cheaper for you and more profitable to me if you buy ebooks, but I understand that sometimes you just have to hold a real book in your hands.  I do the best I can to make these books as cost effective for you as I can.  And still make money for me.  

Thoughts?  Opinions?  

Additional Note:  While I was checking to make sure all my paperback books had the proper pricing, etc.  I noticed a couple things that hadn't been moved over properly from Createspace all those years ago.  Total faceplant on my part, I assure you.  I assumed everything was fine, so I didn't bother to check.  Unfortunately, that meant I didn't have all the metadata and keywords I could've had.  AND it didn't have me listed as having 'worldwide rights', which I most definitely do.  AND when I scrolled through the pricing for other countries, I discovered I was making ZERO profit for any books I sold in Japan.  Derp.  I haven't actually sold any paperbacks in Japan, but it could happen and I would've gotten ZILCH for them.  If you were like me and assumed everything would be fine from the great Createspace migration, go check everything now.  Seriously.

More Randomness

The five-days-free thing for UNEQUAL ended last night.  I moved 99 copies and it reached as high as 54th in free dystopian.  We'll see if any page reads come of this.  If nothing else, there are 99 people in the world with the opportunity to read and enjoy it.

I'm up to 27516 words on Cinder Ugly.  It would be more, but I took Friday off to watch Live PD and then the yardwork I did Saturday screwed up my wrists enough that I took that night off, too.  There's a pivotal scene coming up next and I have no idea what's gonna happen.  Should be fun writing.

I started work on the blurb for Ugly and the Beast.  Here's what I've got so far:

Jeni Braxxon’s life as a up-and-coming supermodel hit the skids when she got cursed.  The asshole who did this to her is rotting in jail, but the curse remains, leaving her as ugly as the north end of a southbound dump truck every damn night.  Still, she’s trying desperately to hold onto her old life.  As if this case of the gruesomes and impending unemployment wasn’t enough for a gal with serious esteem issues, someone snatches her nephew.  The fight is on to find the boy before something seriously heinous happens to him.  With the help of her friends and a magical cat, Jeni will face anything this world or the next throws at her.  If she’s lucky, she might just make it out alive.

Yeah, it's pretty rough, but you get the idea of what goes on, so it's not totally lame.  Or is it?  I'll keep working on it.

UatB is at the readers and so far, I'm feeling good about it.  We'll see if that holds once the responses start to come back. 

I tell ya, it's nice to be working again.  The writing is flowing pretty well and with it, excitement for other stuffs keeps popping into my head.  But I'm staying focused.  Fingers crossed the excitement is still there when I sit down to write SCIU #4 or DH #3.

Oh, and I did some pricing stuffs this weekend.  I raised the prices on Sleeping Ugly, Accidental Death, and Natural Causes to $3.99.  When Ugly and the Beast comes out, it'll be $3.99, too.  Just trying to get my books in line with the market and each other.

I hope y'all aren't bored with this random stuff, but it seems like the only stuff I can hold in my head long enough to write an entire post. 

How are things with you? 

Talking Pricing Again

I've been noticing something lately.  The price point for new indie books seems to have risen again.  I'm seeing quite a few that are set at $6.99.   (In fact, the book I just finished that I got for free is now $6.99.  It was pretty good, but I would never have gotten it at that price.)

Six ninety-nine.

I mean, it's good margin if you can get that much for your books.  But are they actually getting that much?

I just looked at one that sounded really interesting in the FB marketing post.  Clicked over to Amazon... $6.99.  Nope.  Too rich for my blood.  And then I noticed it had no reviews and its ranking is in the 7 millions.  (I've never even seen a book in the 7 millions before.  Ugh.)  For a book published in 2018.  Sad.

So, the question in my mind is 'what is driving these indie authors to price their books so high?'

Okay, the first real question was 'am I pricing my books too low?'  It's an eternal question floating around my head.  The answer... I don't know.  A few years back a popular author told people on his blog that $2.99 books were all crap.  (Yeah, thanks for that, dude.)  All my books were $2.99 at the time.  Since then, I've raised several of them to $3.99 and a couple to $4.99.  But for me, the regular price doesn't really matter because I'm only actually moving books when they're on sale.

