OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
There's a lot of talk about the 99 cent ebook at the moment, so I thought I would just throw in my own 99 cents worth. Pentecost is currently 99 cents on the US Kindle store, although it started out at $2.99. It's rank as I write this is shown above.
Here are the reasons I am leaving it at 99 cents.These are all my own reasons and may not be applicable to you, so I am not saying everyone should do this, merely why I am.
- 99 cents is an impulse buy for anyone. My husband and I are Kindle converts and spend a lot of time reading. He isn't an author and doesn't keep up with the industry like I do so watching his behavior is fascinating. He buys a lot of 99 cent ebooks after downloading samples. He has tried a whole stack of indie authors based on 99 cent books and has told other people about them. It is a low risk buy and if someone enjoys the sample, they don't even need to think about clicking when the price is under $1. I want those readers to try me as well.
- Number of books sold is more important than income for me right now. I have a well paid day job so I am not writing for income just yet. I hope to in the future but right now, I want readers and fans. I want people signing up for Prophecy (which they do every day) and I want to build a large number of people who want to read more of my books. I am writing a series so I want to build fans now who I can sell to in the future. Hocking and others have made the first book in the series cheap (or some have made it free) and then upped the price on the subsequent books to $2.99. I may well follow suit with others in the series but for now, 99 cents is a great price for the first one.
- The example of John Locke. Locke is rocking the Amazon charts with his 99 cent ebooks and this article is what convinced me to follow his example. He writes good thrillers with the brilliant Donovan Creed character. For 99 cents they are great value and you just buy all of them if you like what he writes. 6 books for the price of half a mainstream published book – fantastic! I've spent an afternoon in the hammock with Donovan Creed and it was very enjoyable! The quote below is from the interview with him.
- JA Konrath and the impact of staying in the Amazon bestseller rank. Konrath writes the best blog for ebook authors, definitely subscribe and be inspired! He changes prices all the time and experiments with things but this got my attention “when I lowered the price of The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, I started selling 20x as many copies” (from the same Locke article). When I first launched Pentecost, I made the Amazon rankings in launch week based on my platform and my marketing activities but then I dropped out of the charts. Of course, I freaked out because I cannot sustain the effort it takes to maintain those rankings on my own. So after reading a lot of Konrath, I dropped my price to 99 cents and I haven't left the charts since. I have been in Religious Fiction for 10 weeks now and have started ranking in Action/Adventure (which I believe in my true home!) I have definitely seen the evidence that lowering the price affected my ranking. Perhaps I should change the price back to $2.99 and see if it has an impact but for all the other reasons listed, I'm leaving it as is for now.
- Fast-paced action-adventure thrillers won't change your life. Pentecost will entertain you for a few hours but it won't give you actionable tips for your business and won't inspire you to give everything to charity or work for world peace. It is fiction and is there to take you out of your world for a time. I pay far more money for non-fiction books that will help me in a tangible manner than I will for fiction which I read once and then (often) forget. It's not that I don't value fiction writing, but the price you pay for entertainment has to be representative vs the price you pay for actionable content. I sell my e-courses for $39.99 and up to $297, and my workshops are also more expensive. I am definitely happy charging more when I believe you get more benefit, but with a thriller I am competing with free TV or a movie so want to price it attractively.
What do you think about the 99 cent ebook? What price do you sell for? Do you buy 99 cent ebooks?
Christopher Wills says
I agree with everything you say. I don’t think I’ve ever said that to a women before… 🙂 However… ah you were right there is a ‘but’.
I dropped the price of my ebook ‘Call me Aphrodite’ to $0.99 to try and gain some sales and increase my visibility. It didn’t work. I am currently selling at an average of 1.5 books per week. So I have increased the price of my ebook to $2.99 because I don’t want it to be associated with (and possibly swamped by) the huge number of short stories of 1,200 to 1,500 words that are getting published now at $0.99. My novel is 75,000 words. Later, as my online profile increases and my knowledge of marketing improves, I may go back down to $0.99 for exactly the reasons you suggest. But at the moment I have not seen any difference in sales. I think the $0.99 price works better as a loss leader if you have more than one book to sell or as the first in a series when books 2 and 3 are out.
But I can see why you are doing it, and my best wishes to your success.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks Christopher. Yes, I think this post ties back to my launch process post which got me initial rankings, and then I was able to keep the rankings with the lower price. It’s definitely a function of platform as well as price. I just wanted to put up a post on it as I get SO many questions!
kate kindle says
Good analysis, Christopher. I have found exactly same. Nice to confirm.
