What an exciting day here at The WG2E!!!
Today, we’re launching our brand new series that we’re calling…
The Ruth Harris Reports
Ohhhh yeahhh…reporting straight from the Indie Epublishing trenches, based on our own WG2E-Land collective data, by…
NYTimes Bestelling Author Ruth Harris
In her debut WG2E Case Study, Ruth has examined Ebook Pricing.
Her results may surprise you…or may not.
But either way, we can’t wait to get your comments.
So take it away, Ruth…
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CASE STUDY #1: PRICING
By Ruth Harris
We’re going to talk about money today. Specifically, in December I asked writers to share their theories and experiences with pricing. How high is too high? How low is too low? And what about Free? Do we go for ranking, the number of sales, appearance on bestseller lists or do we stick to business and add up the dollars?
To add to the complexity, there are a number of considerations. First of all, length: are you pricing a short story, a novella, a full-length novel? If you are a previously TradPubbed writer pricing a newly digitized backlist book originally published in hard cover or paperback, what would be fair? Should humor be priced differently from mystery, a thriller higher or lower than a romance? Who is your market: teen-agers or senior citizens, thirty-something women or forty-something men?
Sharon Ihle , the best-selling author of The Bride Wore Spurs and more than a dozen award-winning historical romances set in the American West, commented on the difference between a 99c price and $2.99 and spoke of the importance of promotional support:
“I have been manipulating prices for several months now and have come to this conclusion: $2.99 seems to be the best price for backlist books, nothing higher. I drop a book a month to .99 cents. I’ve found GREAT success at doing this IF I’m able to get a site to promote it for me such as ENT or Kindleboards, etc. If I just drop a book to .99 cents without outside pr help, it creates a bump, but not enough to fatten my bank account by much. This month for the first time I’ll have two specials set at .99 cents. One does not have outside pr help, the other does. I’m interested to see how the no help book does and if there’s any spillover from the one with the pr, but there’s no way it will earn the way the pr book will. Getting the pr help is another story…a TOUGH story.”
CJ Archer is the RWAustralia award winning author of historical romance. CJ, who has worked as a librarian and a tech writer, compared the Free, 99c, $2.99 and $3.99 price levels. She also addresses the perception of 99c as “crap” and wonders whether the 99c price still has the power it once had. CJ commented:
“The book I’ve done the most experimenting with is Honor Bound which is currently free. It’s an historical paranormal romance.
“HB was 99 cents back in March and was selling 30-50 copies a day. I raised the price in May to $2.99 and sales immediately halved but I was earning more money. Over the next few months, sales continued to decline into the single digits so I lowered it again to 99 cents. There was no sales spike except for some bumps when it got featured by discount sites like eReader News Today. These bumps didn’t last beyond a couple of days. I kept the sequel to this book steady at $2.99 this whole time and its sales remained steady too.
“When HB went free recently, I raised the price on the sequel to $3.99. The sequel’s sales jumped but Amazon are discounting it to $2.99, however at all other venues where it’s $3.99 it seems to be doing well. Conclusion – starting at 99 cents gave the book some exposure but as soon as I raised the price, its sales slumped. However I was earning more money. Going free helped the sequel enormously.
“I don’t think 99 cents works as well as it used to. At the beginning of the year there were fewer 99 cent books so those that were set at 99 cents were snapped up. Now there’s a glut and readers have come to think of 99 cents as being crap. Time sifting through bad books to find the good ones is worth more to people than a few dollars. I’ve decided to keep all my book-length works at $3.99 to avoid the stigma and get the higher revenue that comes with the 70% royalty. I’ll lower the first books in series to free once for about a month to give it exposure.”
Rob Cornell, author of dark fantasy and thrillers, tried 99c and $2.99 pricing. He describes the different results:
“In July I put my thriller, Red Run, on sale on the 18th. Before that date I had sold 13 copies (at $2.99). I sold 51 more that month after I changed the price. I thought I’d found The Secret. Then I did the money math. On the 13 novels I sold at $2.99, I made around $27. On the 51 I sold at the 99 cent price point, I made about $15. Since selling at 99 cents didn’t put me on any bestseller lists, I wasn’t too fond of my results and began to see the wisdom of Dean Wesley Smith’s take on ebook pricing.
“The following month I returned to my $2.99 price. I only sold 27 copies but that meant I had earned about $56 dollars. Half the sales, but twice the income. Pretty much made up my mind about 99 cent deals. If that pricing can bump you on a bestseller list, I can see where it might help. But for small fish like me working my way up, I would have to make a great many 99 cent sales to hit a list. Without hitting the list, I can make more money at the higher price point.
“Granted, my experiment was short, small, and only on one of my books. So I don’t know how conclusive it really is. Checking sales on my other books during that sale, there’s no indication that they helped my other books. The only boost was on that one book.
“I recently did a short sale on my paranormal thriller, Darker Things. At 99 cents I saw a quick boost. Then nada. Sales completely dropped off. Now I’m experimenting in the opposite direction. I’ve moved the price of all my novels to $4.95. Right now Amazon has the “discounted” to $2.99 because the prices on the other sites I reach through Smashwords haven’t updated yet. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the higher prices kick in.”
Suzanne Tyrpak, author of historical suspense set in ancient Rome, originally priced her bestsellers at $2.99 but reports on her more recent experience when she raised prices:
“Originally I priced Vestal Virgin at $2.99 (aside from two weeks at .99 cents when I first released the novel). Last summer, when Amazon began tinkering with the algorithms and many indies saw their sales begin to slip, I decided to raise the price to $3.99. The book had been out for about six months, had garnered a number of good reviews, and—having a background in marketing—I wanted to see if readers might perceive it as more worthwhile if I priced it higher.
“I frequently compare my Amazon ranking to a few other books in my category (historical suspense, ancient Rome). Despite my book’s higher price, I noticed that Vestal Virgin continued to keep pace with books priced at $2.99. The past few months have been rough on many indie writers. The higher price helped to offset the slip in sales. I’m happy about my pricing decision, and I have no plans to lower the price (except for promotions). If anything, I’m considering raising the price to $4.99.”
