Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Writer's Night Out, Pricing and Stuff




Sunday night, I managed to crawl out of bed and limp my aching carcass out to a Writer's Night Out with Cherri Galbiati. I always enjoy those and it takes more than crippling cramps and battered muscles to keep me away.

We discussed the usual stuff. Pricing, blogging, marketing, and book covers...and speaking of book covers, here is the cover to Cherri's soon to be released book, Tracking Perception.




This is an authors preferred version of her previously released book, The Scent of Money.

Anyways, one of our main topics was pricing. Joe Konrath once stated that 2.99 was the sweet spot for pricing an indie novel. This is the minimum price that an author can charge on Amazon.com that will allow him to recieve 70 percent royalties on each sale. Many indie authors seem to agree with that and set their prices accordingly.

 On the other hand, some seem willing to sell their novels for .99 cents. It seems their hope is to increase sales to the point that the lower 35 percent royalty at this price will still garner the same or more income. Other authors object to this practice because they believe that these writers are training the customer to expect an indie work to cost .99 cents. There is some merit to that argument, and also the fact that since .99 cents is the minimum price that Amazon.com allows means that it's the price that a lot of us would prefer to use to sell our short stories and novellas at. So yeah, I'm not crazy about the .99 cent novel.

Now I can understand if somebody wants to start their novel out at .99 cents for a month or so to give it a good start. Even the big publishers tend to do this, so I can't object to an indie doing it. But I would be nice if the indie would then at least go to that 2.99 price so that would be the price the consumer would be expecting to see. It would also mean the customer wouldn't be surprised or annoyed to be getting a short story or novella at .99 cents.

On the other hand what I wish would happen, and what I think should happen, don't necessarily jibe with the reality with what is actually happening out there. So I have to take that into account when I decide what to price my next novel (if I ever finish the damn thing).

Oh well, we'll just have to burn that bridge once we've crossed it.

2 comments:

  1. Nate, thank you tremendously for the shout-out. It is a gorgeous cover, isn't it???? hee-hee.

    Yeah, you'll finish your novel in no time...or at least I sure hope so. I'm anxious to see how the blasted thing ends!!!!!!!

    I think the pricing issue is something each of us will tinker with till we just do whatever the heck we want. It's ALL good. :>)
    Cherri

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  2. I, too, don't like the 99 cent pricing for novels - at least not for my novel. Right now, Ninth Lord of the Night is on sale for 1.99, but that's only until the end of March. April 1st the price will go up. But, whata's wonderful is that I'm the one making the decision about the monetary value I place on my own work.

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