Now, back to the question of what's driving this.  I suspect part of it is a wish to make more per book - I mean, who doesn't want to make more per book? - and the belief people will actually buy their books at that higher price point.  I mean, if traditional books are $9.99, why not price your indie books at $6.99?  Surely people will see that your book is worth that.  The problem comes when people aren't actually buying books at the higher price point because the author is unknown to them, the ranking sucks, etc.  Which makes the rankings worse and... it's a vicious cycle.

Then the question comes around of 'if your books aren't selling at $6.99, why are you keeping them at $6.99?'  Or maybe that's just a question in my head and they aren't thinking about it.  :shrug:

Anyway, I'm just pondering things this morning.  I did feel bad for the guy.  Like I said, the story sounded really interesting.  I might've even taken the chance if it were $3.99 or $2.99, but I just can't afford to drop $6.99 for a new-to-me, underappreciated author.  Plus, I've been burned taking a chance on books that were 99c or free.  And every burn makes me less likely to take a chance again.  I'd love to be in a position to splash money around to all the indies I wanted, but I just can't.

What about you?  What are you willing to spend on a book?  What if it's an untried author? 

People Want a Deal

Okay, I think I figured something out.  People don't want to buy 99c books, but they want to pay 99c for books.

Lemme explain...

I regularly use Kindle Countdown Deals and typically price my books at 99c for the duration of the KCD.  Unless it's a series.  Then I put the first book at 99c and the others at like $1.99.  This time I made all the books in the OUAD series 99c just to see what would happen.  My last KCD for OUAD, I sold a bunch of Wish In One Hand, but not that many of the other books.  This time, people are buying all 4 books.  Oh, they're still buying more copies of WIOH than the others, but WIOH is the one in the ad, so that's expected.

Additionally, a while back I had the bright idea that if people were buying my books when they were 99c for a KCD, then it stood to reason that they wanted 99c books.  Nope.  Wrong.  I think I actually sold fewer books when they were all regularly 99c then when they were at their usual prices (which, at that time, was $2.99 across the board).  And I definitely sold less than when they were 'on sale' for 99c.

Turns out, people want to feel like they're getting a deal.  And regularly priced at 99c is apparently not a deal. 

Also, I know there's a mindset out there that 99c books are low-quality books.  I read a blog post once, by a bestselling author no less, that books priced at $2.99 and under aren't worth reading cuz they obviously all suck or they'd be priced higher.  (No their exact words, but that was the gist.  And thanks for gisting that publicly, asshole.)  But books on sale for 99c don't suffer under the same misconception, I guess.

So, I raised all my prices back to $2.99 and then raised most of them to either $3.99 or $4.99.  (Accidental Death, Natural Causes, and Sleeping Ugly are all at $2.99 for the time being.  May change that soon.)  I still see most of my sales when they're 'on sale', but I think simply having my books priced higher makes those times I discount my books more attractive to buyers.

:shrug:  The psychological aspects of book sales.  Weeee.

Hope that helps.  I'll probably do a numbers post on this sale sometime next week, so y'all can see what's going on.  Meanwhile, I have a round of FB posts to do.  Catch ya later.

Pricing

You may remember that I mentioned something a little while back about changing the pricing for my books.  And you may also remember my staunch insistence a longer while back on keeping my books at $2.99.  So what changed?

Well, I've been considering things.  Mulling them over in my head.  Stewing on them.

It seems to me that comparable books to mine are priced higher than mine.  And yeah, there's the whole perceived disrespect for $2.99 books.  And...  Yeah... well, I'm trying something to maybe shake things up a little sales-wise.

And since, right now, the majority of my sales come from Kindle Unlimited page reads - which are unaffected by the list price of a book - I figure I can't hurt anything by switching things up a bit.

And since, other than page reads, the majority of my sales come from discounting my books, the list price really isn't affecting those sales either.

But maybe, just maybe, having a higher price will make some people more likely to buy my books or read my pages - especially when they DO go on sale and I have advertising in place...

Eh, it's worth a shot.

To that end, Project Hermes went up to $4.99 over the weekend.  As did Blink of an I.  Like I said, it seems to me that comparable books in length and genre are priced at that or higher.

Now comes the tricky part.  Amazon won't let you change a price within 30 days of a Kindle Countdown Deal.  Either you change the price and have to wait 30 days to have a KCD or you have a KCD and have to wait 30 days to raise the price.  This means that the sales I'm planning for Dying Embers and for Wish in One Hand (July and August respectively) will junk up when I'm able to raise the prices for those series.  So, SCIU and OUAD will remain at $2.99 each for at least the next couple months.  After that, those two series will increase to $3.99 each.