In September, Dean Wesley Smith, a writer with deep experience in both TradPubbing and e-pubbing, wrote a blog about pricing. In it, he concluded that fair ebook pricing should come in at: Short stories, 99 cents. Short novels and short collections (Anything from 15,000 words to 45,000 words), $2.99. Novels or long collections (45,000 words and up), $4.99-$5.99 range.
My own, so far very limited, experience has been cautionary. I priced my fiction at 99c to introduce and reintroduce myself to readers. The novels—all of them published by Big6 publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s Press, some of them New York Times bestsellers, all with excellent media reviews (no, I didn’t write them myself!)—sold slowly but steadily. I noticed that at 99c, I got very few reader reviews and wondered if, at that price, buyers actually read the books they buy. I also tend to agree that at 99c people think they’re buying amateurish dreck, not worth their time or attention.
In November, I raised the prices to $2.99 and sales just about stopped dead. I learned from other writers that November, the month leading up the holidays, had been slow for many. I also knew that my category, women’s fiction/mainstream fiction, is not as popular as thrillers and zombies (I saw a chart showing that WF/MF occupies only 3% of the ebook market). I lowered my prices back down to 99c for the holidays but intend to raise them again in 2012 and will take Dean Wesley’s conclusions into account. I will also publish new work in different categories and offer boxed sets of my two trilogies at advantageous prices.
Pricing is a complex and, as yet, unsettled issue as the many threads about this subject on Writers’ Cafe make clear. I want to end by pointing out that in addition to different opinions and different experiences with pricing, there are many variables over which writers have no control. Has Amazon changed its logarithms? Have a flood of free books deluged the market? Has Nora Robert’s massive backlist been released in epub version? Will a great, new, superduper ereader be introduced that will bring in millions more readers and expand the market even further?
Bottom line: the screenwriter William Goldman famously said, speaking about movies: “Nobody knows anything.”
Same thing seems to apply to ebook pricing. At least so far. Trial and error and the experiences of others is all we currently have to guide us.
–
Ruth Harris
NYTimes bestselling author
After reading this, I can honestly say I’m confused. I read books in every price range. I review at every price range. I’ve had good books at every price range, and bad the same. When a indie authors starts out at, say 2.99, then lower the price when the next in the series is released, now that makes sense. Starting at .99 and then raising the price doesn’t look good to the reader. It looks like all the author is really concerned with is money. Of course they want to make money, but to buy a book at .99 tell a friend how great it was, and when they go to buy it’s up by $2, as a consumer, I probably would never buy another book by the author or recommend it. I’d see the author as fickle. As indies there is a lot of freedom in everything done in the career, including pricing. The author needs to weigh the worth of their work, look at other books of a similar word count and go from there in pricing. I recently read a book I paid a lot more than .99, that is by a tradi author, and it was well, crap. Crappy books are in every price range. As for free. I don’t even consider those, because usually it’s a lead into to buying the full version of the book. That only pisses me off. I hate to left hanging and then have to go buy the book. It breaks the mood. So free I’d never do. It’s all about what you think you’re work is worth, and how your work fits with others that is similar. When my book goes up, it won’t be free, or .99cents. My work is worth more then a dollar.
Hi Joanie, No wonder you’re confused! At this point, pricing is a super confusing issue. To add to the confusion, I neglected to point out that some of the very effective promotion sites require a 99c price.
You’re certainly correct that there are gems—and bow wows—at all price ranges. Same in TradPub. And not to forget that the same author is capable of great reads & not-so-great reads. Sometimes you buy the new book by a favorite writer and feel let down. Maybe the author wasn’t at his/her greatest. Or maybe you were just having a not-so-great day.
Writing a book is not at all like bottling Coke or selling hamburgers…authors aim for high quality but we don’t always achieve what we dream of—just like in Real Life…lol. In addition, one reader’s 5-star Wow! will be another reader’s 0-star blech.
Agree about the free thing – often it’s not the whole book! However, I’ll buy a free book if it’s a Classic, in which case they’re only free because they’re out of copyright (like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, for example, which I’m reading at the moment), or if I’ve been directed to it and know it’s a three-quid book on a promotion, eg with the KDP Select thing.
I tend to read the reviews first just to check it’s a whole book. If people are reviewing it saying that it’s a scam, I won’t bother, even if it’s free. It’s about the time as well as the money.
With free and cheap books, I have to admit they stay on my Kindle for ages until something particularly encourages me to read them, eg Sherlock Holmes, I’ve been watching the BBC series and decided to read the stories.
Great post, Ruth!
“Has Amazon changed its logarithms? Have a flood of free books deluged the market? Has Nora Robert’s massive backlist been released in epub version?”
Yes, to all of those, and I think because of these things, 2012 is going to be a lot harder.
My pricing experiment in 2011 was to keep my prices at $3.49 for my novels to see if indies could go above the expected $0.99 price point and still make reasonable sales. One of the problems being a non US author is extra taxes and charges for US dollar cheques. At this price, a novel is less than a Starbucks and muffin! And it hasn’t put my fab readers off. I also did to a freebie experiment – I blogged about it for WG2E here:http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/my-freebie-experiments and it definitely boosted sales of my other books.
What works for one book won’t necessarily work for another, so you’re so right about “nobody knows anything.” It’s all about trial and error for your books and your brand.
Sibel, thanks!
I agree that 2012 will most likely be harder. It’s also possible that Nook will continue to improve and the word is that Apple will come in with a much-improved e-publishing offering. More competition will be a big opportunity for writers and I welcome more, more, more!!!
It’s to our advantage: more readers, more outlets, more opportunities.
Wonderful post, and great legwork, too.
I wonder, Ruth, did you speak with anyone selling a one-two punch? I am currently working on a series of four books, and was contemplating releasing the first two at the same time. The first book would be free, the second book would be $2.99 (give or take). I know some authors have tried this with great results, but I just wanted to know what the consensus was.
Otherwise, great work, and I look forward to reading more posts from you!
I found that having the first in a series as a freebie definitely increased sales
Hi Katherine,
Thanks for the kind words but this post was a collaborative venture. Writers were so forthcoming with their experiences that the legwork (cyberwork?) was a pleasure.
No one I interviewed specifically mentioned the one-two punch but I know many writers use that approach and do so very successfully. It sounds like you’re on the right track.
