Ebook Pricing - Redux

I’ve always been a proponent of higher ebook prices.

Not the crazy $12.99 more-than-the-paperback prices that legacy publishing is so fond of so they can continue to pay Manhattan rents—but higher than $0.99, certainly. Even for a short story.

That’s right, once upon a time, my short stories were selling for $2.99. And yes, they were selling.

But things changed. The indie market got more crowded. Authors started selling their full-length novels for $0.99 and some even gave them away for free. Blogs popped up everywhere telling Kindle owners where to find free and cheap ebooks.

So I decided to experiment with my prices. I lowered the prices on all my stories to $0.99—that was everything from 3K-15K. Everything else (some of which was priced as high as $5.99) I lowered to $3.99. And I left them that way for three months. A full quarter of ebook sales.

What did I discover?

At first, I found that lowering my price to $0.99 shot me up on a few bestseller lists. That increased my exposure, which was great. And I also found that my sales of those $0.99 titles doubled. Stories that had previously been selling 50 a month were now selling 100.

Sounds good, right?

But, of course, at $0.99 I was getting a 35% instead of the 70% royalty I’d been making when I was selling them at $2.99. I was now making roughly $35 a month on a story that had previously been taking in about $100 a month—a loss of $65 a month in income. Multiply that by twenty-five short stories (which is about what I have out there) and that’s a $1650 a month loss.

Worth it?

At first, I thought it might be, given the exposure. The higher you are in the rankings, the more people see your name, the more sales you make, right? But over time, more and more (and more!) indie authors started selling their stuff at $0.99 too, and those lists became overrun with cheap books.

I’d pretty much decided to quit the experiment when I read a comment from Konrath on his blog confirming my suspicion—that authors don’t make money at anything less than $2.99. Which meant, and I’ll quote Joe here:

“My data also shows that novels outsell short stories, even though I've priced my shorts at 99 cents. It stands to reason that if I switch shorts to $2.99, I'll sell fewer, but I bet I make more money. So the next step is to raise novels to $3.99-$4.99 and short stories to $2.99 and see what happens. Assuming I have the guts to do so...”

I’ve now changed all my short story prices back to $2.99, and raised my novel prices to $4.99. I imagine I’ll run this experiment for another three months and see what happens. If logic prevails, I’ll sell fewer books, but make more money.

But as Joe pointed out, doing this takes guts. Moving beyond the magical $2.99 price-point for novels, pushing those higher, to make room for short stories at that price, is a risky proposition. Will the market bear it?

Honestly, I think it will. And here’s why—Kindle readers are tired of $0.99 cheapies. The shine is off the new toy, people have stopped loading their Kindles up with freebies and cheapies, and have started getting more discerning about what they download. Many Kindle readers are starting to shy away from the $0.99 price point because they’ve read some stinkers and don’t want to travel down that road again. What was once a huge draw for Kindle readers—oooh, look, cheap books for my new toy!—has now become the opposite.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Which is why it’s a scary experiment!

Apropos for Halloween, don’t you think?

So let’s kick off this frightening new price point with a $2.99 story very fitting for the season, shall we?

 

HUNTING SEASON – A Love Blood Story by Blake Crouch and Selena Kitt

For those of you scratching your heads, wondering how in the heck the pair of us ending up writing together, given that our genres are so vastly different, I’ll explain. Back at the beginning of the year, I’d posted some of my sales numbers on Joe’s blog, which at the time were astronomical (I was making $30,000 a month at Barnes and Noble alone!) and Joe jokingly said, “If you ever want to collaborate, let me know!”

I’d just finished reading and reviewing DRACULAS – and being the huge horror fan that I am, how could I resist? I emailed him to say, “I know you were kidding, but I’d love to collaborate with you guys.” And to my surprise, Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch actually took me up on the offer! They were planning a sequel to DRACULAS called WOLFMEN, and wanted me on board, along with a fourth writer (who has yet to be disclosed).

It made perfect marketing sense to cross-pollinate their audience and mine, which were both large, but vastly different.

Of course, no one knew if this great idea would work in practice…

So Blake Crouch agreed to take me out for a test run, and that’s how this story was born. The collaboration process was, I must say, an amazing success, and I couldn’t be prouder of the result. I really think this story is something special—but I’m probably a little biased!

If you want to know more about how HUNTING SEASON: A Love Blood Story was written, what the process was and how things developed, there’s an interview between myself and Blake included as bonus material at the end.

It’s available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for… you guessed it.

$2.99.

Is it worth it?

You be the judge!

