Nora Roberts responds to recent self-publishing issues

[PJ Post]

Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, we know exactly how we got here, and I mean exactly; hint: it was Indies/self-publishers. But as Tom says, it doesn't matter who says what now, this is the new world order. CPC marketing is more of the same, but that's not going anywhere anytime soon either. As I've said before, there's enough newbies, wannabes and hatters out there to keep all of these predatory platforms supplied with content, no matter how onerous the terms of use become.

The only way to win is not to play...

We need a better, more creator friendly, curated platform – a better mouse trap kind of thing. It's only going to get worse until we do.

Indie authors certainly contributed, but I think it's important to note the forces that shaped those decisions.

As Julie points out, Amazon encourages low price points (though not necessarily $0.99)...

Amazon didn't encourage 99 cent price points any more than it encouraged $9.99 price points. Most Indies had/have zero business experience. Back in 2012, no one was talking about branding or messaging or even practical marketing. But virtually every self-publisher had seen advertisements for Memorial Day mattress sales. They all understood how to compete on price, or thought they did - and that's what drove down prices: they didn't have to outrun the bear, just their fellow self-publishers.

But I would have to say that Amazon, at the very least, appears to be complicit in the misuses of their platform, simply because they chose not to address the behavior when it came up. I mean, everything Nora is talking about is ancient history in Indie world.

[Bill Hiatt]

I really was happy to see Nora Roberts taking a stand like this. It did "smart" a little when she talked about selling a book at $0.99 and underselling yourself.

Nora Roberts was once a first-time author. Her first book was not sold at 99 cents.
Stephen King was once a first-time author. His first book was not sold at 99 cents.
Half the books published by trade publishers every year are from either first-time authors or authors with only a couple of books. The trades price those books the same way they price every other book. Because the amount of work that goes into producing a professional book from a first-time author is the same as the amount of work that goes into producing a professional book from a bestselling author.

She is 100% correct. Authors adopted this mentality because Amazon encouraged it, because Amazon needed tons of cheap content in order to get people to adopt the Kindle. The majority of authors who use the 99 cent price point do so because they don't believe they can sell above that, not because they have a clear marketing plan that pivots from 99 cents to higher price points later. And because of this, it created a glut of content that has conditioned a large demographic to devalue the price of books.

I agree with the potentially harmful effect of overusing the $0.99 price point, but Nora Roberts and Stephen King started long enough ago that ebooks didn't exist yet, so they couldn't have sold $0.99 books even if they had wanted to. Also, as trad published authors, they don't control the prices of their books, anyway. Their situations might have been different if both had started publishing as indie authors in the last few years. The one time King tried to break free of the trads (remember The Plant?), he was selling it in installments, with the first one free, and the others at $1.00 each--on the honor system, with the project to be discontinued if any installment fell below 75% payment. Granted, that isn't $0.99 for a whole book, or even close, but it is a nontraditional pricing model, and King was more than happy to experiment. He made "only" half a million on the experiment and didn't try again, but that was at a point at which ebooks were still in their infancy, and there was no KDP. In other words, he was ahead of his time, pushing an alternative distribution model that people weren't used to. Had he just started publishing under thoday's conditions, there's no telling what he might have done.

[Bill Hiatt]

Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, we know exactly how we got here, and I mean exactly; hint: it was Indies/self-publishers. But as Tom says, it doesn't matter who says what now, this is the new world order. CPC marketing is more of the same, but that's not going anywhere anytime soon either. As I've said before, there's enough newbies, wannabes and hatters out there to keep all of these predatory platforms supplied with content, no matter how onerous the terms of use become.

The only way to win is not to play...

We need a better, more creator friendly, curated platform – a better mouse trap kind of thing. It's only going to get worse until we do.

Indie authors certainly contributed, but I think it's important to note the forces that shaped those decisions.

As Julie points out, Amazon encourages low price points (though not necessarily $0.99)...

Amazon didn't encourage 99 cent price points any more than it encouraged $9.99 price points. Most Indies had/have zero business experience. Back in 2012, no one was talking about branding or messaging or even practical marketing. But virtually every self-publisher had seen advertisements for Memorial Day mattress sales. They all understood how to compete on price, or thought they did - and that's what drove down prices: they didn't have to outrun the bear, just their fellow self-publishers.

But I would have to say that Amazon, at the very least, appears to be complicit in the misuses of their platform, simply because they chose not to address the behavior when it came up. I mean, everything Nora is talking about is ancient history in Indie world.

Have you checked out the pricing tool, which now seems to typically recommend $2.99 to everyone? True, that's not $0.99, but it is the lowest price point for the 70% royalty, which seems a little bit as if it's in general a push for lower prices.

