The debate rages on

The debate on pricing in indie publishing, that is.

If you have a Kindle or Nook, or for that matter a Kobo, Sony, or iPad, and you read e-books at all, you’ve probably noticed the wide disparity in pricing. The price of a newly released e-book of a hardcover bestseller can be as high as $12.99 or more. On the other hand, there are plenty of $.99 e-books to be had, as well.

Mostly, those 99-centers are from indie, i.e. self-published, authors. Publishers have too much overhead to price their books that low. Amazon pays 70% royalty on e-books listed at $2.99 or more, but only 35% on those below that magic divide. Most of the time, you won’t find a traditionally published e-book much lower than $4.99. That seems a fair price to me, for a book that’s been professionally written and edited and that has professional cover art. There’s a certain sense of legitimacy in the traditionally published books: whereas I may not like the content, at least I’ll know that the product itself is pretty good.

As you know, I have a few traditionally published books out there. They’re released in mass market paperback for $7.99, which is a pretty standard price for a mass market paperback of 90,000 words. The electronic versions of those same books are also priced at $7.99. Same as the paperback. This also seems like an industry standard, and in polls, that $6.99-$7.99 price point is comfortable to a lot of people. Anything above that, and people start to complain that prices are too high.

So that’s the traditional e-books. In indie publishing, there’s no real standard. We’re all just trying to figure out what works. And we all seem to have different ideas. There are people like John Locke, who’s making a ton of money selling all his books at $.99 each. He has lots of titles that people can choose from, and that probably has something to do with it. When you have a lot of inventory, you’ll make more money than if you have just a little, regardless of price.

Some people, like golden girl Amanda Hocking and e-publishing guru Joe Konrath, as well as our own Stiffs buddies C.J. Lyons and L.J. Sellers, take a more staggered approach. They offer some of their books as $.99 titles to entice people to try them out, and then the rest of the books are priced at $2.99 or higher. Those $.99 titles are sometimes called ‘loss leaders,’ because you know darned well you’re going to lose money on them, but you hope you make up for it in volume and in sales of your other books. Some authors switch their $.99 titles out regularly, while others keep the first book in a series, for example, at a steady $.99 to get readers to try the series.

On the other hand, you have Michael Sullivan, another bestselling indie author of fantasy novels. His books are priced at $4.99-$6.99 – a deliberate choice on his (or his publicist’s) part, to align him with traditionally published authors and get away from the indie/self-published stigma. It seems to have worked: Michael sells more than 10,000 e-books per month, and when he tried to drop his prices, sales dropped, too.

Some of it comes down to perception of value. Some readers think they’ll get a more professionally written and presented product if the book is traditionally published – or if it appears to be. Some readers don’t care about professional; all they care about is price. Some authors have it as their main goal to sell lots of copies while some would rather sell less copies for more money instead of more copies for less. Some feel that the book they spent six months or a year on, is worth more than $.99. Others – and I quote Konrath here, as well as Bob Mayer – say that value has nothing to do with the cover price; value is about how much money the book makes for the author.

And then there’s the question of the devaluation of the book as a whole. Perpetuating the idea that books should only cost $.99. Setting the bar so low that there’s nowhere to go – except free – if you want to run a promotion, and so low that the public’s perception of value is skewed forever.

I could go on, but I won’t. It’s a tough issue, with many facets and good points on either side of the argument. I have to confess to being on the perception of value side myself: I’ve priced my Cutthroat Business mysteries at $3.99. Half the price of my Berkley e-books. It seemed fair. I make more per copy than I do the traditionally published books, and they’re still priced below that magical $5 mental mark, where everything supposedly is an impulse buy. They’re selling, but not like hotcakes. Then again, this stuff takes time.

I’d love to hear what you think. Is $.99 the sweet spot for lots of sales? Or is $2.99? Is anything below $5 really an impulse buy? (It isn’t for me.) Is Michael Sullivan selling so well because his books look like a bargain compared to the traditionally published fantasy books he’s aligned himself with? Or doesn’t price have a lot to do with it when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, in your opinion?

Inquiring minds want to know.

PS – Hot Property, the sequel to A Cutthroat Business, is available for Kindle and Nook. If you’d like a free digital review copy, email me and I’ll tell you how to get one. If you do get a review copy, I’d appreciate it if you’d actually get around to writing a review at some point. Unless you absolutely hate the book, of course. Then you can feel free to keep your opinion to yourself.

Till next time!