Posts
1) Unless you price your Indie Book Cheap few, if any, will buy it.
2) Cheap Books are seldom read, for they are thought to be inferior, hence their price.
The CATCH-22 CURSE
Price your book cheap enough to be bought, and it will not be read.
So what is the answer?
Heck if I know.
John Locke ruined The 99 cent price for Indie Authors.
Amazon now counts each sale of a 99 cent book as a half a sale in their rankings equations.
$2.99 used to be the "Just Right" Price.
Yet, there are thousands of ebooks coming out each month.
Most readers will not gamble on your book at that price.
There are just too many books by their friends to shell out that kind of money.
FREE cannot be maintained as a price on Kindle.
Besides, even if it could, people take you at the value you place upon yourself.
To most, FREE just means even you consider your work inferior.
PAY PER PAGE READ ...
the new Amazon method makes it even worse when your book is bought but not read.
Previously, authors were paid a flat fee for every reader who downloaded their book:
typically around $1.30 per book.
But after the change was introduced, they were instead paid six tenths of a cent for each page read,
meaning that an author would have to write a 220-page book, and have every page read by every person downloading it
to earn the same amount they had previously gotten.
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON PRICING?
Hi Roland - I know there are various ideas on pricing out there ... definitely not too high though, as no-one will read it. I guess selling it is the thing and hoping the word will spread, and then you get more sales for other titles ...
ReplyDeleteGood luck is all I can say ... cheers Hilary
All Indie Authors need your luck, Hilary! Thanks for caring. :-)
DeleteWhen the field is so cluttered with competitors for that customer dollar, you just do the best you can. Indie authors multiply and others are encouraged to join the ranks. After all, if you have money and can invest in your books, anyone can publish and they do. Too much product, and too many choices dilute the profit. Then we see anthologies proliferating as banding together helps some sales, and we see groups of indie writers gathering together in groups to sell their books. Does this help? I don't know but it is how indies cope.
ReplyDeleteYou're right: there are just too many Indie Authors out there to stand out unless you already have a massive built-in community of friends who will buy your book. :-(
DeleteBanding and anthologies only help some while most get lost in the crowd.
I have come to the conclusion that I will never be a success in my dream. I will continue writing because I am stubborn. Like Lovecraft and Emily Dickinson, I may be discovered after I am dead: "Oh, look at how intricate and lovely his interconnected worlds were."
Then, again, the odds say I will merely be forgotten after my death. Only the Great Mystery knows, and He comes by His name honestly! :-)
Thanks for visiting!! And I have a new blog tour coming, appropriately named the DON'T BUY MY BOOK blog tour. LOL.
It's so tough, isn't it? I'm in the early stages of writing my first book so I can't comment on pricing. As well as my non-fiction articles, I've had quite a few short stories published in anthologies but I wouldn't say any of those books have been super-successful. There really is just too much competition in the indie market and, sadly, so much of it is absolute rubbish which impacts on the general public's perception that self-published books aren't worth buying. Catch 22 indeed!
ReplyDeleteSusan at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
I guess we just must write the best we can and price so that it entices new readers to gamble on our books. :-(
DeleteI resist offering books for free. I do have a few that are 99¢ but that is because they are short stories of novellas. Marketing is a slog and can be a full time job. I hate it but I do it.
ReplyDeleteI hate it, too. But what are we to do if we want to sell our books? :-)
DeleteWhat if an author faked their death? Would that spark interest? Then a come-back tour. I think I'm on to something.
ReplyDelete