Aisha says
Hi there 🙂 I’m a long-time reader, first time commenter. I read your post this morning but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Almost everything you said here, as a reason to price your book as you have, resonate with me, but the one that made me stop short like I’d been punched in the gut was your final one. I had to re-read it twice to be sure I understood it. As a writer of fiction I have put *years* into my fiction work, researching, writing, re-writing, meticulously line editing, and while it should entertain it also as all fiction should aim to do, sheds light on humanity and aspects of being human for someone who reads to reflect on. Simply because they are “entertaining” should not be a reason to dismiss it as being worth less than non-fiction. Harry Potter, Great Expectations, Brick Lane, White Teeth, Life of Pi, etc etc etc are not worth less simply because they are fiction. . . to say so is to devalue the passion and heart and hard work of many many years so many of us put into the fiction we write.
Joanna Penn says
Hi Aisha,
I certainly didn’t mean to offend – so apologies for that. But this is just my opinion – and I don’t mean to devalue the work we all put in as writers. It’s that I personally will pay more for non-fiction that has actionable or valuable content, whereas 99% of all fiction I read will not be re-read. Of course, some fiction will touch the soul and may affect people deeply, and may contain meanings below the surface, but there are non-fiction books I read again and again and whose meanings have changed my life.
*For me* I would put Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles as more valuable than Harry Potter. I would include Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams and Reflections are worth more than Dickens (who wrote to entertain) and although I loved Life of Pi and Brick Lane, I thought more about The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I’m not devaluing the writer or the passion – as fiction writers make far more sales than non-fiction writers (generally). I am just saying that for me, I pay more for non fiction.
Again, apologies for any upset and thanks so much for commenting. We have some great debates here!
Aisha says
No no, I didn’t mean to seem upset by any of this!!! I respect your opinion and because I enjoy your blog so much I wanted to chime in here on this particular point. I didn’t mean to make anything heated. It’s okay that we have different takes on the values of a certain books, I still respect your take on this, I was just very surprised since I had not heard that brought up before as a reason to list fiction at the 99 cent rate- no offense at all taken! We are all entitled to have our opinions and I respect your opinion on this!! I just wanted to share my own take on this but I hope I didn’t offend you!
Joanna Penn says
I love that we are all so polite 🙂 I’m really happy with respectful debate so thank you for your points and I hope you comment again!
Mik Dietlin says
You’ve written a great post that many feel passionate about, Joanna. I’m publishing a short novel with Amazon soon called ‘Souls For Sale.’ One of the hardest details to figure out is what to price it. But you’ve convinced me 99 cents is the way to go. I want readers, better yet, loyal readers, and I want them to multiply like weeds. As far as Aisha’s comments and your reply to them, art is nothing if it’s not entertainment, regardless of the field or style one works in. There’s only one question the artist needs to ask him or herself during the process; have I allowed all my technique and creativeness to surface in order to craft the best piece of work I’m capable of? If the answer is yes, then you will be taken seriously by an audience large or small, and you’ll be entertaining. Concerns over what piece of work in whatever field being more valuable than another won’t matter.
James Byrd says
Hi Joanna. I’m writing a series also, and my plan is to price the first book at $0.99 as well. I may drop the price to free once in a while, after the other books in the series are out. My goals are the same as yours: make it easy for readers to give me a try, at an impulse-buy price point.
A great thing about self-publishing is that you can do price experiments. Your goal is to find the pricing sweet spot that earns you the most money, and that sweet spot can change over time. You have to sell about six times as many books at 99 cents as you do at $2.99 to break even on earnings, but if you can actually sell *ten* times as many books, you are actually coming out ahead at the lower price point. I applaud your willingness to perform the marketing experiment!
The best thing you can do to improve your sales though is to publish more books in the series. That’s another thing that Joe K. harps about: the best way for a writer to increase his earnings on any individual title is to write more books. They cross-sell each other. You need to take up more virtual shelf space!
************************
Aisha:
I think you are confusing cost with value. What your books cost you to produce them in terms of effort and time has little bearing on how readers value them. If your book is strictly entertainment (an expense to your readers), it will be perceived with less value than a book that helps someone make money or save money, as most good non-fiction books do.
If you are taking years to produce a book, you have to accept that most of your satisfaction must come from the process of writing itself. The monetary rewards will only reflect your investment if you are able to sell your meticulously-produced prose to a large number of people who have a short attention span. Your readers probably won’t appreciate what went behind the book you offer to them.
I personally think your best bet would be to leverage all that research you’ve done to build a platform through a blog or social networking. Attract readers to your areas of passion, and you will attract potential buyers for your book.
