Last Monday I wrote a blog post about the pricing of e-books. More specifically, lowering the price of mine – Shallow Waters from £1.99 to 99p and equally halving it in all other countries.
The reduction in price was meant to be a weekend promotion, to see if I could get Shallow Waters to move at all and if it did move, to see if it would move enough in sales or visibility to make it worth the drop from 70% commission on my price to 35% commission.
The price promotion proved to be a positive move on both fronts.
Then one of my commenters said, and this only a partial quote of a full sentence, but it’s one that triggered this post, that ’99p is cheap for a book’. So I started to think about that whole circle writers go in about the price of e-books and 99p being cheap and less than the price of a cup of coffee and surely all the work an author has put into that work, the novel is worth much more than 99 pence?
Well, here’s a different view and it could be contentious!
My novel isn’t worth 99 pence and I’m never going to say it is. The thing is, I’m not just earning 99p for all the hard work I put into that novel. I’m earning a bit more than 99p. 99p is just a part of the payment I’m receiving for my hard work. There is a cumulative payment that I actually receive and every author receives for their work. Do we expect each individual person to pay what we think that novel is really worth? No. But they can contribute to its whole. And by lowering the price to 99p I am actually getting a better price for my work than I was by keeping it at a higher price. I’m not devaluing my work. The person buying has no responsibility to me. And I don’t buy that by pricing my work so low I am devaluing the work of other authors. This is my work and I am getting a better price for it as a whole, so why would anyone argue against that? Everyone has the ability and choice to price their books as they choose. I may put the price back up because it is cheap right now. I’m not saying the price isn’t cheap for a full novel. But what I am saying is; the person making that one payment of 99 pence is not making a payment of what the novel is worth, they are making a part of a whole, bigger picture and people need to see that the single book is not the value, the total sales is what the book was worth.
What do you think of e-book pricing?
It’s largely a marketing decision for me. The first book in my series is 99p, the second is £2.50. Hopefully if a reader likes the first book, they’ll care enough about the characters to want to live with them for a little longer and will be willing to pay a higher, but still reasonable, rate.
I do think you sometimes take your chances with a 99p book. I’ve read some real corkers, where you want to just shake the author and say for goodness sake do a decent proof read. There are some where I’d love to take the author under my wing and help them hone what could be good story. However, someone who wants to buy my 99p book has the option of reading the first three chapters for nothing before they splash out their cash.
I definitely don’t see this as devaluing my, or anyone else’s, work. I still get the thrill of positive reviews from people who are not my family and friends (all 5* so far!), and that’s of great value to me.
I think the value of a book is related to a readers enjoyment of it. All the hard work, the blood, sweat and tears – it all comes down to bringing the story to life and sending our characters out into the world. So in terms of how much value an author puts on it, I think the pricing is just a way to ensure it’s readily available. That’s my opinion at least! I don’t think you’re devaluing your work in the slightest by having a sale – you are ensuring it’s available to a wider audience. There are so many e-books it would be difficult to rely on pricing alone – it has to be about the work of the artist and that usually speaks for itself.
It’s your book so you can price it how you like, is my view. I’m so happy to see Shallow Waters is doing well 😉
That’s a really interesting one. No reader is ever going to be able to pay what your book is worth but by getting it out there and read more widely you also gain something that you can’t value… that little bit of pleasure and adventure it will give to all the people who read it. Doesn’t pay the bills I know but for most of us the value of our work ends up as more than the sum of our pay packet.
Good on you for doing what you believe in.
Rebecca, I don’t know much about e-book pricing but low pricing often influences my decision to buy ebooks considering that I also buy books elsewhere.
I totally agree with you. As you know, I have priced Cry Baby at 99p for most of its life. I have done well out of this financially, but to me a more important point is that it has helped me reach a much larger audience, who may then go on to buy my other (higher-priced) books. It’s a sales and marketing decision, just as it is for any product. Do whatever works for you (and I’m so glad that, in your case, it is definitely working!)
