I’m going to do something potentially dangerous and discuss pricing strategies in a rather candid way. I may risk turning off some of my potential readers, especially the ones who don’t like shorter works, but I want to be as open and transparent as I can, since I figure it’s only fair, especially to someone who’s just getting started with my books.
First of all, let me just say that if I could, I would make all my books free and write for love instead of money. The trouble, though, is that I have to eat, and at some point in the (hopefully) not too distant future I’m going to have to feed a wife and children as well. If I made all my books free right now, I would have to spend all my time and energy doing something other than writing, and as a result there would be far fewer books for you to read.
In the last year, I’ve discovered that the best way to make money self-publishing is to write in series, preferably at a short enough length that you can release a new installment every other month. A lot of other writers are discovering this, which is why there is such an explosion of series and serials.
I know a lot of readers don’t like this. And when a writer takes a perfectly good novel and splits it arbitrarily into parts, each one without a solid arc or story structure to hold it together, I get a little bit ticked as well. But the reality is that if you can tell a story in a series of short, self-contained novellas rather than a single novel, it will probably meet with better commercial success.
The price points for novellas are kind of tricky, though. For anything priced below $2.99, Amazon takes 65%, whereas from $2.99 to $9.99, the self-publisher takes 70%. To give that some perspective, you would have to sell 10x the number of copies at $.99 to earn as much on one sale of a book at $4.99, and 6x for a book at $2.99.
The trouble, of course, is that for a series where each installment is priced at $2.99, the readers may end up paying a lot more, depending on the lengths of the story arcs and the size of each installment. Novellas are kind of in a gray area, where $.99 seems kind of cheap for that much story, but three or four installments at $2.99 really add up–especially with so many other ebooks priced at $5 or below.
Now, I’d like to believe that most readers judge the value of a story by its quality and not by its word count, or by how much they have to pay per word. There are books like City of the Saints that I don’t mind buying in $2.99 increments at all. At the same time, though, I think there’s something to be said about keeping prices fair.
This is all on my mind right now because I’m getting ready to release the first Star Wanderers omnibus and expand that series considerably over the next year. It’s the series that sells best out of any of my books, and the one with the most potential to make it so that I can go full time. Plus, I really love writing in this universe, and have a lot more stories in it to tell.
Right now, this is the pricing structure I’m following:
- Outworlder — free (15,000 words)
- Fidelity — $.99 (17,000 words)
- Sacrifice — $2.99 (19,000 words)
- Homeworld — $2.99 (20,000 words)
- Dreamweaver — $2.99 (19,000 words)
Parts I through IV make a complete story arc, though of course each individual novella is a self-contained story on its own. With Part I at free and Part II at $.99, I figure readers have a good way to figure out if these are the kinds of stories that they’ll want to read. But if I keep pricing the stories at $2.99, at some point this series is going to get really expensive.
So here’s what I plan to do to alleviate that:
1) Make new releases free to newsletter subscribers.
For every Star Wanderers story up to this point, I’ve made it free for the first two weeks on Smashwords and given that code out through my email newsletter. I did that originally as an incentive to get people to sign up for my newsletter, but I think it’s a good series strategy as well. This way, if someone discovers Star Wanderers now, they can buy all the previous installments at the higher $2.99 price point and look forward to receiving any future installments for free.
Some may question the business sense of giving away free books to readers who are willing to buy them, but the way I see it, the fans are the ones who are selling these books, not me. I’m willing to put a free book in the hands of someone who already loves the series, and is more likely to write a glowing review or to share it with a friend. And since sales of this series continue to grow, that strategy would seem to be paying off (or at the very least, it’s not biting me in the ass).
2) Try to put more story into each individual installment.
If $2.99 seems a lot for a short novella, then maybe I need to expand on them, with things like extra subplots and viewpoint characters. Of course I don’t want the stories to feel like they’re padded, but if I can enrich the story in a way that really adds to it, then that’s certainly something that I should do.
For all of the Star Wanderers series so far, each novella is told from the point of view of just one character. This sort of focus can be good, because it really gets me into the head of that character. However, sometimes it’s also good to play things off of another character’s story, both to act as a foil and to provide contrast.
That’s what I’m doing with Reproach (Part VII) right now. It’s not just from Mariya’s point of view, but Noemi’s as well, and that adds a lot to the tension as you see their competing motives and the way their views of the world really clash. It’s delicious. Benefactor (Part VI) is just from Jakob’s viewpoint, just because I wanted the story to really focus on his character, but most of the other stories kicking around in my head have room for at least another viewpoint character without taking away from the spirit of the series itself.
3) Price the omnibus editions less than the sum of their parts.
For someone who is just getting started with Star Wanderers, $2.99 might seem like a lot to pay to get caught up. That’s only going to get more daunting as the series gets longer. For that reason, I’m inclined to price the omnibus editions much lower–at least $4.95, which is the price of one of my novels. At 70,000 words or so for Parts I-IV, that seems only fair.
I am a bit worried that sales of the individual novellas will drop off once I release the omnibus, but I figure if I’m constantly releasing new ones, those should cover the slack. Since Dreamweaver (Part V) is already out, and Benefactor (Part VI) will be out in another month or so, new readers who come in through the omnibus will have more than enough to keep them coming back.
The other benefit of doing it this way is that it reduces the chance that readers will drop out midway through the story arc. It seems that a few of them are doing that, or at least taking a while to get from Part II to Part III to Part IV, etc. By having them all in one omnibus and encouraging readers to buy that instead of the individual parts, hopefully they’ll have more of a chance to get hooked, making it all the more likely that they’ll keep coming back.