Joanna Penn says
James – I absolutely need to get on with writing Prophecy! I have people signing up for it every day and I realize the best thing I can do is to get it written and out there. I’ve plotted and I’m 10,000 words in. It’s just this moving countries thing that is distracting me right now 🙂
James Byrd says
Are you willing to share your plotting technique? I’m using Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method to develop plot and character, and I’m using Larry Brooks’ Beat Sheet to arrange my scenes. Sorry if you’ve already posted this info somewhere. I just started following your blog in the last few weeks.
Good luck with the move! Maybe you can join us for the Self Publishers Online Conference next year.
Jeff Bennington says
Hi Joanna,
I just made the $2.99 to .99 switch last night and watched my rank drop 30,000 points overnight and it’s still dropping. I did all the right things, well publicized launch, lots of great reviews from book bloggers, blog tour etc…and then I too lost my top ranking of #1,645, slowly descending to the mid 30,000 to 40,000. The .99 price point seems to be ideal for a newer author, especially one with good reviews. I can always raise it later. Thanks for this post. I considered writing a similar article after I’ve had time to evaluate the results. I’m sure I will, later this week.
Jeff Bennington
Author of Reunion, a supernatural thriller.
Joanna Penn says
Hi Jeff, I think you need to update your categories as you are ranking #14 in Books > Health, Mind & Body > Mental Health > Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
which seems odd considering this is fiction?!
You can choose 2 categories on the DTP so maybe have a look at the ones you could rank well for, I think this is what got me selling well because Pentecost is a religious word so it started selling in religious fiction. Choosing categories is of course an art!
Irene Vernardis says
Hi. Very interesting post.
I don’t always agree with the 0.99$ price (depends on word count, genre, market, target audience etc.), but regardless my opinion or others’ it’s a free market and everyone is entitled to put the price or value he/she wants on his/her product.
And a book is a product. A book is not above any other product, just because it is a book. Any product, good or service, has a long line of planning, designing, marketing, promoting, manufacturing, etc. behind it. Any producer works hard for their products, not only authors.
A fiction book is a one-time pleasure for the readers (sometimes two or three times, rarely more than that). The reader gets that ROI (return on investment), he/she doesn’t have the need for that book again, nor will the reader get anything else in return for purchasing a book. Authors should put the readers first (that includes price), or else he/she will be heading towards failure. Readers are consumers, pay money, and as such they are ruthless. As we all are when buying any product, good or service. Do any of us think about the hard work of the producer when we take a bargain and try to give more money to the producer? No, we think about our money and we’re happy to have the bargain. Why should we expect more from the readers/clients? Are authors above everyone else who have a business and sell his/her products?
Thank you for the great post 🙂
Joanna Penn says
Thanks Irene. I agree -it’s critical to remember that a book is a product and it competes with millions of the same type of product. Some people say a book is not a commodity but I think it is because of the speed that people churn through them! If I find a new author that I like I can get through even a substantial backlist in a few weeks, then I move onto the next one. I am acutely aware that for my own writing, people only have one book to read and they can’t spend any more money on me! So I definitely need to get my next product out the door!
Allan Douglas says
I have to agree with your reasoning – for fiction novels. However I feel non-fiction is another matter. The target audience is much smaller and the perceived value is higher. Where people will resist higher prices for purely entertainment reading, they justify the higher cost for something that offers long term value by enhancing their life or income. Still I would not attempt to sell non-fiction in the $5 + range unless I had major name recognition or a best seller.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks Allan. I do agree with you on non-fiction although I am also trying an experiment with my non-fiction at 99 cents to see if it makes a difference to sales and ranking. Pentecost outsells the other books by 50x at the moment 🙂
Adam iWriteReadRate says
Best of luck, Joanna. Just to mention I’m a little worried about the .99 price point undervaluing all the hard work we writers put into our work – we shall see what happens next though!
I think we should be aiming for a ‘fair price’, a balance rather than low or high. Perhaps 1.99 to 2.99 for a full length novel…?
Joanna Penn says
Hi Adam,
as briefly mentioned above, you’ve got to think about the actual income for the book, not per sale.
