SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

Two extremely prominent traditional book stores have gone into receivership here in the last week, inability to compete with online sales has been cited as a reason for this. I am not sure if by this is referring to ebook sales or online sales of traditional books. It's something that I shall look more into.

I think it's really a matter of what I am getting when I pay for the ebook.

For example, $25 for a standard ebook novel seems expensive to me. But $25 for a collection of some sort, even if it's shorter than the novel, would be more worth it.

Question: "What price is too high for an ebook?"

Answer A) If the ebook has DRM, then ANY amount is too much. I will never again pay a cent for a book containing DRM.

Answer B) For non-DRM books, I think anywhere from $5.99 to $9.99 is a fair price. A brand new title currently available only in hardcover could be a higher price, but this price should eventually come down. A book 2-3 years old should be $9.99 maximum. And a back-catalog book should be $5.99 to cut out the used book store market (which brings no income to either the author or publisher).

Why am I so anti-DRM?

Wow.. lots of reasons. It would be interesting to compile a list here in this discussion. Anybody read the recent library fiasco perpetrated by Harper Collins?

I'm not quite sure where I would draw the line on an ebook price. The most I've ever paid is $9.99 with most of them around $6-8. But if I was excited enough about a book, I'd probably go higher.

It is probably like video games for me: I believe $60 is way too high for most games. About once a year, I will buy one, maybe two for that price. The rest of the time, I can wait until the price drops down to $20-$30.

I do get concerned sometimes about this race to the bottom with prices of electronic wares. If prices drop to nothing, the highest quality talent may abandon the field if they cannot make money anymore. Plus, we sometimes forget that professionally sold books have editors, marketers, and contracts behind them for future books from the author.

I can definitely understand concerns about lowering prices [i]too[/i] much, but from an author's standpoint, I can self publish at $2.99 and still make more than I would through a publisher at $5.99. So $2.99 works for me and the readers. Inflation is always there, but it's going to be a long time before I price an e-book at 9.99 or more.

I guess that as long as the e-book is cheaper than the paperback, the reader comes out ahead, but still, I see e-books for $12.99 and I just scoff. Even the George Martin books that I love are $8.99, and I don't like that. Those e-books just don't need to cost that much, especially when the series has been a goldmine for years. A GoT e-book is basically pure profit at this point. Some of the paperbacks are the SAME price as the e-books. Not counting shipping, some are CHEAPER. Ridiculous.

If it's more than either of the DTB versions, then it's too much, IMO. Ebooks cost less to produce, so I shouldn't have to pay $7.99 when I could get a brand new paperback for that much.

Samantha wrote: "If it's more than either of the DTB versions, then it's too much, IMO. Ebooks cost less to produce, so I shouldn't have to pay $7.99 when I could get a brand new paperback for that much."

All other things being equal, I agree. However, if you're comparing a 50,000 word (thin) paperback to a 125,000 word (blockbuster size) eBook of comparable genre, then it's conceivable they'd cost the same.

AS long as Amazon is king of the hill, the price of good quality eBooks is going to be above $1.99 and most will max out at $9.99. This is because Amazon pays a higher "royalty" to the publisher (or author if self-published) in this range and half as much outside that range. That 99-cent eBook only nets the author/publisher 35 cents. You can't buy very many Cornflakes with that.

Al wrote: All other things being equal, I agree. However, if you're comparing a 50,000 word (thin) paperback to a 125,000 word (blockbuster size) eBook of comparable genre, then it's conceivable they'd cost the same.

Even for ebooks, I'd happily pay more for a longer novel, as longer novels require more work from the author. But when the price of the ebook is the same as the paperback of the same book, I'm automatically turned off from both (unless it's a book I really want, in which case, I'll probably splurge for the DTB).

Samantha wrote: "Al wrote: All other things being equal, I agree. However, if you're comparing a 50,000 word (thin) paperback to a 125,000 word (blockbuster size) eBook of comparable genre, then it's conceivable th..."

Agreed, in spades! The only advantage to the eBook under those circumstances is the lower cost of delivery and the time factor to gratification.