So that’s my plan, at least for now. When The Jeremiah Chronicles comes out next week, I’ll price it on parity with my other novels, even though that’s somewhat less than all the individual parts. I’ll make all new Star Wanderers novellas free for my newsletter subscribers, and do what I can to enrich them with extra viewpoints and subplots (without just padding them, of course). This way, I hope my readers won’t feel like I’m ripping them off, and I’ll still have a good shot of making a decent living at this.
With the way things have been going, I’m actually really excited. The slow build approach is working, and if it keeps up then I think I may be making enough to go full-time by this time next year. I’ll be sure to keep you posted as things come along.
In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or comments, please don’t hesitate to share. I’m still thinking this issue through, and there’s a lot I have left to learn. In fact, I feel like I’m only just starting to figure it out, so any other perspectives on this topic would be much appreciated!
Pricing is such a tricky one. It’s such a pity Amazon doesn’t give higher percentages on those lower bracket prices, though I guess I can see why.
I’m not so good on writing shorter stories, but it does mean it takes longer for a book to get out there.
Great job, Joe!! I admire the fact that you’ve actually pulled it off and approaching full-time income from it. I actually came across this while researching ebook serial pricing strategies, since I am in a very similar boat. I have my own thing coming out soon (not exactly same genre, but it’s science fantasy with a mix of conspiracy thriller you could say) and the .99 – 2.99 issue is driving me crazy! As you rightly say: $.99 is too cheap for a 20,000 word work, while $2.99 may seem too much, especially if it’s not a repeat buyer that doesn’t know your work yet. I’ve thought of a million different ways to do it recently and, after I decide on a system, I change my mind again the next day. lol! Maybe I’m wrong, but I think guys like us need to face the fact that the individual novellas are not there to make money really. They are just a way to get the word out for the complete novel sooner and build up a fan base by the time the book is ready. I actually have a massive saga planned out (with detailed synopses and all…), which will be minimum 6 books, maybe even more, but I am only going to serialize the first novel, since it’s a great way for a first time indie to get their name out. After Book 1 is done, then I’ll just release subsequent entries as full novels I think. Having said that though, maybe there could be a financial incentive to stick to the serial format if one is popular enough to get away with charging $2.99 per 25,000 word book. This would the only thing that’d make me continue the novella model. Anyway, it’s all a trial and error game I guess, so the initial releases are just experiments. I was also thinking to do Part 1 free, but I’ll go with $0.99 & then see how that goes and make a strategy after that. Again, keep up the good work! Nice cover art too, by the way. May I ask: the people on the covers, are they paid models…or people you know, or what? I’m curious to find out. Good luck pal…;)
Hey thanks! To answer your question, the cover art was made from stock photography, so the models were paid but not by me (also, you might see them pop up on another cover … one of the disadvantages of using stock art).
As far as pricing goes, I think that most readers are a lot less price sensitive than we tend to think. In my experience as both a reader and an author, so long as a book is under $5, price isn’t an obstacle if you know you want it. I’ve been experimenting with “Reader Sets the Price” on Smashwords, and most of the readers who do opt to pay for the books choose to pay a flat $5, at least for the novels and omnibuses.
Also, I don’t think that readers care about the length of a story so much as the enjoyment they get from it. If a story feels too short, they’ll complain about it and may feel like they paid too much, but if the story feels complete at that length they won’t mind paying for it accordingly. It’s easy for us as writers to think that $2.99 is too much to ask for a 20,000 word book, but really it depends on the book and not the word count.
I’ve tried out several pricing schemes with my Star Wanderers series, including various iterations of $.99, $1.99, and $2.99, and after tracking weekly sales fluctuations with each one I’ve found that this one maximizes my revenue. You definitely can make a living on $2.99 books if enough people want to read them. I wouldn’t go much lower than that, though. And if $2.99 feels too expensive, well, that’s what the omnibus editions are for.
Hope that helps! Best of luck!
Joe
Hey. thanks for that! I clicked on your FB link btw and link was dead. Do you have a new account, or did you leave FB altogether??
No, I totally left Facebook. Basically, I no longer felt comfortable sharing my personal information with a company whose sole business model is to extract information from its users (including information not voluntarily shared) and sell it to the highest bidder. But I have no objections to my fans starting a FB site.
No worries. Sorry to bother you for one more little thing: I am very close to releasing my ebook; and I was wondering, do you think it’s true that getting professional editing is the MOST important aspect of writing a novel? I’ve researched this to death and the overwhelming majority of sites/videos I’ve seen take this stance. if I had a spare 5 grand lying around, i certainly would do it, since 2 minds are better than one and all that jazz. Do you have an editor, or do you do it all yourself?
Editing is definitely important, and for anything longer than 25k words, I would definitely hire somebody. You don’t have to spend a whole lot of money for a quality editor, though (at least, not for a copy editor). Mine charges me $.004/word, which usually comes to $400 – $500 for a 350 page novel.
For shorter stuff, I edit / proofread myself, but I also worked in a college writing lab and on the staff of a student magazine, and have a mastery of English that very few people share. I also self-edit by reading the entire story backwards, which is INCREDIBLY tedious, to the point where I cannot do it for anything much longer than 20k words. You’re much better off finding someone who can do it for you.
If you’re looking for a low-cost proofreader who does a good job, I’d recommend this guy: Bois Proofreading. He’s done good work for me before.