John Locke is selling a book every 7 seconds for 99 cents each, so the return is not 99 cents, but thousands – and check out Konrath’s numbers. You are not getting 99 cents for your hard work, you need to multiply that by your sales FOREVER! These books never go out of print 🙂
Aisha says
I just wanted to add to someone who mentioned that its fiction read 2-3 times max and then not read again as a reason to state the lack of value or fiction, that in that vein you likely agree that artwork is also for entertainment to pretty up a house, a movie is for entertainment, so all movie tickets, paintings, music, anything that is there to entertain should be 99 cents or as cheap as possible- and I don’t think it can work that way. Readers are important and the market drives the cost, and if all fiction becomes 99 cents then that is just how it will be, but I wonder about the efforts authors of great works of fiction, and how it might be different if you know you’re not going to be making any crack at ever earning a living, or even a supplement to an income that you otherwise would. Art of all sorts, music, drawing, writing, etc etc is of value and the people who do it spend a lot of time perfecting it, and while yes you do it not for the money but for the joy of creating the art, I just wonder how this will change the quality and nature of books going forward. But that’s just my opinion and I’m simply sharing another point of view 🙂
Joe says
Great article! It’s marketing 101: come in cheaper and better than the competition to take over a niche that is pretty well flush with products. Joanna, you have done just that- a fantastic book at a bargain price. You have done a phenominal job!
Joanna Penn says
Thanks Joe – I am aiming to hook people into the series and make the next books even more fantastic. I like to over deliver on the promise to the reader!
Stevie Godson says
Hi Joanna, You almost had another sale but unfortunately people outside the US are not well-served by Amazon (even though we bought our Kindles from them). The price for your book where I live (South Africa) is $2.99. It’s not that this is a HUGE price – even with the exchange rate – it’s just that being discriminated against one more time by Amazon sticks in the throat.
Joanna Penn says
Hi Stevie,
I’m not in the US, I’m in Australia and I find the Kindle books are still a lot cheaper than buying books in Oz! What is the best ebook store for you in SA? Do you use Smashwords?
Stevie Godson says
Thanks for replying, Joanna. You’re so right that it’s generally cheaper to buy Kindle books than paper books – even here in SA. It’s the whole darned principle of the “one price for us and another for them” that irritates me. I only buy books that are priced the same for everyone – i.e. the recent Patti Smith release, ‘Just Kids’. No, I don’t use Smashwords – don’t even know about it (but I’ll make sure I do now!).
Trevor Belshaw says
If we carry on like this, everyone will be giving their work away for free on Amazon and Smaahwords in 2 years time. 99c? why spend months writing something to virtually give it away with the trash and unedited waste at the very bottom of the market. What happens when 99c becomes expensive, will you drop to 50c? 25c? Surely if a writer produces quality work and they have gone to the trouble of actually having it edited, then it deserves a place upwind of the cesspit. Sorry, but I really can’t see why anyone would want to sell a piece of quality fiction at base level. If too many authors do this, 99c will become the expected price point for Kindle novels and when that happens it will force all authors to publish at that level whether they want to or not.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks for your opinion Trevor. That’s why I called the article “why I sell” NOT “You should sell”. It’s all about assessing what works for you. Thanks.
Joanna Penn says
I should also add to the mix that Pentecost is still going up the Amazon charts – this is still my primary reason for the 99cent price. As a new independent author, I wouldn’t expect to be charting any other way.
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,138 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#19 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Religious Fiction
#20 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Religious & Inspirational
#55 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure
Thanks all.
James Byrd says
Well, I’m still cheering you on.
The price deflation we’re seeing was inevitable. It’s a classic supply and demand issue. The barriers to entry are down and tons of new material is flooding the market.
I also don’t think price has anything to do with the “value” of the work. You could be selling it for $10 or giving it away for free, and that wouldn’t change the reading experience. (Just started Pentecost, BTW.)
Money does a poor job of representing the value of art.
Trevor says
I still think if too many writers take this route it will drag prices down even further. Where will it end? a 10c novel? 5c? How many writers want to see that, really? The problem is, that 99c will soon become the expected price, then writers desperate for sales will drop the price again, and again and again. How low are you prepared to go Joanna? Is 99c your bottom line or will you drop to 50c if someone else manages to sell ten extra copies at that price? I’m not having a go at you in particular, it’s this 99c price point becoming the norm that concerns me.
James Byrd says
I don’t think we’ll see that much deflation in price below 99 cents. I recently wrote an article where I did the math, and depending upon how much you value your time, it would take well over 10,000 units just to recover your investment in your book, much less earn any “gravy.”
So, really, 99 cents is already a loss-leader price. Most authors will have to price higher if they want to earn enough to make it worth the effort of publishing a book.
That’s exactly how Joanna is looking at this. The purpose of the price is to get her name out there, not make money. At least not yet. It’s a marketing decision. The key to the real money here is to have multiple titles out and price the first one as an impulse buy to get new readers. You make it up on the subsequent titles.