HUNTING SEASON – A Love Blood Story by Blake Crouch and Selena Kitt

This 8,000 (approx) word collaboration by thriller/suspense/horror writer Blake Crouch and erotic romance author Selena Kitt includes bonus interview material with the authors about the upcoming sequel to the Konrath, Crouch, Strand and Wilson bestseller DRACULAS.

-------------

He’s a butcher.

She’s the trophy wife of a trophy hunter.

They used to be high school sweethearts, but that was two decades ago, and times have changed.

Meet Ariana Plano...40 years old, miserable, stuck in a loveless marriage to the worst mistake of her life.

Meet Ray Koski...40 years old, miserable, a lonely butcher who can do nothing but immerse himself in the drudgery of his work.

Once a week during hunting season, she brings her old teenage flame game meat for processing. 

They do not speak. They rarely make eye contact. Some histories are just too painful.

But this week will be different.

This week—a shocking encounter twenty-two years in the making—will change everything.

-SELENA KITT

Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget

What Amazon Kindle is Doing Wrong

I had a conversation today that got me thinking about what Amazon Kindle might be doing wrong.

I think we can all agree that they have done a lot right, in terms of selling ebooks - as their 70-80% of the market share proves. The Kindle is a fantastic e-reader, and as a dedicated device, I wouldn't recommend anything else. They make buying books ridiculously easy with 1-click (i.e. 1-crack). They make publishing books easy, too, for the big six, indie publishers, and self-pubbed authors alike. 

Aside from eliminating the agency pricing model, which is a given -  for me, there are two things that come to mind that would make the experience at Amazon a better one for readers and authors alike.

First would be allowing self-published authors to offer books for free. I understand that there's bandwidth and delivery issues involved as a cost, but they offer it to the Big Six publishers (and others as well - you'll notice Samhain Publishing offers free titles, and they're an indie) why not to self-pubbed authors? Even if we had to pay a fee for doing so, I think we'd all agree the boost in exposure would be worth it.

The second thing would be to give away a free ebook to everyone who buys a print version. As a reader, I know there are certain books I will always buy in print, as long as print exists, because I'm a fan and collect them. Stephen King books, for example, in my case. But I also want to read that book when I'm sitting at my son's wrestling practice or waiting at my daughter's orthodontist appointment, and I don't want to have to carry a huge hardcover with me. (Have you ever lifted one of the tomes SK has written? They're like doorstops!) I want it in ebook form, too. But if I want it...I have to pay for it. Again. And of course, because of the agency model, I may have to pay just as much (or more!) for the ebook version as I do for the hardcover! That just makes me mad.

I think Amazon Kindle is in a unique position to offer this option. Excessica publishes all our print books through Amazon's CreateSpace, and it would be easy, I would think, to link the systems together and give the reader an ebook version when they buy a print version. And it would also marry the idea of print-and-e together. It would send the message that they're not mutually exclusive, and Amazon isn't trying to "kill print books" with ebooks. (Even if they are... shhh!)

I also think they're setting the bar too low setting the price point at $2.99 for a full-length book, but that's something I've talked about before - and I'm gathering data together to see if my theory that pricing full-length books at $3.99 and $4.99 and even $5.99 doesn't hurt (and may even help) sales. That's something that Amazon doesn't really control, aside from the royalty option they've set up. It's the thrifty Kindle readers who seem to think that, after paying $200 for an e-reading device, content should be "nearly free."

I think Amazon Kindle has done a lot for ebooks - but I also think they need to pay attention to the trends and possibilities. The good news is, I think they are, and they will. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them offering the "free" option to self-pubbed authors and a complimentary copy of ebooks with a print sale as well. After all, they're now offering their popular 70% royalty rate on books sold in the UK.

The good thing about Amazon is they pay attention and listen to authors. Which is more than can be said, it seems, for big publishing.

Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

October experiment

I decided to do an experiment with my short story sales during the month of October.  I posted them on Smashwords over the last couple of months at a price of .99cents and made 4 sales over that course of time.  

On October 1, I reset all the titles to "Pick your own price" and sold three times as many within a couple days as I had within the last two months.  Of course, pick your own price also includes free as a price tag - but if people find a writer they like, they tend to continue to read other stuff by that same author.  I figured this was the best way I could get these stories into the hands of readers, to get folks to take a chance on me.

I'm not sure if it will translate into real sales when this is all said and done, but my hope is that it will raise awareness and open more doors for my work. 