Amazon didn't stop the behavior because, as Julie points out, it was to its advantage to have a lot of cheap Kindle content.

Also, the behavior worked for some people. I used to know someone on the KDP forum who priced everything at $0.99, regardless of length. She made $30,000 a month. There are other examples.

That said, I don't disagree that the $0.99 strategy has been much overused. I'm just suggesting indie authors weren't working in a vacuum when they made those choices.

[dgcasey]

It's almost too bad we can't do that with books.  If our books are $4.99, readers could buy the first chapter for 99 cents.  If they like it, they can buy the rest of the book for $4.00.  Not sure?  Buy the second chapter for 99 cents.  If they like that, they can buy the rest of the book for $3.01.  On the one hand, that'd be a pretty good deal for writers, I think.  On the other hand, the less savory folks will just invest a lot of effort into the first two chapters and phone it in on the rest.  *sigh*

Except you're forgetting one thing. Readers CAN read the first chapter of most books for FREE and sometimes the second, third and fourth. The Look Inside is exactly what you're talking about here. If people aren't willing to read the Look Inside, I wonder how many would be willing to pay .99 cents for the privilege of reading one chapter?

[bardsandsages]

Mark Dawson, for example, freely states that for the past couple of months he has been spending about $30,000/month on AMS ads. He's pretty much the prime example of someone who has purchased his way to success. What's your opinion on him?

Buying advertising is called running a business. I guess you still live in the fantasy land where worthy books will rise to the top by osmosis or something?

Advertising is what drives business. Period. I work in contract packaging. When a client drops $250,000 on displays to go in stores to market a new toothpaste, are they "purchasing their way to success" or are they doing what they are supposed to be doing: promoting their product?

There is nothing nefarious about buying advertising. That is a normal business practice and has been for CENTURIES. Even so called "word of mouth" and "viral" success is launched with advertising.

[PJ Post]

Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, we know exactly how we got here, and I mean exactly; hint: it was Indies/self-publishers. But as Tom says, it doesn't matter who says what now, this is the new world order. CPC marketing is more of the same, but that's not going anywhere anytime soon either. As I've said before, there's enough newbies, wannabes and hatters out there to keep all of these predatory platforms supplied with content, no matter how onerous the terms of use become.

The only way to win is not to play...

We need a better, more creator friendly, curated platform – a better mouse trap kind of thing. It's only going to get worse until we do.

Indie authors certainly contributed, but I think it's important to note the forces that shaped those decisions.

As Julie points out, Amazon encourages low price points (though not necessarily $0.99)...

Amazon didn't encourage 99 cent price points any more than it encouraged $9.99 price points. Most Indies had/have zero business experience. Back in 2012, no one was talking about branding or messaging or even practical marketing. But virtually every self-publisher had seen advertisements for Memorial Day mattress sales. They all understood how to compete on price, or thought they did - and that's what drove down prices: they didn't have to outrun the bear, just their fellow self-publishers.

But I would have to say that Amazon, at the very least, appears to be complicit in the misuses of their platform, simply because they chose not to address the behavior when it came up. I mean, everything Nora is talking about is ancient history in Indie world.

Have you checked out the pricing tool, which now seems to typically recommend $2.99 to everyone? True, that's not $0.99, but it is the lowest price point for the 70% royalty, which seems a little bit as if it's in general a push for lower prices.

Amazon didn't stop the behavior because, as Julie points out, it was to its advantage to have a lot of cheap Kindle content.

Also, the behavior worked for some people. I used to know someone on the KDP forum who priced everything at $0.99, regardless of length. She made $30,000 a month. There are other examples.

That said, I don't disagree that the $0.99 strategy has been much overused. I'm just suggesting indie authors weren't working in a vacuum when they made those choices.

I didn't mean to suggest the 'cheap' (commodity) strategy doesn't work, after all, they sell lots of mattresses on Memorial Day weekend too. But this is still the impetus that devalued the fiction market. The $2.99 recommendation is more of the same. It comes from a statistically high number of books being published at that price, and these publishers are setting that price based on the 70% royalty rate as you point out. Again, they are gravitating to this price because it is the lowest available at the better royalty rate, not because of an analysis of market expectations.

I'm like a broken record at this point, but this is why traditional publishing was losing their collective minds and doing everything possible to discredit Indies - we were destroying their industry along with our own. These companies are not run by clueless ****, they're run by greedy conglomerates. They were just circling the wagons, but we set the wagons on fire and have effectively wrecked the entire publishing industry.