I've even seen eBooks priced higher than the paper version by publishers who are afraid of eBooks and want to kill the industry, rather than adapting. They think they're in the business of pushing paper out the door when in fact, they should be in the business of delivering words to the customer.

Al wrote: "Valerie wrote:So if you want cheap, you'll get cheap. What do you think? ..."
That's something I have to deal with, too."

Well said."

I'm a new author so I priced my books at what I thought was fairly reasonable... I just figured that I need to get my name out there before I can worry about making a bunch of money and buying that house on the beach.

I'm indie, so I thought that the lower price would induce people to at least try out my book. I'm hoping people will be pleasantly surprised and come back to read the other things I've written/am writing.

I don't know. I'm really proud of "Heroes & Villains" and I just didn't think a ton of people were going to go running out the door to buy another superhero book.

I mean, I've seen some books that were like 20,000 words and they want $15 for them. That seems like way too much when you don't have to figure in print costs.

Harper wrote: "I'm a new author so I priced my books at what I thought was fairly reasonable... I just figured that I need to get my name out there before I can worry about making a bunch of money and buying that house on the beach...."

There are many factors that go into selling a book and price is just one of them. We tried introducing an excellent book at $2 to see if sales would be greater than other books in the same series.

It bombed. Almost no sales.

So, we hiked the price to where it should have been in the first place ($6.50 which is still a bargain for a blockbuster-sized book) and sales took off. We can only conclude that shoppers thought it must be a lousy book if we had to price it so low. Human nature at work.

Other factors are:
-Public taste
-Writing that "hooks" the reader when they read the sample. There's no substitute for excellent writing skills, proper editing by someone else (not the author) who knows how to "doctor" a book, and a copy editor.
-Cover art
-Clean final product (production)
-Sales blurb
-Other books you've published (are you a one-shot wonder?)

It is not the actual cost that bothers me - so long as it is not more than I would pay for the same title as a physical book. But what does irritate me is that some - even some quite expensive - ebooks are far worse proofread than the equivalent paper version. I also feel if I am paying a sizeable amount I should get a proper cover picture, not just a generic 'this is an ebook so we don't have to bother' type of cover.
I've also recently noticed I have several books which do give you the blurb from the cover - but right at the end - don't most people want to read this first? So I would suggest that if publishers want to charge near real-paper prices, they really need to give us a similar quality product. That said some are very good, but some can be very disppointing.

Pauline wrote: "But what does irritate me is that some - even some quite expensive - ebooks are far worse proofread than the equivalent paper version...."

There's a way around that. When you find eBooks that are properly edited, note the publisher, then look for more books from that same publisher. Naturally, we hope you'll find books from AKW Books up to your standards [end of commercial].

At Amazon and Smashwords, you can do searches by publisher, although some of the big NY outfits may deluge you with more than you can process. Or you can migrate to the publisher's website to do a search; some are better than others for shopping or research.

If a publisher regularly puts out bad stuff, bypass other books by that outfit.

For self-published stuff, you're on your own. Reading the excerpt (if offered) can give you a clue to the quality of editing.

"I should get a proper cover picture, not just a generic ..."

We put out good covers, but I often wonder why people want nice colorful covers on their Kindle or other B&W device. Still, a good cover helps to sell books on website "shelves" and does look nice on an iPad or laptop.

Carl wrote: "The 70% percent royalty offered by Amazon/Kindle might be weighed against the 7% from traditional publishers. So an e-book offered at $3 gives the same royalty to the author as a traditionally publ..."

Royalties have to cover the cost of production: editors, production techs, overhead, etc. The only difference between an eBook publisher and a paper publisher is that the eBook publisher doesn't have to push paper out the door; and the eBook publisher pays a higher royalty percentage to the author (often 50% of receipts) to make up for the lower sales volume for eBooks.

BTW, that 70% is only for US, GB, and German sales. Sales to other countries only pay 35% from Amazon. Also Amazon set $2.99 as the MINIMUM price if you want 70% (to cover their cost of sales out of their 70 cents). Their cap is $9.99 in that bracket.

The upshot is that ePublishers have similar expenses as the paper publishers, but they have to recoup those expenses from a smaller number of unit sales at a lower retail price.

