Some Blog Posts to Read: eBook Pricing, Bookflation and JA Konrath Stirs the Pot!

These three blog posts were interesting, informative and in the case of some of Mr. Konrath's post, entertaining. Worthwhile reading regardless for authors who self-publish.

Interesting blog piece from Ireland on pricing for eBooks:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/0221/1224312113036.html

Morris Rosenthal's look at book prices and book sales over the past ten years:

http://www.fonerbooks.com/selfpublishing/?p=1644

In his own unique style, eBook pioneer J.A. Konrath stirs the pot for those who think legacy publishing is a good deal. The comments are worth reading as well.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/02/do-legacy-publishers-treat-authors.html

Kindle Price Increases? POD Sales versus Kindle Sales - Something to Think About

Things change and with technology they seem to change faster and faster. When I published my first book print-on-demand (POD) was the way to go as a self-publishing author. POD using either Lightning Source or CreateSpace, combined with Amazon allowed an author to enter the world of self-publishing and not have to break the family bank to do so.

eBooks has produced more change and the ebook revolution is picking up more steam. Amazon's Kindle leads the way with B and N's Nook trailing along. If you are going to self-publish, you need to get on the ebook express or get left behind.

Amazon's Kindle is changing the publishing world quickly and to a lesser extent so is the B and N Nook. Kindle sales are climbing, already surpassing hardback sales at Amazon and if Kindle sales have not already done so, they will soon surpass paperback sales as well.

Amazon's fantastic 70% royalty for authors is great (if you follow the required Amazon pricing guidelines). Where else can you find that kind of a deal for a self-published author?

But what happens when your individual Kindle sales surpass your POD sales? This is a problem few have addressed in terms of profitability for the self-publishing author. Some have argued Kindle sales are sales an author would not have made otherwise. In my case that was certainly true a few months ago. It isn't now.

My total sales in terms of copies sold for Kindle this past month was nearly three times that of my more profitable POD sales, yet I made only 2/3s as much money on the Kindle sales.

Clearly, I need to change my pricing structure for my Kindle titles. But how much do I raise the price? One of the most attractive considerations for purchasing a Kindle book is the price. It is significantly less than the cost of purchasing a paperback. Yet, if I raise the price too high, might Kindle users balk at the price increase, even though the Kindle version is still much cheaper than its print counterpart?

I write non-fiction and am hardly a household name who can command higher prices. Raising my prices might result in lower sales in terms of volume which will have a negative impact on the Amazon long tail effect. 

Or will higher Kindle prices impact my total sales volume negatively? Why worry at all? My total combined sales is vastly higher than one year ago and so are my profits. The issue is as more and more customers purchase Kindle books and fewer and fewer purchase paper, over time my profits could decrease.

Fighting the ebook trend is pointless. All of my future books will appear sooner or later in both versions. The question is how do I make up the shortfall of anywhere from 2 to 6 dollars a copy difference between a Kindle edition and a POD edition?

It is one thing to deliberately price a Kindle version at a super low introductory price once both the POD and Kindle version are linked to drive the title up the Amazon search results quicker. It is another to leave the price too low and lose money over time. It is also an issue of "losing money" as more and more customers purchase the Kindle edition and POD sales decline.

Greater volume might well be the answer for a fiction author, but a niche market non-fiction author only has so many potential readers. This is an issue I believe many authors will face in the hurriedly approaching future. How do your optimally price a non-fiction ebook in the face of declining POD sales as your ebook sales increase?

Will Kindle and other eBook Prices Eventually Have to Rise?

Everyone seems to be jumping on the ebook train right now. I certainly have. May, June and July are the slowest three months for me in terms of print book sales. The same is not true for Kindle sales so far. May of 2011 was good and this June is looking like it will be the best month ever for Kindle sales since I ventured into the Kindle market.

While introducing Kindle editions does not seem to have hurt my print sales, and in fact I believe it helped boost the sales of one print edition, it remains to be seen if the trend will continue. I plan to pay close attention to print and Kindle sales trends for the next year or so.

One of the reasons for this is the fear I have that my Kindle sales WILL negatively impact my print sales at some point in the future. Why is this a concern? I make considerably more money per sale for a print book than I do a Kindle book, even with Amazon's generous royalty system. The price of Kindle books is so much lower than the price of the print edition, there is no possible way to make up the difference in net profit per sale and still take advantage of Amazon's pricing/royalty structure.

My books are non-fiction niche market books. Selling my books for the lowest possible price to drive sales is not a long term strategy for me. I think this strategy works well for fiction, new fiction authors and general market non-fiction.