I have the first book in my series at .99 and the five others at 2.99. I also do novelettes for free or .99 that include chapters of my other books. It works very well. I also plan my new releases when I know there is going to be a lull in sales. In the spring November and early summer to give my sales a real bump. Of couse the marketing follows that same path. Each genre is unique and all this information is so helpful.
Elizabeth, thank you for contributing your experiences and adding another valuable point of view to the entire pricing discussion. Your idea of introducing new releases when you anticipate a lull in sales is very smart.
Dr. Pope, also check out WG2E Guest S.J. Wright’s post who sort of did what you’re thinking of doing:
http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/pricing-books-two-three-etc-in-an-ebook-series
This is interesting. I priced my first ebook (a short story) at.99c and got only one sale but several sample downloads. As soon as I put it as free and let everyone know, the downloads shot up to just over double. I am going to keep it free. The next ebook, again a short story, at .99c. When I get published an actual ebook the length of a proper book, then I will price it higher.
Hi Julie,
Free works. People love free!
The one caveat I have heard writers mention—often—is that setting a book/story free seems to invite lousy reviews. The theory is that the people are promiscuous downloaders & then come face to face with something that just isn’t for them: A thriller fan confronted with a cozy? Oy! A horror fan diving into a sweet romance. Double oy!
So you see that even FREE! has a downside…
Yep, that’s very true about the negative reviews on freebies. I think some people download just because it’s free, without reading the blurb properly, and it also being something they wouldn’t normally read.
And for all of our superfab new WG2E-Land Peeps, here’s my experience with what I call “Ridin’ The Free-Way” too:
http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/d-d-scotts-ebook-sales-now-selling-more-ebooks-in-one-month-than-the-entire-last-year
I can tell you since September 2011, when I made the book that started it all for me – BOOTSCOOTIN’ BLAHNIKS – Free, I’ve had over 80,000 downloads
AND
Over 45,000 sales of my backlist titles!
Prior to that, it had taken me one full year (August 2010 – August 2011) to sell just 5000 Ebooks!!!
So Ridin’ The Free-way worked for me…because of the VISIBILITY I got at that out-of-the-box price point
BUT…
Now that KDP Select came into play and there are now over 60,000 Free titles on Amazon on any given day, I don’t think it will work at the same levels it did for those of back in September when there were just 1200 Free Ebooks on Amazon, and only about 700 of those non-public domain titles.
Why?
Because it’s now much more difficult to stand-out in that Free pack, so yep…less visibility.
That is so true about reviews and in general it seems those people love to leave them. Free short works are a good way to introduce yourself to new readers. That’s why I always put sample chapters of other books with them. It also lets me experiment with other story lines and characters to see how they are received before I do a full blown book.
Including Sample Chapters works like a charm, Elizabeth!!!
Ruth, thank you so much for such a comprehensive post. Pricing is one of things that puts me in a spin! For my second novel, Watching Willow Watts, my publisher initially priced it 99 cents. Then, we raised the price to 2.99. Sales dropped but gradually picked up a bit, and now it’s holding steady. My first novel, The Hating Game, is also priced at 2.99 and seems to be selling okay.
Anxious to pick up new readers, I priced my latest novel myself (this one is self-pubbed) at 99 cents. It’s selling quite well at the price point right now and I have a few pushes planned with KindleNation and Pixel of Ink, so I’m going to leave it there for the next month or two and see what happens. I will consider raising the price eventually, though. Interesting that those who raised their prices to 3.99 didn’t see a drop.
Hi Talli,
Thanks for the nice words.
I’m on board with $3.99 for a full-length novel. It’s still a great bargain for the reader & gives the writer a chance of making a living. Which leads to the opportunity to write even more book that will bring pleasure, entertainment, information & lots of other good things to readers.
I read with horror a comment from a reader the other day who said that now so much available, s/he would never buy another book. Are all these free books creating an entitled class of readers? Would a plumber fix your john for free? A teacher work for free? A politician? Oooops! Did I say that?
Anyway, you get my point.
So true Ruth. That’s why I will only do short works for free. I do think that now people are looking at length of a book to decide. If it’s too short, even at .99 they pass because they can get so much for free now.
Thanks, Ruth. This is all very interesting. When I price anything above 2.99, Amazon immediately reduces the price anyway. I’ve had success with 2.99 with Daughters but a great deal more with Best Friends at 0.99. Did I make more money with Daughters? I have no idea. I have never been able to decipher how Amazon figures the amount due per unit. There’s something called an Avg. selling price and VAT and a couple of other columns.
Hi Consuelo,
Thank YOU!
(To readers, Consuelo & I once shared the famous/notorious editor, Michael Korda. When MK was good, he was very good. And when he was bad, he was truly awful.)
Why does Amazon reduce your price when you go above 2.99? Do you know? You write high quality, very well reviewed books so I wonder what’s going on.
Your last comment raises a question in my cynical, battle-scarred mind (I’ve been around publishing for a long time): Will epub statements end up being as much of a mystery as TradPub statements? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? I hope NOT!
I’m like Dean Wesley Smith pricing scheme idea. The books are still affordable to the readers, just like paper backs used to be, and aren’t prices so low that the author’s aren’t getting jipped for all the work they put in to creating the book. I also like the idea of lowering the price of the first book when the second in a series comes out. And then when they’re all out having a discounted set. It very much fits my plodding, like to be consistent, personality. *grin*
:} Cathryn
Cathryn, I sooo agree with you. About DWS’s pricing protocol. About lowering #1 when #2 is published. About being plodding, liking (or at least trying) to be consistent.
Writers need to be plodding. How else would anyone ever finish a book? Plodding is good!
Plodding is certainly the only way I finish one, even if the rough draft dribbles out of NaNo. :} And now 9as I should have done earlier) I”m book marking this post for posterity. *giggles*
Great post and a lot to ponder. I’ve tried to keep mine at .99. I’ve offered them for free and put the word out and hardly any takers which surprised me as everyone else I know who had done this swore by it. One full length novel I’m offering now at 2.99 because of the length and it’s only offered at one place. I want to keep them affordable but realistic. I think it is something the author has to play around with and be comfortable with.