I think I'm going to leave the Dennis Haggarty Mystery series alone at $2.99 each for now.  That feels like it's in line with similar books.  And I'm planning on Sleeping Ugly launching at $2.99.  It's a shorter, snarkier paranormal novel and that's what those seem to be priced at when I go to buy them.

We'll see how this goes.  I could fall flat on my face.  But I'll never know if I never try.  And doing things the same way I've been doing them isn't getting me better results than I've been seeing.  

And that's where my brain is at right now.  Any questions?  Comments? 

The Value of Time - Part 2

I've been thinking about the whole 'value of time' thing and the hard numbers. 

For me, here's an estimate of how it works out...

My first drafts work out to be approximately 70,000 words.  I type an average of 1000 words an hour.  So, that's 70 hours.  Add another conservative estimate of 40 hours for editing it to the point where I can have my editor look at it.  Another 25 hours of inputting her initial edits.  Another 15 hours of inputting her proofreading edits.  Another 5 hours of final read-through to catch anything I might've missed.  2 hours of formatting. 

70+40+25+15+5+2 = 157 hours.  And that's if I don't make my own cover.  And it doesn't count research or networking or any one of a sundry other things I do to make a book happen.

157 hours.

At federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, that means a book would cost $1138.25 in labor.  Of course, the last time I had a job, I was earning roughly $19 an hour, so that's $2983 for a book.  And if I wanted to get freaky, when I was doing computer consulting, the company billed my time at $60 an hour, so that would be $9420, but they only gave me like $20 of that, so we're back to around $3000.

$3000 per book in labor alone. 

If I priced it that way, I'd only need to sell one. LOL.  But, like I said before, the market doesn't give a rat's hairy butt what it costs me to produce a book.  They only care about what they are willing to pay for said book.  Oh, I could charge $9.99.   I'd need to sell about 300 books to break even.  But when I raise my price, I get no sales.  Zero times anything is still always zero, and breaking even point moves farther away instead of closer.  True, I haven't tried raising the price to traditional publishing levels.  That's laughable to me.  I did try once to make one of my books $5.99.  Crickets.  Drop the price to $3.99, I get some sales.  Drop it to $2.99, more sales. 

Now, here's where it gets sticky.  I get even more sales when I go below $2.99, but then I also drop from a 70% royalty structure to 35%.  More sales, less money. 

For the same amount of work.  But, again, readers don't care about my level of effort. Well, unless my level of effort is low and the book is crap.  Then they care.  And I'm okay with that.  That's how it should be. 

I don't tell you any of this to make you feel bad that I'm doing all this work and only making like $2 a book.  That's life.  I'm pretty okay with that $2.  Sell a hundred books, get two hundred dollars.  Sounds good to me.  I'd get it all in cash and roll around in it naked, but that seems silly.  And if I wasn't doing this writing thing for whatever my hourly wage would actually work out to, I'd have to get a job working for someone else.  I could make $9.50 an hour at the Tyson plant, where it either smells like yummy chicken nuggets all day or it smells like rotten meat bad enough to make me gag when I drove past.  (I used to drive by the place to get to Walmart, so yeah, it's either yum or barf.)

Personally, I'd rather be doing this. 

Anyway, that's how it plays out here at the Sanderson Ranch.  Any questions?

Oh, and if your comment doesn't show up right away, it means I went fishing.  ;o)

The Value of Time

There's a meme going around that talks about writing as if it was some lofty, sacrosanct thing - giving readers a piece of our souls.  Bleh.  This.  This is part of the crux of the whole 'value of my time' thing.

The other day, I posted about my reasoning for pricing my books low.  A commenter there said something about writers devaluing their time by pricing books low.  Not just that person thinks that way, it's all across the range of authors. But I think they're wrong.

Lemme 'splain.  No, that would take too long.  Lemme sum up.

We don't get to choose how valuable our time is.  The market chooses that.