Al:
You are quite correct.
My comments are with regard to author-published books (on the Kindle/Nook store).

Carl wrote: "Al:
You are quite correct.
My comments are with regard to author-published books (on the Kindle/Nook store)."

Which brings us back to the messy problem of human nature vs pricing. "It's too cheap. Must not be worth it." If we could overcome that, a bargain book could sell thousands instead of hundreds or none.

The average book (paper and otherwise) only sells 12 copies. So for every Steven King novel, a LOT of other books don't sell squat. I'd like to see lower pricing coupled with a change in human nature (good luck with that one) lift the average up for all books (more people reading more books).

Al,
I worry about human nature as well--and wonder if the 'it's too cheap to be good' syndrome still applies to e-books.
None the less, in an attempt to draw readers to my other e-books, I intend to e-publish my next book, 'SF++ Science Fiction Stories for Linux Geeks' as a free book.
(Most of the stories have already paid for themselves as they are reprints of some of my Analog Magazine pieces.)

Carl Frederick
Moon Over Saint Frankenstein's
The Trojan Carousel

Carl wrote: "Al,
I know that this is the wrong place to ask the question, but what are the advantages to publish via AKW books as opposed to doing it directly via Amazon/Kindle?..."

The advantage of publishing with ANY "real" publisher is that you get professional editing and presentation. In return, you share the profits (no such thing as a free lunch); in our case a 50/50 split of gross procedes.

In the case of AKW, we review all submissions for writing quality, plot, and saleability of the story. We take only the very best (less than 10% of the initial queries). [Unlike the NY houses, we don't care if this is your first book or a big "name", but we won't turn you down if you're famous (grin).]

If a manuscript makes it through our screening process, it goes to a story editor who helps the author clean out the info-dumps, correct logical problems, improve the story line, etc. Next it goes to a copy editor to pick up grammar and punctuation problems, paragraphing problems, and to apply our "style sheet" for punctuation usage and so forth. Finally, it goes into production to format it, apply cover art and titles, clean up the mechanics of the manuscript, and so forth to make sure it converts into the various digital formats with a minimum of problems. Then it's listed on our website, Amazon, and often others where appropriate.

Now, all of this are things an "indi" author can hire others to do (never try to do your own editing -- you're too familiar with your mistakes) or in the case of presentation, learn to do yourself. The author has to decide if s/he wants to do all these things or stick to writing and leave the rest to the professionals.

One other thing: ALL authors, indi, published via a NY house or via a small outfit; will end up doing a lot of the promotion. Marketing budgets are horribly thin in the industry and reserved for "blockbuster" authors and famous people (presidents, sports stars, etc.).

Al:
A compelling answer.
Thanks

p.s. -- how do you price fiction?

Carl wrote: "Al:
A compelling answer.
Thanks

p.s. -- how do you price fiction?"

Generally, about 15% below average comparable eBooks on Amazon and within Amazon's prime range. Let's face it, Amazon Kindle is still the 800 pound gorilla in spite of the iPad and others. Other factors also apply, but that's the starting point. We're constantly gathering metrics (something even the big NY houses don't do) to help refine our sales and presentation practices. No "perfect" formula yet and when we do find one, we probably won't broadcast it. Let Simon and Schuster, et al do their own research.

In the meantime, our goal is to provide the best books in the industry at a price the reader can afford. If we do that, our success should take care of itself. And any indi author should be doing the same thing if s/he wants to succeed.

Al:
Once again, thanks.

Considering how much ebook conversion is outsourced dirt cheap to India, ebook pricing you should be considerably lower than something that was printed, warehoused and shipped around. I'd say at least less than 1/2 price of the paper back version.

Arnold wrote: "Considering how much ebook conversion is outsourced dirt cheap to India, ebook pricing you should be considerably lower than something that was printed, warehoused and shipped around. I'd say at le..."

You're welcome to outsource to India. We'll keep our operation in the USA and Canada and still keep the price down.