Jamie, You’re not the only one who found out that Free isn’t all that & a bag of chips. Works for some writers, not for others. I wonder if genre has anything to do with it? Or if day of the week? Or even time of the month? (The women will know exactly what I mean…lol)
“Affordable but realistic” is an excellent way to convey what we’re are all searching for. Fair to the reader, fair to the writer. Thanks for that phrase. It’s one to live by.
Wavin’ atchya, Jamie and Ruth!
I think it’s a timing thing…in that, for those of us who had books at Free and 99 cents prior to KDP Select, we did wonderful with those and were able to stay outside the pack with these “new” price points.
But not anymore.
Free and 99 Cents are now all the Seth Godin-style “Brown Cows”…in other words, my words, they are the barnyards full of brown heifers.
We’ve got to find new Godin Purple Cow price points!!!
I will go out on a limb a bit and say that I do believe KDP Select could have by itself forever ruined the advantage of going Free or even 99 Cents.
They’ve caused readers, like you said earlier, Ruth, to “expect” Free books and caused them to perhaps be of the mind set to “wait-and-see” because “maybe the book I want will be Free next month or in three months”.
I think you are right about the genre making a difference I see that even in my two series. Vampires are still out downloading and selling better than the other paranormal series.
Thanks Ruth – it’s always interesting to see what others are doing. My experience has be ( the whole 2 months I’ve been up and running) is for every 10 copies of Playing For Keeps sold at .99cents – I sell 1 copy of Love By Design at 2.99. Both are around 50,000 words.
I’ve been hesitating on raising the price of Playing For Keeps – I do like seeing it on the Kindle Best Seller List for Sports Fiction. In April I plan on putting up the sequel Going For It ( a novella ) so I’ll will for sure raise the price of the full length to 2.99.
Thank *you*, Liz. As Joe Konrath rightly points out, e-books are forever so we have the luxury of experimenting with pricing. I certainly think 2.99 is more-than-fair & probably even too little for a full-length novel. I hope that as time goes on “normal” pricing settles at or near DWS’s 99/2.99/3.99 or 4 4.99 formula.
Being on a Kindle bestseller list definitely helps sell books so I understand why you’re reluctant to raise the price of Playing For Keeps. Still, as you point out, you’re only 2 months in so you certainly have time on your side when it comes to experimenting.
I was one of the readers sucked into CJ Archer’s series when she offered the freebie. I tried the freebie and just *had* to read not only the next in the series but also another book. Downloading that freebie was like finding gold!
Awwww! I just LOVE hearing that.
But probably not as much as CJ!
Thanks Tamara, it’s lovely to hear you enjoyed my books!
Setting the first book in a series free got me a lot of new readers and if you have a series, I think it’s definitely something to try. I don’t think I’d do it for a stand-alone book.
I’m finding it a little hard relating this to my own opinions as I’m trying to relate US prices to UK ones in my head and it’s a little tricky. Personally, as I am totally and utterly skint at the moment (erm, £150 in debt. That’s $225 in debt for the US folk approximately. To my parents, admittedly, but they’re getting a bit impatient for me to pay back what I owe them), I’m going for 99p and free books. However, if there’s a trad published book that I want to read and it costs £5, I’ll look at the paper/hardback price and see that I’m still saving eight quid or something, so I’ll buy it.
If I haven’t got five quid, like at the moment, I’ll go to the library. They’re good, those things. Until you get six books overdue. Then the cost begins to mount up…
Hi Miriam, Thanks! Lots of peeps in your boat and, yes, libraries are great. There was a story here in the US the other day about cops raiding the home of a six year old to get an overdue book (no kidding…that’s how they spend their money here? no wonder the budgets are in the dumper) so watch yourself. lol
Great post, Ruth.
I think where you are selling also has a bearing. The UK market is still very much in favor of cheaper books. Last week sixteen of the top twenty were priced at 0.99 thanks to some promos going on.
In the US it seems middle-range prices do pretty well, for known names, at least.
We price our first book at 0.99 precisely because we were unknowns in a new market place. very hard to imagine it would have sold in the quantities it did if priced higher. 0.99 is worth the risk for an unknown quantity.
The downside is if the author increases their price later it may look like author greed, as Joannie observes.
As to valuing one’s own work… That’s a hugely difficult one. Can a book be not worth 0.99 for all the effort you put in, but worth 4.99?
The reader doesn’t care if you wrote the novel in five weeks or five years. They don’t care if you sweated blood or ran it off during the TV commercials. All they care is, does it entertain them.
For the author, the bottom line is numbers. Reader numbers first, and usually dollar numbers right behind. Sell ten books at 4.99 and you make $35. You need to sell a hundred at 0.99 to make the same money because of the lower royalty.
But if half the ten 4.99 readers convince a friend to buy, you get five new readers and now have 15 readers who might buy your other books.
If half the buyers at 0.99 convince a friend (and how much easier to convince them to spend 0.99 than 4.99) you get fifty new readers and now have 150 readers who might buy your other books.
Ruth, as you know, when I saw your backlist on am.uk at under 0.99 earlier this year I bought the lot. I’d read most of them years earlier anyway, so just wanted them on my Kindle available. If they’d been priced at 4.99 I would have reminded myself I’d read them years ago and passed on the opportunity.
I’ve discovered countless fantastic new authors in the free and 0.99 listings and rarely even look at anything priced higher.
Thanks, Mark.
Yeah but….If those books had been priced at 4.99 maybe you would have remembered how totally wonderful they are. Then you would have considered 4.99 a huge bargain and snapped them up.
Seriously, you’re making an excellent point. And contributing another reason why pricing decisions are difficult. There are lots of arguments both ways and, over time, I think we will be able to sort through them. Meanwhile, pricing is a confusing and often quite frustrating subject. We all want to do the right thing. Question is: what’s the right thing? Still unsettled, awaiting clarification seems to be the reality.
These are excellent points to bring up, Mark…regarding the differences between UK and US Reader mindsets.
Is it still true then that UK Readers think “cheap” is a terrific deal versus many in the US who think “cheap” means bad quality?
I think our wonderful Talli Roland once posted on that very important difference…
Thanks bunches for sharing this scoop!
I published my first book 9/13/2011. I am brand new to fiction and I’ve sold a little over 100 copies. I tried $.99, with PR, and $2.99 with no PR. I even tried $4.99! I’m pretty happy with the $3.99 price point. My considerations?