If I spend 100 hours writing a book, that's on me.  If I spend 200 hours or 400 hours, it's still on me.  It doesn't change the worth of my book to the people who buy it.  (If that was the case, the Game of Thrones books would be astronomically priced. I've heard he takes forever to write one of those.  I wouldn't know. I can't afford to read him anyway.)  If my book is awesome, people will buy it.  If it's gold-plated awesome with sprinkles, they might even be willing to pay more for it.  But that depends on how much they can afford.  Right now, with taxes through the roof and health care costs skyrocketing and grocery prices soaring, people can afford less and less.  Especially for sundry items - like books.

I'd really love to buy all my friends' and beloved authors' traditionally published books.  It makes me sad that I can't.  But thems the breaks.

You know, I would also love to eat nothing but Magnum Gold ice cream bars.  They look awesome.  Gold-plated awesome.  But my budget tells me to walk past them and snag the store-brand ice cream sandwiches instead.  Are Magnum Gold worth the higher price?  I guess so.  I've never tried them.  They're priced out of my range. And they're not a necessity to my existence.  They're sundry.

When choosing reading material, I have to watch my budget like a hawk.  If I only have $10, do I spend it all on one ebook?  Or do I buy 3 ebooks at $2.99?  Or 10 ebooks at 99 cents ea.?  You can guess which way I usually go - a mix of $2.99 and $.99 depending on what looks interesting.  (And when I don't have $10 to blow on books, I hit the thrift store and buy books 4/$1.)

I know not every reader is in the same straits I am.  But I'd be willing to bet there are more on my end of the budgetary scale than on the other end.  I price my books for those people. I want as many people as possible to read my books. And I can price them that way because I am self-published, and no one is standing behind me telling me I have to price them higher.  (Well, maybe there's a whole crowd of people back there, but I don't have to listen to them.)  The only person who has any say besides myself in the pricing is Hubs, and he agrees with me. 

Of course, we also joked early on that all I should price Dying Embers at $1000 and all I need to sell is one copy.  We both had a good laugh about that.

This, of course, is strictly my pricing strategy and my opinion.  Like I said, I have the luxury of being able to price my own books - something no traditional author has.   They might hate people like me.  I can live with that if the readers appreciate what I'm doing.  Then again, those TP authors might wish they could set their own prices, too.  :shrug:

I'm sure somewhere in the industry, people are suggesting that all authors band together and set an across the board minimum price.  Shame on them.  That's called 'price fixing' and it's illegal.  Also, it's a bully tactic and it's force.  Not a big fan of force over here.  And bullies should always get what they deserve - a swift kick in the pants. 

So, that's my two cents.  Disagree if you want to, but understand that no one is going to tell me what my books should or shouldn't be priced at - except the market.  And if you feel like you should've paid more for my books, feel free to send me money. LOL

Why My Books are Inexpensive

I'm not a wealthy woman.  I'm not even close.  Never have been.  Even when my husband was making good money, we were penny-pinchers because we knew that saving every penny we could would get us out there that much sooner.  Back then, I sold used books online to fund my book-buying addiction, but now, I live too far from the post office to make that a reasonable way to earn extra cash.  I keep the reins on my current book budget tight.  I have to. 

And I expect that the majority of readers out there are feeling the pinch, too.

Every once in a while, I'll see an impromptu survey on FB asking how much people are willing to spend on an ebook.  The results are usually around $3.99 with the occasional dip into high priced ebooks if it's an author or a series the reader really loves. 

My books are all $2.99.  Why?  Since I'm self-published, I can set whatever price I want to.  I could set them at what I think they're worth.  I could set them at what it costs me to put them out.  But who wants to pay that exorbitant amount?  LOL

I set them all at $2.99 because I don't want to feel like a hypocrite.  If I can't afford to buy a book higher than $2.99, how could I possibly expect readers to pay more for my books? 

Sure, if I sold them for more, I might be able to afford to buy higher priced books...  But it doesn't work that way. Since $2.99 also seems to be what the market will bear, setting the price higher will actually net me less money in the long run.  (Ask traditional publishing how that whole $9.99+ ebook strategy is working out for them.  Last I heard, they were crying that sales were down across the board.)

I read something the other day where a writer was basically damning Amazon for creating the push for cheap books.  And for sales sucking.  And indie authors are the culprits, too, because we're willing to make beans and driving the prices down...  Yeah, yeah.  Again, the market pretty much tells businesses what they are willing to pay.  And my market is telling me they want inexpensive reading material.

