Five Years is Forever in Indie Publishing
From Dean Wesley Smith:
Well, I spent the last two nights going back and trying to update and then even fisk my own post from five years ago about pricing. What a fool’s errand.
The post was so out of date, I just kept shaking my head in amazement and wondering who wrote it.
I was looking at it through 2017 glasses and a ton of new knowledge. Stunning, just stunning how many changes in this business have happened.
. . . .
Electronic Pricing… Novels
Genre matters. Range from $3.99 to $6.99, with romance being on the lower side, mystery on the upper side.
Length does not seem to matter at all.
All the studies have shown that you get above $6.99 and you start hitting price resistance for electronic books unless the book is something really special.
You go below $3.99 and you leave yourself no room for discounting or short-term sales.
You get down into the 99 cent area and you are in a trash ghetto.
And yes, I do know about the stupidity of ever-free. Just say no. However, doing a deep discount on a first novel of a series will get you readers. But make sure those readers pay something otherwise you attract the wrong kinds of readers. And secondly, you have to have the rest of the series priced decently for genre to make the first book discount look worthwhile.
. . . .
Paper Pricing… Novels
The old general rule of $2.00 profit in extended distribution in CreateSpace has become meaningless. Get your price down as much as you can. Under $10 is the best for trade paper. $12.99 is fine as well. Above that you hit resistance unless the book is longer.
Length not only matters, it causes the price to go up. You have no choice, but try to keep the cost down as low as possible.
If you want to try to do some bookstore distribution (a folly in 2017 because as Author Earnings have reported, almost 80% of paper books are sold online these days. But if you want to try, go to IngramSpark to get into the Ingram Catalog. (Yes, you can do two editions, one on CreateSpace just for Amazon and the other at Ingram for larger distribution.
Link to the rest at Dean Wesley Smith
Here’s a link to Dean Smith’s books. If you like an author’s post, you can show your appreciation by checking out their books.
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