Pricing of eBooks…
As a continuation of my post about the digital publishing revolution, I’m dedicating this post to eBook pricing. One reason: I’ve decided that the emphasis in my future participation in this revolution will be on eBooks. While my main motivation for this decision is control—my control—over the publishing process, there are many others. I touched on some of those reasons for all self-publishing options in that previous post. One aspect of that control, of course, is determining the pricing for your eBook.
Barry Eisler’s new John Rain thriller, The Detachment, is priced at $5.99 for a Kindle download. That price is right in the middle of the standard Amazon range of $2.99 to $9.99. OK, for purists, the middle would be $6.50, give or take a few cents, so, if you take dollar steps from $2.99, it could be $5.99 or $6.99. Don’t ask me why the used car salesperson’s 99 is present—why not $6.50? This is all part of the craziness—and the fun! Will you be more likely to buy a book at $5.99 than $6.50? For one of my books, maybe. For Barry Eisler, the price might not matter much.
Humor aside, my primary concern here is the devaluation of an author’s work and exploitation of a reader’s enthusiasm. If you’re only a reader and not a writer, do you know how much time an author might spend writing a novel of, say, 70 kwords? One of my LinkedIn writing buddies says that the time spent might not be a good measure—some writers can dash off a novel in a month, he says. My rejoinder, and I make it public here: any author, whether he or she goes the legacy route (agent/editor/publisher/publicist) or the indie route (she does all the editing and marketing as well as the writing), will spend many long hours—a novel is not something you dash off overnight. (Yes, I know, there are contests where you’re supposed to write a novel in a month. If you believe that on the average the final product of that process is any good, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you.)
An example: My YA sci-fi thriller The Secret Lab has about 50 kwords (young adult novels tend to be shorter, but not always, as Rowling so aptly demonstrated). I estimate that it was a two-year project. Of course, that was not the only thing I did over those two years (I wrote this blog, for example), but it certainly wasn’t something that happened overnight. I spent about half the time learning everything I could about how to write a YA novel, including the study of successful ones. It’s true that great blocks of thousands of words were written when I was “in the zone”—Mr. Paws, the cat-mathematician, and the Fearsome Four came alive for me, taking over the stage as surely as Luigi Pirandello’s six characters. During the editing, an onerous but necessary task, I asked my niece, then twelve, to read it. She had some good ideas for its improvement. After all this, I’m selling it for $0.99. Don’t I value my own work?
There are several reasons for producing a bargain eBook ($2.99 or less). The most important one for me was marketing—or, better said, name recognition. I believe that this is the golden rule of fiction writing. Some pundits invented the name platform, something more general which embraces both fiction and non-fiction. For the writer of non-fiction, either expertise or celebrity, direct or borrowed, can often sell books (oh, he’s that famous guy who invented black holes—see, you already know the name—or she’s the daughter of Ms. Tea Party Darling—again, you know the name). For the writer of fiction, name recognition based on past performance is all you have—people recognize your name as that guy or gal they read before and they liked. The more books the fiction writer writes, the more books she sells. Assuming they’re not crap.
Unfortunately, Theodore Sturgeon’s Law applies (google Sturgeon’s Law), especially at the bargain eBook end of the spectrum. Along with the truly great novels you might find for $0.99, you’ll find mine and many others, some no more than short stories, some poorly edited and/or badly formatted to the point that they are unreadable, and some that just might leave you scratching your head and saying in disappointment, “Huh?” or “So what.” One can argue that the good signals, the good (original, profound, entertaining, etc) books, will rise above all the noise signals, all those books that correspond to that 95% mentioned in Theodore’s Law. This can happen, but it’s better for the author, especially an indie author, if he has written many good books. In radio astronomy, it’s called pulling the signal out of the noise via integration. Most people call it name recognition.
However, to some extent, bargains on eBooks sell more eBooks. Amazon’s pricing, for example, depends on the validity of this marketing philosophy. In the $2.99 to $9.99 range, the publisher or author receives 70% of that price and Amazon 30%. Barnes & Noble, for its Nook downloads, is stingier—their royalty rates for the same range of prices is 65/35. Smashwords, because it’s a distributer, is generally 60/40, independent of price. So, why not just set the price at $9.99? For the same reason your supermarket has sales. If I sell four books at $2.99, I make more than selling one at $9.99. From this point-of-view, the readers drive the market price (unless the publisher of your pBook sets the price of the eBook—then there’s nothing you can do). Apparently Barry Eisler just split the difference, knowing that his name recognition will always sell books but recognizing that he’ll sell more at $5.99 than $9.99.