Of course, some of the same people who are demanding cheaper books are also damning cheaper books as being of lower quality, but that's a rant for another day. 

My point is, I set the price for all my books where I think people will be able to afford to buy them.  If you bought every one of my ebooks right now, you'd pay $20.93 for SEVEN books.  As opposed to the traditional publishing low-low price of $9.99 x 7 = $69.93.  You could buy all my books and take your spouse out to dinner for that amount.  Or pay part of the electric bill.  Or get your kids some new shoes.  (At Payless, but still.)

Jus' sayin'.

And, yes, the above only applies to ebooks.  I have to charge more for print because it costs more to produce them.  (Funny how that works, ain't it?)  And I have to be above a certain amount or I would end up owing Createspace money instead of making a little.  (Especially on their 'extended distribution'... but don't get me started on that.) 

So, there it is in a fruit cup.  I still hope to make money selling low-priced novels.  Volume is the key there.  Sell loads of books and then I won't have to worry if I'm making beans on each one.  I still won't be rich, but I'd like for this self-publishing venture to someday fund itself.  That'd be awesome.

What's the average amount you pay for books?  What's the most you'll pay for a book? Why?

Interesting Discussion with Hubs about Ebook Pricing

Yesterday, Hubs and I were talking about pricing and marketing and ebooks.  As has happened before - because I'm the reader in the family and I know these things - Hubs wanted to know about traditionally published book pricing vs self-published pricing.

Basically it started out with me talking about my own books' pricing, and how much, as a reader, I'm willing to pay for an ebook and why.  (I mean besides the obvious reason that my book buying budget is dinky because I'm funneling most incoming fundage into the book publishing budget.)

Me:  I have a tough time spending more than $3.99 for an ebook, unless it's the next in a series from an author I really love.  And there's only one series I have to have immediately, so I spend $9.99* when they come out because I don't want to wait for the paperback.

Hubs: And how much are the paperbacks?

Me:  Usually? $7.99 or $8.99 but they come out like a year later.  I think (name withheld) puts his paperbacks out at $9.99, so I'm not paying more to have it early.


Hubs: So, let me get this straight.  The paperback - which costs the publisher more money to produce than the ebook - is more expensive than the paperback.  No wonder they're screaming so hard about keeping ebook pricing high.  That's where they're making all their money.
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We didn't devolve this time into how much of that price the traditionally published author actually takes home.  For them what don't know, it's typically 15% minus the agent's 15% minus any marketing pay for themselves.  (Someone will correct me if this has changed recently.)

So, I walk into our office/library to check something out.  Another author I generally buy in paperback - because Walmart always stocks her new releases - has the list price at $7.99. I paid like $5.99 at Walmart.  I went on Amazon to check the list price of the paperback against the list price of the Kindle version.  Same same.  $7.99 either way.  Unless you're getting the Wallyworld discount.  Same book but with the paperback, the publisher has printing costs and labor and shipping and overhead - in addition to the across-the-board costs of editing, cover art, etc. that all versions of this book bear. 

Hmm.  Curious. 

Then I went to see what a big-name traditionally published author charges for his books.  For his most recent release, MSRP list price = $28.00. Amazon is selling it for $16.80.  Kindle price? $14.99.  The paperbacks aren't due to be released until February and they're listed at $15.99 a pop (or Amazon rate of $12.60).  Wow.  But he's really popular and people will shell that out.  Too bad he's only getting a fraction of that with a fraction taken out of it. 

It's really not surprising that the traditional publishers are pissed at the indies.  We undercut their pricing by around 60% ($3.99 vs $9.99 = $6 difference. If my math is wrong, shoot me.), produce a comparable quality piece of merchandise, and have little overhead.  Rascally upstarts that we are.  What I'm kind of surprised about is that the authors aren't pissed at their publishers who are making loads off the ebook sales and not sharing a larger portion of the pie. :shrug:  Maybe someday publishing contracts will catch up with new technology, but that's a discussion for another time.

One of these days, I'll have to do some more research into how much it costs to produce hardcopy books vs the cost of producing an ebook.  I think the readers might like to know.  But right now, I have work to do.  These books aren't writing themselves. 

*This author's Kindle book prices drop after they've been out for a while.  The last one I bought for Kindle is now $7.99.  It was worth the $2 difference to have it on release day, imo.