There has been a great debate on what the golden price is for an e-book and I've seen $2.99 thrown out there a fair amount  of times.  Is that the magic number?  I don't know, but from a consumer standpoint, I'd more readily take a chance on an unknown author if the price was $2.99 as opposed to $6.99 or higher.  I'd also be more likely to impulse buy at the lower amount too. 

Perhaps this theory has creedence.  What would happen if a publisher set the price of a new release as $2.99 for a full length novel - even if it only lasted for the first month along with an advertisement of new releases on sale.   

After all, it is amazing what the label "sale" does to the purchasing mentality.

Until next time . . .
JET

http://www.jetaylor75.com/

Ebook Price War Solution

I've got a lot of friends in the UK who were very excited to see the addition of Kindle to the UK store. Kindle, I've noticed, has separated out the UK sales from the US sales in our royalties - probably because authors are still getting 35% on their UK sales, while from the US sales, they're getting 70% (as long as the book is priced between $2.99 and $9.99).

In spite of low author royalties in the UK, Amazon is scrambling to deep-discount books before agency pricing starts to take effect in the UK, as it did in the US (much to most consumers' chagrin!) It seems that Amazon wants to brand the consumer's brain with the idea that books should be priced on average at $2.99 - and certainly no higher than $9.99. And while I certainly agree with the latter, I'm not so sure about the former $2.99 price point.

Besides, it looks like Amazon wasn't quite fast enough. Hachette, the UK's largest publisher, is taking the same route the Big Six publishers in the U.S. have taken - they are demanding agency pricing from Amazon on Kindle books sold in the UK.

And the price-wars continue...

Will the investigation into price-fixing by the Texas Attorney General come to anything? Who will win in the end? Who knows?

But we all know consumers and authors both lose if books continue to be over-priced the agency way. Some of the forums on Amazon are eye-opening, with consumers threatening boycotts of overpriced books (and their authors). Granted, I happen to think some Kindle folks are a little extreme about ebook pricing, thinking full-length books should be priced at $2.99.

Because ebooks are such an ethereal sort of thing, people are loathe to pay much for them. I get that. After all, you can't share them with a friend, and there's always the fear your hard drive may crash (or your ebook vendor will go out of business) and your e-library might disappear. Ebooks don't seem quite "real" - even if you're actually getting the same amount/time of entertainment with them that you would with a hardcover.

It's hard to wrap our heads around paying $9.99 for something that doesn't quite seem "real." But think about it - we do that now when we go to the theater to see a movie. (In fact, if you're into buying popcorn, you pay quite a bit more). And you don't get to take that movie home with you, or get to watch it again, the way you get to read an ebook.

Now, granted, if you're a bargain-hunter like me, you can go see a matinee show for $3.75, or the twilight show for $4.75 (your mileage may vary depending on your state - or country - of origin). Or you can wait to buy the DVD and have it to watch over and over (at least until it gets all scratched - am I the only one who misses VHS for that reason?)

So why should a bargain ebook be $0.99 and a full-length novel ebook be priced at $2.99? Could we be down-valuing the medium?

Personally, I think ebooks should be priced based on length. This model has been used by indie ebook publishers for over ten years. (Yes, it's true, there were thriving ebook publishers and distributors before Kindle!)

Our own eXcessica pricing is based on length:

$0.99 Short Shorts: Under 3K
$1.99 Shorts: 3-7K
$2.99 Stories: 7-15K
$3.99 Novelettes: 15-35K
$4.99 Novellas: 35-50K
$5.99 Novels 50-70K
$6.99 Super Novels: 70-140K
$7.99 Super XL Novels: 140-250K
$8.99 Super XXL Novels: 250K +

It's a good, and I think fair system for both authors and consumers. I mean, come on - the average candy bar costs $0.99 - and I think a short little story is probably more nourishing than a Snickers.

Remember what you're paying for - the amount of time you get to be entertained by a book.

In a world where everything has gone Supersize for so little investment - where you can get a Gazillion Ounce Big Gulp Slurpee for $0.99, but "real" food (i.e. an organic apple, for example) costs so much more - we have developed a Wal-Mart mentality where we want everything for nothing.

But the reality is you still get what you pay for - a $0.99 Slurpee is something that took very little energy to produce. The apple, on the other hand, took a long time to grow, and under the loving, watchful eye of an organic farmer.

So with ebooks. A $0.99 book should be a short-short - something it took an author perhaps an afternoon or two to write and polish. A 100,000 word tome that took a writer half of his life to complete, might, perhaps, deserve a little more investment.

There has to be a middle ground between the price-gouging of agency model and the deep discounts of Amazon and Wal-Mart. I think basing ebook price on length might just be the place we're looking for.

-Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com