With my revised novel in place and ready to go, I decided to review its price. On the print side of the house, the price is pretty much setting for me. Lulu, the print on demand service I'm using, tells me the cost of the book to print it and lets me mark it up from there. Other print on demand services I've looked at do the same thing.
But on the electronic side of the house, I can go as low as zero because it costs very little for Smashwords to convert my book in all the formats they support since the process is automated and used by thousands of other writers.
And since I only have flexibility on price for the e-book, I've been considering dropping the price because it does not seem to be selling at $4.99. As an informal test, I asked the question on Facebook if the price of the book matters. And some people confirmed they are reading free e-books, partially to see what is out there and partially because they are free. Others confirmed they purchase fewer books these days because money is tight. I have no idea as to the percentage of folks who fall into each category but it does bear considering, especially for the self-published writer who can set his or her own price.
And it also confirms my experience. I've got a lot of free downloads for the e-book on Smashwords but only 10% of those result in sales. Part of that is undoubtedly because I'm an unknown writer, or they didn't like the book, perhaps. But I think the majority of downloads are from people who want to see what is out there and have no interest or desire to pay for anything.
This has been happening in software for years. The whole shareware/freeware business. Once upon a time, I would try shareware or freeware and if the program is good I would pay for it. These days I only look at freeware because the cost to upgrade commercial software runs in the hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on what upgrades are available in a given year. The end result is I only upgrade one program at a time and then wait a month of more until my budget permits me to make another purchase.
If other people are doing the same thing with books, this explains a lot. They are saving their money for the next book from well-known writers and in the meantime, read the free stuff because they are avid readers.
In such an environment, I don't see how can new writers can compete.
3 comments:
I sometimes take free books, but usually not unless I can read at least the first chapter to decide if I like the writing style. And I'm just as likely to buy the book based on that as I am to take it free. I'd suggest you price it at something reasonable, like $2.99, and offer the first 1 to 3 chapters free--enough to get the reader well into it. Then publicize it any way you can and give it time. Some of the people I know who are selling well have had their book out for a couple of years before it took off.
Rich, Price is not the only factor, and I believe it's less important than we think--up to a point. People want good books to read. They're willing to pay a reasonable price if it is good. The problem I've found is that MANY indie-pubished books are lacking either in story quality or in writing quality (very often the latter), and the sample can be very telling in that regard. If people aren't buying (assuming you're marketing it properly), then you should seek out some honest opinions from tough readers and find out if the book is as strong as it needs to be. Has it been very well edited or are they still glaring mistakes on every page? It's not enough to be good. You've got to have an excellent and irresistible book if you want those downloads to turn into buys. I'm not saying this is your problem, but it's the first thing you should look at.
I don't think this is my problem. The book has been professionally edited and one publisher is interested but has not yet decided to buy it.
So assuming that the writing is good and the story is good, I'm forced to consider other items like the marketing and the price. Frankly, I'm not sure the marketing is the best nor am I certain that I know how best to market my work. Price I can control more easily and I will be looking at it closely once I relaunch the series with the second novel.
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