Ebook conversion in India? Why? Conversion is not that hard--at least not for something without extensive indices, appendices, etc.
If the manuscript is, for example, in MS-Word, one only needs the freeware Calibre program to do the conversion.
One should, of course, pay attention to the specific requirements of Amazon, B&N, etc. (e.g. Amazon/Kindle does not want page numbers in a manuscript whereas B&N/Nook does).
(I have a 'cookbook' of sorts for conversion on my website at www.darkzoo.net/clfsite/EPubs.htm )

Al, that is great. I wish more people would keep their business local to support their own economy and community.

Carl, I love Calibre, but not for ebook production. Most of that still needs to be coded by hand to take all the different devices, formats and sizes into account. As far as I know, Calibre cannot make an ebook file that would pass the Amazon, Apple or B&N file checks. It is also not meant to be used for that purpose.

For anyone interested in the "behind the scenes ebook conversion world", I can highly recommend the eBook Ninjas podcast.
You can get it on iTunes or here:
http://ebookninjas.com/
More than you ever wanted to know about ebooks and highly entertaining :)

Arnold:
I've used Calibre (with some very small, and possibly unnecessary, hand tweaking) to epublish eight books on Amazon and also B&N.

Carl wrote: "Arnold:
I've used Calibre (with some very small, and possibly unnecessary, hand tweaking) to epublish eight books on Amazon and also B&N."

Is "Eridion" one of those?
What did you put into Calibre? A Word file or html from Word? I am also curious what you mean by tweaking. Most people fail the checks at those places due to lacking meta data, and odd formatting code in the files.

Arnold:
I saved a word .doc file as filtered HTML, then opened the html file using notepad and surrounded the table of contents with
Then I used Calibre to do the conversion.
Then I checked the results using the Nook and Kindle aps on my laptop. And finally, I checked the results by uploading the epub file to a Nook and a Kobo.

'Eridion' was one of those.
(How did you discover 'Eridion'?)
-Carl

I have recently bought the new translation of The Tale of Genji by Muraski Shikibu. It cost nearly £15 but I feel it is worth every penny. It is beautifully produced, with very nice line drawings throughout, it's an extremely long book (well over a thousand pages) and for me the sheer quality of the product makes it worth every penny. I'm really happy with the book and the price.

Carl wrote: "Arnold:
I saved a word .doc file as filtered HTML, then opened the html file using notepad and surrounded the table of contents with and
Then I used Calibre to do the conversion.
Then I checked ..."
I wanted to see some of the formatting, so I clicked on your name to see what you have written, read the descriptions, Eridion seemed interesting, downloaded the free Amazon sample, got sucked into the story and bought it. Really good book so far. I am about half way through. And the formatting is very good too :)

Arnold:
Thanks very much for buying Eridion. I'm glad you're enjoying it (and that the formatting works). I very much appreciate the feedback.

p.s.--A fellow Howard Zinn fan, I see. And your German is clearly much better than mine, and...and Alphas wear grey.

I think about $10 is my max but I usually buy books from newer authors that range between $1.00 and $5.00. So far I have more than I can read so I don't often go out of that range.

For me it depends on cost of the paperback version of the book. I would go up to and including $20.00 but as Bryan stated before, it would have to be an ebook without DRM of any kind.

$10 is my max for an e-book, unless I've been dying for it for some reason. It's a single-user object that can't be lent to others. If it's more expensive than a normal paper back, then there's a problem there.

I review speculative fiction indie ebooks over at my blog (http://fridafantastic.wordpress.com/) and the price ceiling affects what I review as well. Like, why bother letting people know of a book if I probably wouldn't buy it myself. Most of what I've reviewed has been in the $5.00 and less range though.

I see indie e-publishing as just another business model, and there's good stuff and bad stuff in both legacy-pubbed and indie-pubbed stuff. Because of low barriers to entry in e-publishing, there's just more stuff to sort through. Looking for honest reviews helps. Goodreads reviews generally are better than Amazon's, and there's less author logrolling. Generally you can tell a lot from reviews, a decently written book description, and the first five pages.