*At $3.99, I am more content to let the book sit. I don’t feel the need to check my sales every 5 minutes.
It’s not an impulse buy.
* At $3.99, I am in the middle of a book signing blog tour, and I’m seeing FAR more interest in getting my book for free than when it was $.99 and I tried to give it away.
* At $3.99, my book earns roughly $2.75 per sale. I’m still about $300 from earning out, so that’s only 110 more books to sell. At the $.99 price, I’d have to sell 909 books. I think if I keep doing what I’m doing, CANCELLED will earn out by June. That’s selling 17 books per month.
So that is where I’m at. I have a few novella ideas (2) that I think will be $1.99. These stories will probably be about 45,000 words. I will probably put about $100 into the production of each, or roughly 150 copies sold before it will earn out.
I am focused on the earning out aspect because the sooner I can have a book earn out, the sooner I can play more with pricing and packaging to keep sales up. As I write more and more, I’ll have more of a catalog for readers, and THEN I can focus on trying to make a best seller list. I think it’s better to shoot for that best seller list once I have more books out so that they get residual sales. If I only have one book out and happen to breakthrough, I have to count on readers remembering my name when SERVED comes out…
Thank you, Elizabeth, for a very well reasoned comment. Your analysis of the difference between earnings at 3.99 and .99 is a compelling argument for using 99 only as an introductory price or the price for the first book in a series. There is a HUGE difference between selling 110 books and 909!
I suspect your patience and focuse on earning out will serve you well.
Especially for a brand NEW author! No one knows me. So yes, there is a very big difference between working towards 200 sales total and 2,000 sales total. I only average about 20 copies sold any month (no matter what the price is). 10 months or 100 months? I know which one I like.
Earn Out is an excellent way to develop your overall pricing strategy, Elizabeth!
I posted on this a while back…here’s the scoop (and a peek into what Earn Out means for all our WG2E Newbies):
http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/indie-epublishing-earn-out-faster-with-each-new-book-on-your-cyber-shelf
Hi Ruth. Thanks for the post. Since I entered Vestal Virgin into the Kindle Select program–and made the book free for several days–actual sales and borrows have escalated.
Suzanne, thanks for stopping by and thanks again for your contribution to the post. I appreciate your input and, in fact, I couldn’t do it without you!
Your experience with setting VV at free is an example of the way *free* should work. A taste, a bite, a sample, an apèritif leading to the full experience. Good for you!
Since doing all my experimenting, I’ve come to one conclusion–all this speculation on what price works is…nuts.
I value my work, so why should I price a full novel at a buck? Artificially pumping my sales might make me feel better in the short run, but I’m in this for the long hall. This means setting my books at a reasonable price–both for me and the reader.
I’ve since adopted Dean Smith’s pricing structure. My novels are $4.99, short stories are 99 cents. And I’m done messing with prices. I’m setting it and forgetting it.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far: Setting my price point to $4.99 has done NOTHING to my sales. They might have gone up a little bit. Maybe this is the post-Christmas boost keep me afloat at that price. I don’t know. I can’t know. That’s why I’m looking at price separate from how it triggers sales and more based on how I value my work. $4.99 is still less than a paperback (especially with those evil tall, 9.99 paperbacks). So it’s still a deal for the reader.
But that’s just me.
I was at $4.99 for about two weeks and extremely delighted when I sold 3 copies and made 75% of what I made in royalties one of the month’s I was at $.99. Another big difference? I worked my butt off on the PR to bring awareness to my $.99 price. I did nothing for the $4.99 (I took December off from marketing). I don’t think there is a universal pricing answer… but for me, if I’m going to market my butt off, I’d like it to be worth it. Even this month, I’ve had over 100 requests for my ebook signed. But I’ve still sold 8 copies so far at $3.99 between my sales channels. That’s how many books I sold last month total doing nothing.
Hi Rob, thanks for stopping by & thanks for your valuable contribution to my past. Yep. It’s nuts. In a way, it’s even worse: it’s crazy-making. I read all the arguments, take everyone’s experience into account and where do I end up?
Where I started.
Confused.
And I don’t think it’s just me…lol…I think it’s lots of us
I do, though, essentially agree with DWS’s pricing structure. Makes a lot of sense.
Welcome to The WG2E Ruth Harris Reports, Y’All!!!
Wow, Ruth! This is just terrific scoop here!!!
Let me put all my groceries away…and I’ll be right back with ya!!! LOL!!!
Again…excellent work here!
I’m sooo thrilled to officially welcome you to our WG2E Team!!!
Totally delighted to be here with you—and with all our wonderful readers & commenters! What a lovely welcome!
Great article Ruth. I’ve discovered the same thing about 99cent books. I’ve the first in my Centauri series on sale through January 15th at 99 cents as part of the Book Lovers Buffet. However, I’m not selling enough to make up the income that I lost putting it down from 2.99. I’ve got a new book coming out in January, Centauri Midnight and I intend to put it up at 2.99 from the start. I’m hoping that because it’s the third in the series it will help sales.
Thanks so much for the thought provoking and insightful blog.
Cynthia Woolf Blog
Thanks, Cynthia. Will you leave Book #1 at 99? Those 99 promos help get your name out but they can be costly in terms of lost income. It’s a tough decision for sure.
Great post Ruth. Pricing is hard thing to figure out. I’m still messing around with it myself. What’s been working for me is my short story. I use that as a freebie or a low price and it contains excerpts to all my books. So I plan on doing this more with other shorts. I also made one of my novels free. Something I was resistant to for a long time. I’m anxious to see what comes out of it.
Hi Ty, thanks for checking in and thanks for sharing your experience with your ss. A creative approach that also sounds like a sensible plan. Can you tell yet if going *free* is doing anything for your other books?
Great post Ruth. My pricing structure is working well for me at the moment. I have had my 1st book for free since May 2011 when I released my 2nd book @ $2.99. After the initial frenzied downloads of several thousand per day(of the free book) things settled after a month or so, to where sales of my 2nd book are now consistently around 15% of the free downloads a day, equating to 15 – 20 per day.
Alison, thanks for the detailed report. I like stable & it sounds like you’ve reached that point. 15/20 a day at 2.99 creates a solid foundation. When are you releasing #3?