As ebook readers and reading books digitally becomes more common, this is going to become more and more of an issue. More so if authors bypass the publishing houses and deal directly with Amazon for Kindle sales. The math will drive the issue.

For example, if an author is going to sell a print edition of a book that nets $6 per copy and the Kindle edition only nets $2 per copy, it will take three Kindle book sales to match the profit of one print copy being sold.

If the book is going to only sell 5,000 copies total for the author, Kindle and print combined, the ratio of print to Kindle sales is a significant one. 5,000 print copies at $6 net is a $30K net profit. 5,000 Kindle copies is only $10K net. The difference of $20K is nothing to sneeze at.

As the market trends towards digital books, will authors need to drive the prices upwards so they can make a living selling their books in a digital format?

Right now, I suspect many of my Kindle sales are impulse, price driven purchases I would not have made otherwise. In the future this might not be the case when people by digital books as the dominant format of consuming books.

Paperback or E-book, Which is More Popular? The Results of a Survey and the role of Pricing

On the blog Selling Books there is a post today about a recent CNN survey examining which version of a book is more popular, paperback or an e-book. The survey, an on-line and unscientific study, found people prefer paperbacks to e-books by a margin of 80% to 20%. Yet an earlier report by CNN contained information indicating e-book sales had surpassed paperback sales are were still rising. 

Neither the blog posting or the CNN articles referenced had an explanation for either result, the preference for paperbacks over e-books and the fact e-book sales are out pacing paperback sales. I have an idea of how both results are factual and easily understandable.

I like my Kindle reader. My wife loves her Nook. Yet both of us prefer traditional paper books. I write in mine, make notes, highlight and otherwise mark-up my paper books. I use them as references constantly. I mainly read non-fiction. My wife just likes to hold books while she reads them. She reads fiction.

Why do we both like our e-book readers? Two simple reasons. As a history teacher I can carry hundreds of books around in a small device that weights at most one pound while my wife likes the lack of clutter produced by books laying around the house. Both of us really like the fact e-books stretches our limited budget for new books much further than if we continued to purchase mainly paperback books.

Of the two reasons, price is the overriding factor for both of us. Given the state of the nation's economy and the need to either be entertained for a period of time or the need to find information, the lower cost of an e-book is a major factor, I think, in the rapid rise in e-book sales. I am sure there are other factors, but cost has to be the driving issues.

What does this mean for self-publishing authors? Quite simply, don't abandon your POD service, in my case CreateSpace, and you better be offering e-book versions of your titles as well as paperback. It also means as the publisher and author, careful consideration must be given in how you price both versions of your book.

How to Price eBooks for the Kindle by Stephen Windwalker - a Review

My professional education was geared to prepare me for a career other than entering the business world. My venture into self-publishing has been an eye-opening experience in so many ways due to the never ending need to learn new ideas and skills. The entire concept and "science" for lack of a better word concerning appropriate pricing and the many roles pricing plays has been an eye opener for me as well.

Even though one of my motivations for publishing my books is to be able to share information, it is a business and not only do I want to, I need to, make my enterprise as profitable as possible over the long run. Like many self-publishing authors, the business end of my enterprise is often not my strong suit. And so it was I invested the $2.99 in a Kindle copy of How to Price eBooks for the Kindle by Stephen Windwalker.

After reading the book twice, I still don't have a complete grasp on pricing strategies, but I do have a much better idea of the entire concept and what kind of considerations must be evaluated in the pricing process. My lack of understanding is NOT the fault of the author but rather a result of my lack of education in the realm of business.

The author not only covers the basics of pricing in the publishing world, but provides data from actual sales to illustrate the pricing concepts presented. Mr. Windwalker provides a good overview of the entire pricing process, the impact of pricing on sales from a long term perspective and offers a variety of strategies based on the author's past record of sales. In addition to the short book, included is a good number of blog posts the author wrote concerning a variety of topics related to the Kindle and the world of publishing eBooks.

The author writes with authority and clarity about the subject. A strong advocate of the Kindle and Kindle books, with a total of 32 books published for the Kindle, Mr. Windwalker is able to base his content on the experience and data gained through his own Kindle sales. The writing style is easy to understand allowing the reader to focus on the information presented and not deciphering the prose prior to attempting to understand the concepts in the book.

Is this book the sum total of knowledge an author must possess in order to effectively price Kindle books? Probably not, but it is an excellent starting point and reference for self-publishing authors who are entering the brave new world of eBook publishing. For the price of $2.99 the book is a virtual steal for the reader who purchases it.