If nothing happens in the first five pages, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the book. It doesn't have to be super exciting, it just has to be intriguing in some way. It doesn't have to move quickly either, especially if it has nice prose and interesting atmosphere. But if it doesn't have atmosphere/characters/setting/story movement/anything else/prose going for it in the first five pages, then I just forget about it.

Anyway. I review indie speculative fiction books weekly, so if you've felt overwhelmed sorting through the indies, feel free to check out my blog. If you're looking for a specific read, feel free to leave a comment anywhere, and I'll let you know if I've read anything good like that lately.

i know that it costs less for the publisher to have a ebook. i have a limit unless i really want to read the book and dont have time for the library of 5$. If a author has their first book for 1-2.99$ I am much much more likely to read them. I always tell myself Ill get the rest of that authors books from the library but usually buy at least one more. The cheeper first book in the end gets the most money out of me.

For me, the price has as much to do with the author as with the size of the book. If there was some new Harlan Ellison or Ray Bradbury eBook for 9.99, I'd buy it without much thought (provided it seemed interesting, of course). But for some new series by a no-name guy that I never heard of, I'd probably hesitate above 2.99 and stop cold at 4.99 or 5.99.

Of course, if I like that guy's (or that woman's) 2.99 book, then the 5.99 sequel would be a lot more tempting...

I'm a student right now, so the $ 9.99 or less price point works best for me.

I've noticed that e-book buyers often equate price with worth. So maybe pricing an e-book too low might hurt both sales and the readers' impression of the book.
I've just faced that problem with my latest anthology:

**************
(Self-promotion follows. Sorry.)

I've published about 35 stories in Analog Magazine and have over 60 pro-publications in all. Some of my stories have been very geeky--even too geeky for Analog (or for anyone else). But now, thanks to e-publishing (via Kindle and Nook), I can now express my inner geek.

And so I proudly announce:

SF++ Science Fiction Stories for Linux geeks.

The anthology has 'Linux' in its title, and the Linux operating system is free. So, I thought I'd make the book free as well. And anyway, most of the stories have already paid for themselves--seven of them have appeared in Analog Magazine.

But, experimentally, I've found that e-book buyers tend to equate price with worth. And since I believe SF++ has sufficient worth I've priced the book on Kindle (and Nook)at $4.00.

To keep with the Linux philosophy though, I'm providing the book for free through my website. www.frithrik.com/linux.htm.

f after you read the anthology you find you've enjoyed most of the stories, you might consider (hint, hint) e-hoofing it to Amazon or B&N and buying another of my anthologies, or novels, or 99 cent E-Robot story sets (www.frithrik.com/er.htm).

The first plus in the SF++ title indicates that, in addition to stories, there's a science fact article ('Challenge of the Anthropic Universe'). The second plus indicates an experiment--a story ('Roblocks') that can't be done in dead-treeware. It requires an html capable reader.

I intended that this be an anthology for geeks--smart, independent, computer and science savy geeks with a sense of humor. And, for me, that pointed to Linux. Linux geeks are smart (I mean they use Linux, after all). They're independent enough not to use that other operating system. And finally, there's a tradition of humor and word play in the Linux community.

If words were kilo-miles, this 93 thousand word anthology would stretch from the Earth to the Sun.

We are Linux!
Resistance is...measured in ohms.

Dean Wesley Smith writes a blog about publishing, with an emphasis on ePublishing:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/

He recently made a post hypothesizing that eBook prices may eventually settle around the following norms:

$0.99: Short story

$2.99: Novella

$4.99: Novel

Give or take a bit of variance, of course.

As a nascent eAuthor, this seemed to make sense...

...and as a long-time reader, it sounded like pretty good news!

Todd

With fiction, I hit my price-ceiling at about $3.99 (maybe $4.99 for a real biggie), because there's lots of good indie work at that price or lower, enough to keep me entertained for the rest of my life. I simply won't pay $14.99 for GRRM's latest epic, no matter how highly it's rated.

There's also little difference, in my mind, between a library loan (print) and buying an ebook, and I equate that to about $0.99 a book. As an author I should be arguing for a higher price point, but the marketplace is just too crowded to demand high prices. We now have access to almost every author in the world. Thousands of fantastic stories.