Pricing right now for books is all over the place. Madness Under the Mistletoe was priced reasonably for a anthology at 2.99, and did fair in that price range. Most anthologies were priced higher at 3.99 & 4.99.
I have a friend who is tradi published, she had a series canceled, got her rights back and published the last book as a indie for .99. Way below the original paperback price. She made 40k off that book! But she had a established following. She hasn’t published anything else as a indie since, and was testing the waters. She’s still tradi and continues to struggle as a mid-lister. I believe her book would have sold just as well at 2.99, because of her fan base. But at the time, everyone was going with .99 and she was advised to follow the trend. No regrets she made money and the book is still selling well.
I don’t believe authors are doing themselves any favor bouncing around with prices. Start at one price and stay there. My plan is to start at 1.99 and up depending on the size of my release, and when the next one is released I’ll lower the price. I just think my work is worth more then .99 to start.
There is no doubt, .99 is inviting. The economy is bad, people don’t have anything extra to spend on a expensive books, so .99 is cheap entertainment. What I find interesting is men, (and I’m not male bashing,) often price their books for more, sometimes up to $7. I can’t say if their selling or not, since I don’t know the individuals. But I found it interesting, they put a greater value on their work then their female counterparts.
Lee, thanks! Very interesting point about men & lines up with gender differences in other fields. Did you know that originally computers programmers were mostly female & not highly compensated? Then, when men began programming, everything changed &, whaddaya know, we got billionaires. In the old Soviet Union most doctors were female–and in those days Russian doctors didn’t have much status or pay.
The really interesting question is why? The rampaging male ego? Or do they have a realistic attitude toward their work & the market. I’d certainly love to know how well those $7 books are selling. Isn’t just about any price under $10 a bargain? Or are prices under $5 more attuned to the current market?
I don’t know. Just wondering.
First of all, let’s all give big ol’ WG2E Welcomes to our Interviewee’s for this terrific piece…
So WG2E Cheers to you…Sharon, CJ, Rob, Suzanne, and Dean Wesley Smith!
Now then…what I’m taking from this study is that it’s VISIBILITY that actually determines which price points work best at any given time.
That said, I know several Indie Epub Authors are now of the mindset that’s it’s dollars earned per month that matter most to them, and that’s perfectly fine. Again, it’s totally what your journey’s priorities are.
BUT…that said…there’s definitely a trade-off.
For example, I’ve continued to keep all my books at 99 Cents, because I am focused on building my reader base first and foremost.
To reach that goal, I’m most interested in the number of sales, not the money. And as everyone mentioned here, if that’s your goal, then the cheaper the better (IF you have, along with that, the backing of a huge Ereader-centric Blog…one of the secrets to success we rely on here at The WG2E). A low price $2.99 or less, gives you a shot at being picked up by one of these terrific blogs like ENT, which has over 120,000 readers following it daily!!! Those kinds of numbers get you on the Bestseller Lists, and those lists, along with the shout-outs by the blogs gives you VISIBILITY.
Now then…the question for the Indie Author next is to decide at what point, if ever, do you have a substantial enough base that you can raise your prices on your backlist and still maintain that sizable readership base.
In other words, have you turned enough readers into fans (and there is a difference) at the lower price points, that they’re now willing to buy you at the higher price without thinking twice.
Are you beginning to see how studying these price points and developing your own strategy is sooo important? And the experimenting is a vital part of your journey, so we must keep trying new combos.
DD, one of the (few) conclusions I’ve come to is that being on one (or hopefully more) of those bestseller lists is key. My thriller HOOKED (written with my DH, Michael) is usually on 2 or 3 and it’s priced at 99 cents. Like the Energizer Bunny, HOOKED keeps selling.
M & I think the great sales are a result of a good price + bestseller list visibility + a hot category. I think category (something we haven’t gotten into yet today) is a key ingredient, too.
Categorization indeed helps you get on your way to great visibility, Ruth! That’s how you first position your book to make bestseller lists.
Here’s a series of how-to posts I did on that:
http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/categorizing-your-way-to-amazons-bestseller-lists-part-three
And for all of our WG2E Noobs…you may want to begin your perusal of our archives by first reading our newly re-vamped E-Experiments Page…which I’ve made into a deposit of some of our most-referred to posts.
I will try each day, as you’ve seen me do throughout the day today, give y’all the links to posts that relate your comments and concerns.
First, you guys are the best for giving so much info! I look forward to reading this blog every day, even if I don’t comment.
I started in indie in July 2011 and re-released my Welcome to Redemption series with my cp Donna Marie Rogers. 4 rereleases, 2 brand new stories (that’s 3 for each of us), all novella length. We started at .99 and sold okay, maybe 3 or 4 per day total. I released another novella in August, also at .99, which also sold 1-2 copies a day. After a month, I raised it to 1.99 and it didn’t affect sales one way or the other. Sales on that novella have risen steadily and now average about 10-12 per day, so I’m happy with that.
In Oct. the first 2 stories in our WTR series went free and it really boosted our sales of the other 4 stories through Oct and Nov. Come December, like most others, we saw a decline in sales from about 100 total sales a day to about 40-50 total sales. That has now settled at about 30-40 total per day, but in Dec. we introduced (thanks for the inspiration DD!) the WTR boxed set and have been selling about 10 per day on that which is great because it’s at the 70% instead of 35%.
In October I also released a new full length novel Lost In Italy that is 112k and I priced it at 3.99. I’ve sold 17 per month since then, even when I dropped it down to 2.99 for a few weeks, so I raised it back up. I also re-released a paranormal novella at .99 that sold 20 in the last week of Oct, 60 in Nov, but then dropped down to 30 in Dec. That one I’m leaving at .99.
In December I re-released a Christmas novella Dragonfly Dreams at 2.99 and promoed the heck out of it because I was donating all Dec royalties to family friends with Lyme Disease to help them with medical bills. I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, but still ended up selling 52 copies. I initially priced it at the 2.99 to get the 70% royalties for my friends, but with all the discussion on pricing lately, have decided to leave it there and just forget about that one. Being that it’s a Christmas title, I don’t plan to do much promo on it until the fall again.
