Tuesday, July 26, 2011

One Hundred Percent of Nothing

There seems to be a general consensus in the blogoshpere (I love that term ... it is the digital equivalent of 'they' ... you know, in 'they' always say ... ) about the pricing of e-books ... especially for unknown authors. The figure that keeps coming up is $2.99.  Since my print books are priced at 12.99 and 14.99, I really struggled with the idea that there should be such a disparity between the price of a print edition and the price of an e-book ... but, being as I'm usually way behind the curve when it comes to understanding how all this works, I figured I must be missing something and 'they' must know what they are talking about. So I finally bit the bullet and lowered the price of my older e-book to 2.99 ... just see what happens.

Then I read about this John Locke dude who apparently has made millions selling his books for .99.  I know in the real world the kind of books I write aren't considered art ... they're a commodity ... and it's all about volume ... but, geez'o'petes, ninety-nine cents? Evidently, that price point works for people who can crank out books like they are on a conveyor belt ... but it takes me a couple of months to read a book ... imagine what it takes for me write one! On the other hand, I'm not making any money with my current price structure ... so what difference does it make?  I'm probably missing something here ...

6 comments:

  1. Wait and see what happens! I think that dude did a ton of promoting and has a huge fan base.

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  2. Yep, he did and he does ... but how do he do that?

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  3. Some people just seem to have time to do boocoodles (yes, that's a word) of marketing. So he figures the volume of sales he can get at 99 cents will, in the end, make him more than pricing it at $2.99. BUT that only happens if he can sell a tonmillion (a tonmillion is a synonym for boocoodles).

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  4. Wow ... two new words for me ... and my kinda words, too! Yeah, Helen, these wunderkind blow my tiny mind with their marketing wizardry.

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  5. Hey Chris, the key here is marketing, and that guy is a master of the art. The price point is irrelevant as long as it is competitive. The key is marketing. The thing you market is yourself, not the book. If enough folks are intrigued with you, they will buy the book just to get a deeper connection with you. If they like it, they will probably go back for seconds. That's my take on it anyway.

    Luck, Pru
    http://prudencemacleod.blogspot.com/

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  6. Marketing is always the key ... remember Pet Rocks? The problem is that good marketers are relentless ... and I tend to relent.

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