I suspect we're heading for a lower price point than we'd like to believe... readers would be willing to pay more, but I think there will always be new/retired/republished writers who will offer their work in the space below the average price point to gain readership. As the quality and range increases, the higher priced ebooks will slash their prices to remain on the bestseller lists. We could be in a race for the bottom.

With non-fiction, the price is linked more closely to the unique value to the reader. I publish a niche sports guidebook which is selling merrily at over $20 an ebook copy. It hurts like hell to put my fantasy novel beside that on $0.99 promotion (years more creative work), but it's just the economics of the ebook fiction marketplace. I'm hoping that my readers get a huge amount more value than $0.99 and I gain long-term fans.

I love buying ebooks and I am actually not a fan of indie authors charging .99 cents for their books. They put so much hard work into them. If they are good, i don't mind paying more like 4.99 for them. I feel they are worth the risk at that price. Regular books should be half of what they are in paperback, I think.

I think it depends on the length of the book to some extent. Lately many of the less-than-$3.00 downloads I have read are almost novelettes. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I was disappointed as I did not realize I was paying for such a short book. Some have been well worth the price, or even more as they entertained and were well written, some were a waste of time and $.

My Fantasy novel, href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EIBEIU&q... Soul,, is 130,000 words, and I have it priced at $2.99. Since it is the first book in the series, I hope to generate interest at the lower price.

Recently I repriced all my longer works (80k words+) from $2.99 to '$4 or Free'. Right in the Kindle/Nook descriptions, I said that while I'd be delighted if people bought the book, they could get it for free by clicking on a (email) request on my website. Initially, I'd tried it on 'SF++ Science Fiction Stories for Linux Geeks'. That worked out well (the title sold more than my other 32 titles combined.

I'm a pretty well-published short story writer(mainly in Analog Magazine) and have found that my stories are often pirated. I don't really care since I'm more interested in readership than revenue--but it would have been nice if the pirates had asked first.
But now with my $4 or Free rubric, piracy makes no sense.

Feel free to visit my site www.frithrik.com and ask for any book(s) you'd like.

SF++ Science Fiction Stories for Linux Geeks

A way to keep your eBook prices down is to look for temporary “sales” on Amazon.

A lady has published a “formula” for “gaming” Amazon that includes selling the ebook for 99 cents for an unspecified period, until the book rises in sales rank. Then, the book is re-priced at its “normal” price to ride the “wave” of popularity.

I don’t know if it works, but you can take advantage of their efforts while the book is in the low-price phase.

For instance, The Fighter King by John Bowers, normally $6.50, is currently selling for 99 cents. There are surely others.

I honestly don't like to pay more than $2.99 for a book and get most of my books at 99 cents, but I will on occasion get an ebook for $4.99 if it is a must have. But when I see $7.99 or $9.99, I would just as soon go get the paperback at the bookstore down my street.

I get disappointed though when I buy a 99 cent story and turns out it is a novella or worse, a short story.

Marybeth wrote: "I love buying ebooks and I am actually not a fan of indie authors charging .99 cents for their books. They put so much hard work into them. If they are good, i don't mind paying more like 4.99 for ..."

Greg wrote: "With fiction, I hit my price-ceiling at about $3.99 (maybe $4.99 for a real biggie), because there's lots of good indie work at that price or lower, enough to keep me entertained for the rest of my..."

Yeah, I would like to charge $4.99 for all my books, but then the sales drop dramatically. I think in this economy and with so many 'pseudo writers' coming out of the wood work, it bogs down the marketplace and people who have a passion for writing have to work that much more for a book sold at 99 cents. Plus if no one has heard of you, people usually don't want to pay more....?

The market is a strange place. Price seems important to some people, but often is inversely important to many others.

For instance, a book with a $6 price tag will often sell fewer at $2 or less. People seem to think that the lower priced books are of lower quality (perception overcoming reality). Add to that, the natural inclination to assume that an "indi" book will be of lower quality than one with a known imprint, and you have a mess on your hands.

If shoppers were logical, a quality read at a low price would sell 20x as many as a higher priced book. But people aren't logical -- well MOST aren't, so the author/publisher has a huge problem finding the "sweet spot" for a book's price.