Being that WTR are our best selling titles, Donna and I are going to write more stories in that series this year. We do plan to play with pricing on that series a bit once she’s done with the Book Lover’s Buffet .99 promo mid-Jan.
Anyway, I have books listed at every price point, including free and while I definitely see more sales of the .99 books, I do believe part of that is do to the fact that it’s a series. It’ll be very interesting to see how our pricing change affects sales come mid-Jan. My hours have recently been cut at work (which I’m okay with) but I need to focus on my writing as a career, so finding what will work price wise is important. Not that I’ve figured it out anymore than anyone else has. I guess I hope that by covering all the price points, I’ll pick up new readers in each area who will then want to check out my other works.
With the new WTR series story, I have plans to release 3 brand new books this next year and loved what Elizabeth said about planning those releases around times when sales notoriously slump.
Congrats on really building your cyber shelf, Stacey!!!
And ohhh yeahhh on your Boxed Set Bliss…I’ll be talking about that gem of a strategy this coming Monday…
But here’s a hint…
Thanks to my Boxed Set (6 books for $2.99…which no one was doing in December, although now my superfab friend Gemma Halliday just undercut me at 5 for $1.99…LOL!), I’ve gone from making $3000 per month to over $14,000 per month!!!
Boxed Set Bliss, WG2E-Land Peeps!
Stay-tuned for more on this Monday!!!
Stacey, thanks for adding so much detailed info to our pricing discussion today. I agree that publishing books as series is a potent sales tool. Basically, if a reader likes one book, they’ll probably buy three. I notice in my 20th Century Trilogy that sales come in three—I think (but obviously can’t be sure) that people buy all three at the same time. One of the plusses is that pricing each one at 99 makes that decision that much easier for the buyer. Still, I want to raise books #2 & #3 to 2.99 and/or 3.99 and see what happens. (They’re 100,ooo + words, NYT bestsellers, highly praised by critics so even at the higher prices readers will be getting a good deal). I also plan to see them as a boxed set at still another price point.
Thanks for this detailed report, Ruth. All indies need to read this (and the great comments) We all need help make our pricing decisions as the ebook market builds and changes. I dropped one book to 99 cents and it got a bit of a boost, but not as much as I’d hoped. I’m glad to see slightly higher prices are still making sales. That’s good news for all of us. Elizabeth’s argument of “slow and steady” works for me.
Anne, thanks so much for dropping by! You’re so right. Nothing ain’t what it used to be. Not 99c. Not even *free*. DD’s boxed set certainly made a huge difference for her & now Gemma Halliday is taking the same track at an even cheaper price point.
“Slow & steady” certainly has its appeal, that’s for sure! Is patience the new LBD? (little black dress)
Ruth,
Thanks for this very informative post. I’m working on a plan to epub for the first time, so it’s useful to hear about the experiences of other authors and their pricing strategies.
Paul, I’m glad you found our experiences helpful. Please let us know how your own pricing strategy develops. We’re all ears!
Wonderful research Ruth!
I’m a reader/consumer, not a writer and I’d love to give my points of view. 99¢, for a short story is a terrific price. I read a lot of shorter type books and stories because of time restraints. I love FREE, just like anyone else, but not at the expense of an author’s compensation for their time.
I’d like to tell a brief story of something that happened, when I worked at a Quick Print shop. Pretty much everyone in the quick printing business HATES printing business cards, the client is picky and by the time you typeset, change the wording a hundred times, print, trim and box these bad boys, you are in the hole. We used them as a way to get people in the door. This was 30 years or so ago and at the time, 500 business cards in black & white were $19.95.
One day this rude, pushy man came in a said “I need 100 business cards, really fast”. I told him “Our minimum is 500 cards”. “But I don’t WANT 500″ he whined. “You can just throw out the others” I retorted. “Don’t you have ANYTHING in 100, with black ink?” I was prepared for this guy, so I reached under the counter for stack of Ivory card stock, cut to appropriate business card size, neatly bundled up with a rubber band. A Bic Pen, filled with black ink adorned the top of the paper. “Here you go!” I said, dropping the little stack on the counter. “You can write whatever you want on these, and it’s only, $4.99″ Well, you should have seen his face, confusion, shock, awe and then a big belly laugh popped out of him. Whew, that was a close one for me, I sure needed that job!
He turned out to be a really great customer and teased me about that incident many times.
The point I’m trying to make is. . .you spend a lot of time, working very hard to put out a quality product and you should get paid for what you’re worth!
Personally, I don’t think any less about a book that is Free or inexpensive. But I do feel people should get paid for their work and time. It might be just me, but it seems like quite a few FREEBIES came out prior to the Kindle Fire and Touch being released, I think that was good marketing on the part of Amazon. I’ve collected probably 900 free books in the last couple of months. When I find an author that I like, I will buy their other books, most definitely! All the free books are a little overwhelming and I add them to my collection, but I don’t always read them right away. There are quite a few authors that I may not have ever read their genre, if the books hadn’t been free or reasonable, but I always support them by buying a full priced book in return if I enjoyed the free book.
Full length ebooks between $4.99 to $8.99 are reasonable prices to me. $2.99 is a terrific and I think of it as being on sale. I am particularly enamored with the first book in a series is Free or reasonable when you buy the 2nd book at full price. Or a book is discounted for limited time and it’s advertised that way.
Debut author Richard Bard, had a promo on Amazon, that I think was very successful for him. You’d buy BRAINRUSH for 99¢ and receive his 2nd book Free and were entered into a drawing for a Free Kindle Fire. I LOVED his first book so much, I would have paid top dollar for the second book, in fact I bought it the day it came out rather than wait for the free voucher email. I’m now panting, drooling, and shouting BRAINRUSH III from rooftops, waiting for his third book to come out in the fall of this year. I’ve become a Big fan, just from one little 99¢ promo with a Kindle Fire.
As a consumer, I love receiving complimentary, short Holiday stories, for the appropriate holiday, from an author. It’s like a holiday gift or thank you for being a fan and there is no danger of gaining weight, like with candy.
About the reviews: I really hate when readers will give 1 star because a FREE book isn’t a whole book, especially when they didn’t take time to read the clear statement, that the book was short or a partial. I don’t write low star reviews for FREE or low priced books, unless there is an editing problem or consistent bad use of grammar that deters from the story. (which is almost NEVER) I will write 5 stars and spread the word about a really good book, if I received enjoyment from it. If it’s not my cup of tea, I won’t write a review, because that’s not fair!