To beat a dead horse (in reference to my last blog post, some clichés are not politically correct from PETA’s point of view, but so what?), let’s consider my book The Midas Bomb. On Amazon, you can buy the pBook for $13.95 while the eBook is $7.96. (If I remember correctly, Infinity’s pricing structure for eBooks was determined by Apple’s for iBooks—I don’t think I’m 33% better than Barry Eisler.) All things being equal, I would probably sell many more eBooks. Of course, all things aren’t equal. People buy the eBook and download it only if they have a Kindle (for Amazon—the eBook’s available for all eReaders). Some might not like eReaders. Or, some (and they’re out there) want both the pBook and the eBook.
However, that’s not the issue I’m interested in. Which pricing structure makes the best compromise between satisfying the reading public and being fair to the author? Again, it’s best to look at the integrated effect. eBooks are forever (Barry Eisler has expressed this opinion very forcefully in turning down a contract with one of the Big Six publishers). The author, especially the indie author, can be selling his first novel ten years down the road. A slow start doesn’t mean his pBook disappears from the shelves of the huge brick and mortar bookstores after two months. As his book catches on and he writes more and more good books (the John Rain series is an example), that first book will have better and better sales. His new reader reads the last one, and then decides to buy some of the previous ones.
I’ve stated many times that my goal in writing is not necessarily to make money—I’d just like to entertain as many readers as I can. (And, recover my costs, of course.) Fiction, for me, is entertainment—as a writer I entertain people; as a reviewer I write about books that entertained me; and as a reader I am entertained. However, in general, the number of buyers of my books will correlate well with the number of readers. While it’s true that if you just borrow one of my books, you count as a reader but not a buyer, the number of books sold is my only datum to determine the number of readers. But the same rule holds about integrated effects. To increase your number of readers, write more good books. The probability of finding you as an author has to increase with the number of good books you’ve written.
Does that mean that your goal as a writer is to maximize your number of books? Most emphatically, no! In a previous post, I wrote about the advantages and disadvantages of writing a series (yeah, I know, Eisler has had success with his John Rain series—but I bet he didn’t start out to write a series). Neither number of books nor series writing should be your goal. A fellow writer in a Bookmarketingnetwork thread objected to this too. He said something like, “I wrote 250 kwords and decided to make it a trilogy.” OK, maybe that worked for him. However, I’ve noticed one point of failure of many writers in recent years (newsflash: I read, therefore I study other authors): they aren’t concise enough—they don’t know how to write lean prose. I’m prone to wordiness myself—don’t be caught in that trap. Prolific (e.g. Isaac Asimov, the most prolific author I know, was a tad wordy at times) should have a positive connotation; don’t fall into Theodore’s 95% by rambling.
One piece of advice the indie author shouldn’t forget: you’ll not only hurt yourself but all other indie authors if you produce crap. Be responsible. Make sure your book is the best it can be, whether pBook or eBook. Indie books and indie authors already have one strike against them from the general reading public. If your book is badly edited or badly formatted, you receive the other two strikes as the “I told you so” phenomenon occurs. I find it amusing that the Big Six even fall into Sturgeon’s 95% with all the technical editorial staff they have. I have reviewed even poorly edited pBooks from them and in their mad dash to jump into the eBook market they have produced poorly formatted eBooks. Even large old trees fall in the forest.
Whether interested in readers or sales, the indie author is in control. You can reduce the price of older books compared to new ones, bundle pBook with eBook, have sale prices during the holidays. In today’s cutthroat market place, anything goes, and you can experiment. I’m experimenting myself. It’s part of the fun. As I said, I’m ready to go 100% the eBook route. I have projects for turning my venerable (in today’s market, six years is venerable) pBook sci-fi thrillers Full Medical and Soldiers of God into eBooks. The Secret Lab won’t be made into a pBook. My online serialization Evil Agenda will. There are several eBook short story collections in the works (note that I said collection, not one short story).
If you’re a reader, download a bargain eBook, and you finish it, don’t say, “This was really a good book—I wonder why the price was so low.” Instead say, “This was really a good book—I’m glad it was such a bargain!” The author has made a sacrifice to provide you inexpensive, quality entertainment. Pass the word along to friends. Word-of-mouth is still the best marketing tool—your friend will respect your opinion more than any reviewer’s. But you can also help by going on Amazon and writing a review.
In fact, as a reader, let your voice also be heard if you think a book is crap. Anyone can write a book nowadays, but that statement is a little like saying anyone can play ice hockey. Yes, I can get on skates and maybe stand up long enough to take a slap at the puck, but I really shouldn’t be doing it. I don’t know if the percentage of eBook crap is 95%. One of my readers said she thought it was only 10%, but she had a small sample. I do know that it is a very competitive business. If you really like an author, support him or her via your reading and your reviews.
In libras libertas…