Soooo, my personal shopping maxim is to consider all books that I can afford (usually under $10). If I see something I'm interested in, I'll take the time to download the sample (if available) to see of it gets off to a good start and can "hook" me in the first chapter.

I was interested to see that Joe Abercrombie's Heroes popped up on Pixel of Ink at $1.99 a few days ago ... seems the big 6 publishing houses are copying the indie approach of rock-bottom ebook pricing.

I have noticed a dramatic uptick in sales of The Riddler's Gift going from $5.99 to $3.99 (no change) to $0.99 on my first-in-the-series fantasy novel.

@Al, I totally understand what you're saying, but the 'perception of quality' judgement is moot when it's the same thing (digital file) you're buying and nobody knows it's 'indie' unless there's some mistake with the indie production (poor cover, editing). Maybe if the customer comes through an impressive paid-for advertising portal (pro banner ad) that primes them to get excited you can sell at higher prices. I don't see how if it's just ebook A=$5.99 ebook B=$0.99 (and they look the same, by equally unknown authors) anyone is going to say therefore I'm going to buy A because it's better. They'll try B. Surely the people that value quality over price are buying hardcovers?

Greg wrote: "I don't see how if it's just ebook A=$5.99 ebook B=$0.99 (and they look the same, by equally unknown authors) anyone is going to say therefore I'm going to buy A because it's better. They'll try B. Surely the people that value quality over price are buying hardcovers? ..."

You're describing someone who uses logic, but it just doesn't work out that way in every test we've tried (and yes, we're a high-quality publisher). I wish it did work out, because we really want to provide a quality product at a low price to many readers.

I suspect that Pixel is testing the waters, just as we do on occasion.

Some of our tests have actually resulted in a few more sales than at the higher price, but not enough to make up for the loss of revenue (you know, the stuff that keeps the doors open). If we could sell twice as many or more at $3 as we do at $6, we'd be pricing all our books at the lower cost. BUT it just doesn't work that way. There aren't enough "Gregs" in the world to tip the balance.

Most recent case in point: We lowered the price on John Bowers' popular The Fighter King from $6.50 to 99 cents on Amazon to see what would happen. Sales increased by a miserly 10%. Now, given that Amazon pays us 70% for sales at the $6.50 price and only 35% at the 99 cents price, you can see that it's a total economic disaster.

We'll be raising the price back to normal in the near future if the idea doesn't catch on. Perhaps we'll try a mid-point price to see what happens.

Hope your experiments turn out well. If nothing else, perhaps the loss you may take will result in more sales for your follow-on books.

Late to the discussion but thought it might be worth sharing how we price our books. Price consideration for us is based on length, novels topping out at $4.99 (we distribute some titles priced higher), longer novellas $3.99, shorter still $2.99, short stories $1.99 and down to .99¢

Scaling eBook prices to physical inventory makes absolutely no sense when production costs are a fraction of what they otherwise would be. That being said, as a digital publisher we still incur costs from editing and proofreading to conversion and some promotion. $4.99 for a full-length novel seemed the most fair price while still having a shot of recouping costs and actually getting a check for our authors.

The lowest price points work great for us because we publish a lot of what everyone hates-- short stories. I know that Ami has just expressed some distaste over the pricing for shorts but hopefully that's only because the book description wasn't clear about the length of the title. Trying to get anyone interested in reading a standalone short is tough so a low price is key, but we still have costs to consider. It's a tough balancing act.

But as everyone knows cutting the reader slack on the price is also good promotion. We can't afford to give everything away but we do drop the prices of most of our shorts after time passes. In terms of profit shorts are a volume gambit. In terms of promoting a full-length by the same author they double as advertising.

What will be interesting to watch is how the big publishing houses continue to deal with changes in the industry. So far, just as with large music labels, movie studios and news agencies, they're flailing blindly and desperate to keep prices high. With the new Kindle expected to eclipse sales of iPads this winter the realization that adjusting to a new digital economy requires a top-down change will hopefully make more reasonable eBook prices standard.