If the lower price means more people buy it, then in the long run the book earns more.
My publisher did a .99 cent sale with one of my books and did it ever churn up sales!
I think this is about more than just selling Shallow Waters – it is about promoting you and the next book and the one after that…raising your profile is so important for your future as a writer.
Rebecca – That’s really interesting! I think you have an interesting point about considering this from the larger perspective of all readers (rather than just one reader who pays a certain price for one book). And I think Carol has a well-taken point that part of what you need to consider with pricing is getting your work ‘out there’ and promoting it. And that low price may just be what it takes to get readers to take a chance on your work – and hopefully get hooked.
I don’t think it necessarily devalues an individual work, but I don’t think it’s good for the industry as a whole. The myth of big sales had encouraged a flood of bad writing which has brought a stigma to e-books and the only one who’s benefiting it Amazon. I would just as soon not give them my effort for nothing.
I look at the books that are 99p because I think that is worth spending on an electronic format book. I would spend more on the physical format because I see where money has been spent in producing it. If I find the 99p book was a good read then I will buy another book by that author. Many of what are considered classics are now free on Kindle but the authors contribution is still very valid. Great work is not about monetary value.
That’s an interesting way of looking at it. It makes a lot of business sense. Just yesterday I saw a commercial for Coke and thought how many millions they spend on advertising. Surely, they’re not losing money, nor are they selling a bottle of Coke at exorbitant prices.
And as another successful player in the game says: Just Do It!
Best of luck, Rebecca on your new marketing strategy.
I have purchased many books that are 99p. In fact I have purchased some for 10p, all which were new and when one of the authors concerned mentioned that he still got what he was entitled too from the publisher I felt less uneasy about it. Many of the authors that I have been introduced to by the 99p promotion I have then bought other books by them, including David Jackson who posted a comment earlier.
It does feel strange though that books are cheaper than a coffee or some bars of chocolate.
Yes, I like your thinking! I think promotional periods at 99p are a good idea as someone may buy your book at that fabulous bargain price and then be looking out for the next one, and the next one, which you may be selling at a higher price.
I do like the way you think about this issue. On the whole for an ‘unknown’ author you have to get yourself out there noticed, and talked about and pricing is just one way to do that. I have tried a fair few debut novelists based on the fact that it is less than the price of a cup of coffee and therefore worth a punt.
It’s that concept of supply and demand–good ol’ capitalism. The price reflects supply and demand, not value.
I think it’s a clever strategy as by lowering the price you reach a wider audience. To me personally it doesn’t matter if the book is 99p or £3, it’s still cheap and a price I’m ready to pay to support fellow authors and friends. xx
This is a great post. I think there are really two questions, is it devaluing your work and is it devaluating the work of others?
To answer the first, I don’t believe so. Whether you reduce your price to 99p (or even free) as long as you are doing it as part of a planned marketing approach – in your case for greater exposure – then it’s a sensible, cost effective way to get your work seen (and many, many congratulations on your fantastic results!).
The second question is a little trickier to answer. Some would say the flood of low priced ebooks has devalued the written word as a whole. I can see their point but personally don’t agree with it. Having works by new (or even well established) authors available at a low price point has made it possible for many, many readers to discover works they would otherwise never have looked at because £7.99 is a little too steep a price for many people to take a risk. Plus, most of us discovered our favourite authors, not by taking a punt on a book at a bookshop, but by borrowing a friend’s paperback or taking out of the library. Lower priced ebooks is just a continuation of this tradition. There are many indie authors who built an audience by reducing their prices or even giving away their books, only to raise prices later when more established, and they still sell by the bucketloads.
I’m a new Indie Author and I have struggled to sell any books on Amazon – I’ve managed to give them away though! I agree that the lower pricing option may help you get more purchases and therefore more marketing and I am thinking of trying it myself.