Some authors will be able to make a good living from publishing all 99c books, but only once they get known and can sell in tremendous volume (John Locke comes to mind). The vast majority of authors won’t be able to do that.
Vanette Kendall says
I am an indie author planning on selling my longer e-books for $2.99 and my shorter works for $0.99. I, personally, choose this pricing strategy for a few reasons. First, I want to differentiate myself from $0.99 works because while by no means are all those works crap but some are. The higher the price point the lower the PITA factor with buyers. Secondly, I do not want to create certain reader expectations about a certain price and then change. Let me be clear that I want to attract a readership and want repeat sales. Finally, I just feel like offering that low of a price in longer works would be a poor choice for my busines model. Just my two cents for my personal situation.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks for sharing your reasoning Vanette. I think any price is acceptable as long as authors have actually thought about it and considered the impact – and then are flexible in playing with how it all goes.
LizA says
Hi Joanna. I bought your 99 cent book on amazon and live in Australia. I believe your marketing plan works. I am in the process of writing a series of books and developing a marketing plan. Your advice has been wonderful and have read 2 of your books now. For the value of the content it is extremely under priced but I am now a fan and will follow lots of your guidance. Keep up the great work.
Joanna Penn says
Thanks LizA – you kind of prove my point, which is that over-delivery is a great way to build a fanbase – and also, maybe you wouldn’t have taken a chance on me without a low price… at some point, I hope to be able to raise my prices and still sell!
Karen Kanter says
And what does a new author do when they cannot control the price of their books? I am publishing through a self-publishing house which has set a minimum price of $9.99 on the ebook. Unfortunately, I did not realize this. Is there a way around this?
James Byrd says
Karen:
Wow! $9.99? That’s even higher than the price from most big publishing houses. You’ll have trouble competing at that price. For print, I could see it, but not for digital.
First, understand that there’s no such thing as a “self-publishing house.” I know a lot of subsidy presses call themselves self publishing companies, but the term is an oxymoron and essentially a lie. If they control any portion of the rights to your book but you had to pay them to produce it, they are a subsidy press (or “vanity” press). Likewise, if you don’t own the ISBN used for the book (and those “free” ISBN’s or “buy 1 ISBN” deals don’t count), you are not the publisher so you are not self publishing.
All that aside, what you should do is terminate your deal with them immediately. You may have to revert to your original manuscript because many of these shysters won’t let you leave with a “print ready” copy of your book. Anything they did for you after you uploaded your manuscript (cover art – even if a template, interior layout, ebook formatting, etc.) is usually withheld from you.
Once you have full control of your book again, you have lots of options. If it were me, I’d have a cover created for the book and get it formatted for Smashwords (see Smashwords.com for info) and for Kindle. Then I’d upload it myself to Amazon through their Kindle Direct Publishing platform and put it into Smashwords for distribution to the other online vendors. If you don’t like the Smashwords option, get an EPUB version made and upload it to the other major online vendors (Apple, Diesel, Kobo, Barnes & Nobel, Sony) yourself.
If you want a print version, the easiest option is to go to CreateSpace and sign up for their Pro plan, which gets you print distribution to online retailers. A better option, in my opinion, is to go directly to Lightning Source, but that option does have higher setup fees and takes a little more technical savvy.
Hopefully, Joanna won’t mind this plug, but if you need help with all this stuff, you could consider attending the Self-Publishers Online Conference on May 10-12. We’ll be talking about self-publishing options and ebooks. We’ll have 3 Q&A sessions so you can ask specific questions about your situation and get them answered by experts who’ve been there.
Karen Kanter says
Thanks for your lengthy and most informative answer. Is it possible to not terminate the contract and just get another ISBN number and different cover and then proceed to do everything else that you suggest? In effect, can you be in competition with yourself?
James Byrd says
Hi Karen. Sorry if my answer was *too* lengthy. I get that way sometimes.
The answer to your question is “maybe.” It completely depends upon your contract with the subsidy press. If they have no exclusivity clauses, you may very well be able to publish your book elsewhere as well as with them.
However, I’d be surprised if a c0ntract so restrictive regarding the pricing of the digital version would allow you to publish the same book elsewhere. You’ll need to read the fine print to be sure.
Another consideration is that the subsidy press is presumably already distributing your ebook to retailers. If that is true, you won’t want to confuse the marketplace by making the same book available at different prices from the same vendors. In fact, doing so would be a violation of the terms of service for many of the vendors.
I’m guessing you want to maintain your relationship with the subsidy press because they offer something you want to keep. What would that be? If are happy with them for the print version and you just want control of the digital version, can you get your digital rights back from them? Might be worth asking.