Forum: Author Hangout

($2.50 national average)

I just paid $3.45 (premium). But the point was that the price ends in a "9" to make it appear less. And that applies to book prices.

I just paid $3.45 (premium).

$1.90 for 87 octane E10, $2.20 for 87 octane 100% gas, $2.60 for premium just down the street.

As for pricing things - I don't feel that for my two long stories, that I could charge for them, because in my personal opinion, that would violate the terms that Bethesda put out when they allowed free mods for their games.

a lot of words/dollar … so buyers who look at that should be pleased.

DISCLAIMER: This has nothing to do with Michael L.

I'm reading a novel by David Baldacci called "Total Control." It's 640 pages in paperback.

I would be enjoying it more if it had less words. He goes into painful detail about everything — the Fed, different types of planes, the workings of the FBI and other organizations, how people look, what they're wearing, etc., etc. More words doesn't mean better.

Fewer words doesn't mean better either.

Agree 100%

no story under 20K words is worth more than $4.

Wow, you're a big spender. $2.99–$4.99 is the typical price for an ebook. And I'd say those novels are typically 65K–100k words.

For the genres I read, for commercially published works, the ebook price tends to be the same as the mass market paperback version, in the range of $8.99 to $15.99

I believe that's the case for traditionally published ebooks. The big publishers refuse to accept the ebook world. They want everything to be print and begrudgingly offer ebooks but price them like paperbacks.

And yet I've seen stories under 20K words listed on both Smashwords and Amazon for more than $15.

And they probably don't sell any copies. Anyone can self-publish a book. Not everyone does it properly, from editing to pricing.

A lot of traditionally publishable authors have elected to venture into the self-pub arena. The trick is to discover those from the mass of crap out there.

I believe that's the case for traditionally published ebooks. The big publishers refuse to accept the ebook world. They want everything to be print and begrudgingly offer ebooks but price them like paperbacks.

This may be true of some, but for Baen books at www.baen.com it isn't true. They sell paperbacks and hardcovers by well known authors at the traditional prices while their ebooks of the same titles are usually $6.99 each.

This may be true of some, but for Baen books at www.baen.com it isn't true. They sell paperbacks and hardcovers by well known authors at the traditional prices while their ebooks of the same titles are usually $6.99 each.

Baen has always been a publishing outlier, as they focused on cranking out cheap 3" x 5" paperbacks, rather than starting with hardbound volumes and only releasing the 3x5 versions after they're already established. Even though they published a LOT of significant authors, they've aways been a 'discount' publishing house.

And yet I've seen stories under 20K words listed on both Smashwords and Amazon for more than $15.

The Kindle edition of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Complete Edition) is currently reduced from $11 to $10.99 on Amazon!

AJ

For the genres I read, for commercially published works, the ebook price tends to be the same as the mass market paperback version, in the range of $8.99 to $15.99

Actually, for most mainstream publishers, the eBooks are kept artificially higher than the price of print (paperback) prices. So something you can purchase at an established bookstore for $24 will run you $26 to $28 for the eBook, despite there being NO production or distribution costs. That's he main reason why publishers keep claiming that 'eBooks don't sell as well'. It has nothing to do with ebooks in general, it's just that the major top-tier bestsellers are locked in at a certain base price.

Audio books are another weird creation. Despite requiring a recording studio, an exceptional speaker and thousands of dollars to produce (assuming you don't record it yourself), audio books generally sell for a fraction of the price of print books, generally $14 vs. $24, which is why so many books are never offered as audio books. You've got to have guaranteed sales in the tens of thousands to justify those production values.

Most of what I read these days in terms of commercial fiction falls under the paranormal romance genre. These tend to be fairly erotic with several graphic sex scenes. Not the sort of thing that tends to may the best seller lists.

Actually, Romance is an interesting genre, as they've reversed the trend over the last 50 years of always being quick, largely superficial reads, with many of the newer Romance books being closer to Sci-Fi lengths (i.e. 100,000 to 150,000 vs. the older Romance lengths of only 30,000 to 50,000).

Mysteries are also facing the same trend, though they're not doing it as aggressively, making making limited advances, rather than reinventing the entire genre.

Basically, once a reader falls in love with the character, they're reluctant to say goodbye, so they're willing to pay more for the story to continue, diving into deeper revelations than the typical 'beach read' romances of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

I try to make each book 45,000 words or more to be worth what I'm selling them for, if they aren't the prices go down accordingly.

While I don't believe that 'shorter is better', I still prefer a shorter, action-packed book than one that takes days to get to the point.

When I first started, my PRINT books ranged from 200 to 400 pages. Now I try to keep my sizes in the general genre specific ranges: 30,000 to 70,000 for mysteries, 60,000 to 120,000 for most novels, and 120,000 to 150,000 for most 'epic' science fiction and historical novels (since it takes so long to build a believable universe).

However, I've long stuck to the general 20-something chapter range, as that seems (for me at least) to be the optional size to tell a decent story. A book's size will vary greatly if those 20 chapters are 10,000/5,000 or only 3,000 each, but the same build up and pacing go into each, and that's generally chapter based, rather than word based.

On the other hand, I've also joined in with a recent publishing trend of selling box sets (multiple books in a single volume at a discounted price). There started as publishing the first book in several series, or a collection of an author's single works, as a way of promoting their longer, more involved series (which I've yet to try, simply because organizing them is still fairly difficult, as the books vary so much from one another).

But for any given series, it's a very nice return on investment, giving you more cash upfront, giving you a feel for how popular the series is, while also giving your readers a substantial price break. (I typically release the Box Set early in the series, so that once they've paid the total for all the books, they can upload the recent additions once they're published. That can sometimes take a while, but it's a way of 'locking' your interested readers in for the duration of the story.

But, since I keep unpublishing my earlier books, and have changed my writing style so much over the years, it's difficult putting together the first book of various series without them coming off as inconsistently written. :(

Sorry. I hit the wrong key on the last replay, overwriting the previous message rather than merely replying to it. Here's what I'd said, more or less, before it got erased.

Yes, that sort of pricing for series is an established publishing trend, and is why, for many publishers, they prefer to publish series by new authors rather than single books.

The first book in a series is often priced as a 'giveaway', as they assume they'll make the lost revenue when the readers purchase the other books in the series. The final book, though, often wraps up the various unresolved issues, as is seen as more emotionally satisfying, since the others often leave the readers hanging, thus readers are generally willing to pay a little more for the satisfaction of finally finishing a series.

Although, the first book in any given series generally tend to be faster paced, not delving as deeply into the character's lives, simply setting up the universe and establishing the underlying conflicts. As a result, they're often much shorter, while the final books, as they're delving deeper into the underlying issues, tend to pack in more details, so they also tend to be longer then the other books in the series.

Again, the first books tend to be teasers, giving readers a fast read, while the second and subsequent books add in more detail, until the final book finishing off all the unaddressed questions left dangling over the readers. So the difference in the length of the books also partially accounts for their price discrepancy.

I gradually eased the prices up until the sales started slacking up.

Then it is elastic.

Then it is elastic.

Nothing is absolute, especially in economics. Whereas markets might be inelastic, as there's really no choice in whether you want heat in winter or not, and there are few alternatives, for an individual seller, there are limits.

I should have stated largely inelastic (i.e. my books don't seem to operate like those selling for 99 cents a pop do), but I assumed most would assume the obvious.

For me, selling at $0.99 does not generate additional sales, and FREE books only seem to generate sales for other books easily accessed for free. Thus I'm comparing selling a book for $7.99, or even $14.99 for a print book, to those going for pennies on the dollar or for $24.99 a pop.