Pricing for POD and Kindle versions of the same title

The price of a book is an important consideration, particularly for self-publishing authors. I publish non-fiction books about coaching basketball and two about self-publishing. I know a lot about coaching basketball and have learned a great deal about self-publishing. I like to share information I have learned with others and the advent of POD and eBook technology allows me to not only share information but to earn money in the process.

My expertise is not in writing fiction and it certainly is not in the complicated world of business (at least it is complicated to me). I teach history but have successfully avoided drawing the assignment of teaching economics in my years in the profession. I have a basic understanding of the concept of supply and demand and the impact of this equation on pricing. I do not completely understand the vagaries of the consuming public and the role pricing plays in the purchase decision.

The can be no doubt the lower price of eBooks plays a role in the popularity of eBook sales. But how important is the role of the price? How important is the role in the price of a print copy of a paper book? What impact does lowering the price have on sales? What impact does raising the price have on sales? Does the difference in price between a POD version of a title and a Kindle version make a difference in the decision of which copy to purchase? 

One argument for lower pricing is the lower price will drive sales and the lost income from the lower profit margin will be more than made up for through a large increase in total sales. Others might argue, at least for non-fiction books, that too low a price indicates the value of the information contained is limited. A high price indicates the value of the information in the book is significant.

My question is when is a price too high and when is a price too low? I happen to think the information in all my books has value, but then I am the author. The real question is how much do the customers who purchase my books think the information is worth? 

There in lies the key to the question of pricing, or at least what I think is the answer. How much is the information in my non-fiction books worth in terms of money to my potential customers? If I raise the price too high, it will have a negative impact on sales. If I price the book too low it will have an impact on the profitability of the book in question and, I believe, eventually have a negative impact on the total number of copies sold.

Amazon helps some with the pricing guidelines for its Kindle books. Whether you like it or not, Amazon's "suggestion" Kindle books should be priced between $2.99 and $9.99 seems to have set the standard and it is hard to argue with the 70% share of the retail price Amazon pays its Kindle authors. With easy and nearly immediate access to Kindle book sales information for a specific title, an author can experiment with pricing and over time determine the impact, positive or negative, a specific price has on any given title. The same is true of a POD paper book. CreateSpace provides hourly updates of sales for authors on the Member Dashboard.

The question I am struggling with now is what should the price difference between two editions of a title be? Will a price that works for a POD version with no Kindle version be impacted negatively if there is too big a difference between the POD price and the Kindle price?

My goal is to optimize sales for all of my books regardless of the version in question. Consider me greedy, but I want to sell as many Kindle books as I can and the same is true of my POD print books. I still have one more child to put through college. Pricing plays a role in the equation of generating sales and it has a role to play in how much profit my self-publishing business earns.

I will be sure to share what I learn in the coming months as Kindle versions of my current POD books come on line for sale and as I publish new titles with both in both eBook and POD versions.

Kindle Readers and the Impact of Pricing

For those of us who sell our books on Amazon, we love it when our readers post positive reviews, especially five-star reviews. My Kindle book just picked up another five-star review for the book to add to the two the paperback version had already earned.  Below is the review:

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable points for every coach and player, December 28, 2010

By 

Wyoedbrown (KFalls, OR) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The Game of Basketball: Basketball Fundamentals, Intangibles and Finer Points of the Game for Coaches, Players and Fans (Kindle Edition)

I just picked this up for my Kindle because the price was right and I coach basketball. It turns out to be the best book on the little things we sometimes forget to teach I have ever read. The author addresses a slew of little things that I take for granted in good players, but then I wonder what's wrong when my players aren't doing some of those things.

Note, the review starts with a comment about the price. The paperback version is over 300 pages long and sells for $17.95 which is actually about $7 below the list price for comparable books on Amazon and from retailers who sell to coaches.  The current Kindle price is $2.99 and I was promoting it on my website for coaches and in my e-newsletter as an introductory price. Now I am hesitant to raise the price.

It is obvious the coach who purchased the book is happy with the information in the book and I am happy he commented positively on the value of the content. But would the coach have purchased the book had the price for the Kindle version been so low?

This may not be conclusive evidence, how can a single example be conclusive, but it does fit with what I have been reading about the importance of pricing of Kindle books.

Just what is the best price for the Kindle version of this book? I would really like to make more per copy but will raising the price lower the sales? How much can I raise the price and not impact sales in a negative fashion? Will raising the price increase sales based on perceived value of the information contained in the book?

The answer to this question will probably only be answered by some experimentation and record keeping over time, but I do believe it is an important one I need to consider. I will have two more Kindle books available in the next 3-4 months and hope to have an reasonable answer to this question before I making these books available.