I’m not sure what the magic pricing answer is, but don’t sell yourselves short, we need you to be there for us tomorrow, for our next big adventure!
Warm Regards and Happy New Year!
Jill Mora
Let me just say THANK YOU!! Readers like you are the gold star for writers.
Wishing you many great books in 2012.
Wow, Jill! Thank you for such a great perspective from a reader’s point of view!
900 free ebooks? Wow. That’s an amazing digital library. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head for many of us writers. We LOVE to give away our books for free, I am in the process of signing over 100 free ebooks as part of a blog tour I’m doing. Our biggest fear is that we give away the book for free and the reader never reads it. I’m gearing up for my next releases later this year. I’m working on a sequel and a few shorts. I worried about going free right after Christmas without another title available for purchase, but now I think it will be okay. With all of the free ebooks floating around, maybe they’ll get to mine by about September when my next novel comes out 
And thank you for encouraging us to put a fair price on our work. We new authors especially need to hear that!
Another thing I didn’t mention above was time. I think authors need to give their books time to settle in a at a new price and find new readers. Don’t change prices every week, give the new price a shot for at lease a month. The Amazon “Also Bought” algos don’t switch overnight and it might take those extra months to change the Also Boughts on your book to ones of a similar price, and this can be a powerful marketing tool – unfortunately not one we can control.
IMO experimenting is a good thing and as indies we can do it easily, but that doesn’t mean we should hop all over the place with our prices. I suppose this ties in with Elizabeth’s, Anne’s and Ruth’s mantras above of “slow and steady”.
Jill, thanks so much for adding your POV as a reader and, OMG, we LOVE readers who are drooling for The Next Book. You sound like the kind of reader every writer is looking for! Every point you make is interesting & intelligent and really helpful.
The real question is: are low prices or *free* selling ourselves short or are they an effective way to introduce ourselves to readers? Both arguments make sense but some strategies work better for some writers/genres than others and there’s no way for us to know which is which except to try.
For me, free and low is GREAT, for an introduction, into an iffy genre, otherwise, I don’t buy a book based on price. I completely agree with the slow and steady approach. Maybe have 1 book set at free or low and the others all regular prices. With so many free available, it does take away from the impact, a free book should make. They do start to feel more common and just because I add a free one to my collection, doesn’t guarantee I’ll read it in this century : )
One thing I have found out, from several friends, that are new to the Kindle/ebook world. When they first start adding books, they don’t KNOW about all the free books, it takes them a while to figure out about the free books. So you have a better chance to get them to buy, at full price, if you have a catchy book cover, title and description of your book. I bought my Mother a Kindle for Christmas and she is a perfect example of this. She didn’t even know they had FREE books, she was buying right and left. Then you have the other people, they want everything for free and want to complain about it, instead of being gracious.
How much are you worth, that is the question? Set the price so you can make money and be here tomorrow, for the readers that value your work!
Price point is always an interesting discussion. Rather than touching on some of the points already made, I’ll bring one up that’s seldom mentioned. I see plenty of people standing on a rock and proclaiming that they’d never sell a book at a .99 price point because they are worth more than that. I say instead of looking at the sales point, look at how much you make from the royalty, and instead of ONLY comparing that money to what you make at 2.99, compare it to traditional publishing. With some publishers that .35 per ebook book on Amazon looks pretty darn good because an author would be making less for a paperback or an ebook. Other publishers might pay anywhere from a few cents to ten or twenty or thirty or forty cents more (for the average author.) Compared to traditional publishing, .35 is a good royalty, and in some cases, a great royalty.
The other point that’s important with a .99 book WHEN YOU HAVE ONE OR MORE BOOKS, is that it draws people in who are willing to try an unknown author, then get hooked and go on and buy more of your books. Because you have more sales, even if you make far less than at 2.99 and above, you can end up on one or more of the various Amazon top 100 lists. That in turn drives more sales of your first book, which leads to more sales of your other higher priced books. Being on a top 100 list, especially a popular one, is a HUGE promotional tool. In my opinion, probably one of the best over the long run.
I’m not saying everyone should do this pricing structure, but self-published authors need to consider the above points when setting their pricing.
I have had over 28,000 sales of my .99 sweet historical Western romance in 8 months and a week. I’ve had about 11,000 sales of my 2.99 second book in the series in that same time period. Book three (when it comes out in a few days) will be 3.99. I’ve done very little promo except some blogs, and not many of them. I have a few blogs on my site about self-publishing and numbers, and what I think works. http://drdebraholland.blogspot.com
My second series (which has not been out as long) is not doing as well, probably because it’s a different genre–Fantasy Romance. It could also be that it’s a trilogy and people are waiting for the third book to be up. The two books sell between 3 and 15 a day–same pricing structure. Once I have the third book up, I’ll wait a few months to see what happens. If things are about the same, I’ll experiment and change the prices.
I have not tried a free book, but I’d certainly recommend people only do a freebie when they have more books to sell, not just one.
Interesting article. Pricing is such an important issue for Indie Authors. My experiment is something that worked for me because I had 4 books released at the same time. I used the Christmas book as a loss leader and priced it at 99 cents with the intention of making it free for the holidays. Amazon finally dropped the price to free on October 22 and I had an incredible amount of downloads, hit number 1 on the Freebie list and number 2 on the contemporary list. In all there have been 310,000 downloads of that book and the sales on the other 3 books far exceeded my expectations. I have results on my blog http://www.lisamondello.blogspot.com.
Lisa
I will be releasing my now book on Kindle probably tomorrow and have been wrangling with the issue of pricing. This was a very timely and helpful discussion. Thank you.
I am so glad I found this post, although I might have wished that I had seen it before releasing my book on Kindle.
As a new author I was not sure what price to put on my novel, maybe I should have started it at 99 cents to get the ball rolling, but I decided on 2.99 Euros ($3.89) .
I have sold 12 in my first week, mainly to friends on Anglo/French forums I think, the book is about ex-pats in France.
I am also in the KDP programme for free downloads, but none have shown up so far.