Which is why I keep talking about a new disruption - in spite of the success of some, the industry itself is in free-fall.

[bardsandsages]

I agree with the potentially harmful effect of overusing the $0.99 price point, but Nora Roberts and Stephen King started long enough ago that ebooks didn't exist yet,

No, the KINDLE did not exist yet. Ebooks as a legitimate form of media have existed since the mid 1990's. King even released a novella, Riding the Bullet, in 2000. I started ebook publishing in 2004. There was already a growing ebook market when I started. The typical genre ebook then sold for between $4.99-$9.99. Non-fiction titles routinely sold for $20 or more.

And we were selling PDFs...seriously...PDFs.

The whole reason Amazon bought mobipocket and developed the Kindle in the first place was because the ebook market was starting to take shape and they saw an opportunity to control it. But ebooks have existed for a long time as a viable format.

I can tell you EXACTLY why the 99 cent point worked originally, and it had nothing to do with "new authors." Because by the time Amazon's Kindle came out, ebook readers had an expectation of paying $4.99-$9.99 for an ebook. Because originally, people did not realize that the bulk of Amazon's ebook catalog was self-published books, people thought they were getting "deals" because the expectation was that ebooks costs $4.99-$9.99.

But then the market became flooded with low-priced books, and, in the beginning, low quality. That is when the "self published books are crap" mantra started. Before Amazon, there were plenty of bad self-published books, but because most digital retailers curated their virtual shelves, readers didn't see them. So the self published books people were exposed to met certain minimum expectations (because the ebook sellers were in the market to sell ebooks, and only ebooks, it was in their interest to make sure they didn't spook customers away with a ton of crap in the store).

But Amazon didn't curate. Amazon sold anything and everything. And all the crap that had previously been hidden from customers flooded to the surface.

Regardless, the existence of ebooks is not relevant. Even today, trade publishers are not selling the work of new authors for 99 cents as the norm. Even today that doesn't happen.

[bardsandsages]

I'm like a broken record at this point, but this is why traditional publishing was losing their collective minds and doing everything possible to discredit Indies - we were destroying their industry along with our own. These companies are not run by clueless ****, they're run by greedy conglomerates. They were just circling the wagons, but we set the wagons on fire and have effectively wrecked the entire publishing industry.

Ironically, the trade industry doesn't really think much about indies themselves. They DO however think about Amazon and the companies that weaponize indies. There are a lot of vanity presses and "service providers" who got rich selling the "us versus them" narrative to indies. Amazon is one of them. Even to the point of calling what they pay "royalties" instead of "revenue." That was a psychological choice, not a legal one. Because then Amazon could claim it paid higher ROYALTIES than publishers. Sure, Amazon pays you 70% of the net of the sale. But publishers traditionally paid $10-20% on the LIST price of the book, and they paid 100% of the editing, proofreading, design, distribution, marketing, and all other costs associated with publishing a book.

But indies bought it, hook-line-and-sinker. And they chuckled with glee whenever Amazon 'stuck it' to the 'greedy publishers.'

And you are right. Most of the trades aren't saints. They are in this for profit. And sometimes that means making decisions that benefit the company over the author. But anyone that thinks Amazon has the best interest of authors and not themselves at heart is not paying attention.

[123mlh]

With respect to the pricing discussion, I saw this today on the Bookbub FAQs and thought it was very interesting:

What price should I discount my book to?

We’ve seen a significant decrease in sales for Featured Deals between $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99. Ultimately, the price you choose for your deal should depend on your marketing goals. Are you trying to hit a bestseller list? Market a series? Drive sales and revenue? You can learn the best way to accomplish each of these goals here.
Updated on March 10, 2019

https://support.bookbub.com/articles/what-price-should-i-discount-my-book-to/

On a personal note, I've been moving my book prices up to get distance from the "99 cent because I can't sell at any other price or because I'm new" market. I'll do promos at 99 cents or free to give a title a boost, but there are readers who will pay a decent price for my novels even if I'm not a household name and those are the readers I want.

[Bill Hiatt]

I agree with the potentially harmful effect of overusing the $0.99 price point, but Nora Roberts and Stephen King started long enough ago that ebooks didn't exist yet,

No, the KINDLE did not exist yet. Ebooks as a legitimate form of media have existed since the mid 1990's. King even released a novella, Riding the Bullet, in 2000. I started ebook publishing in 2004. There was already a growing ebook market when I started. The typical genre ebook then sold for between $4.99-$9.99. Non-fiction titles routinely sold for $20 or more.

And we were selling PDFs...seriously...PDFs.

The whole reason Amazon bought mobipocket and developed the Kindle in the first place was because the ebook market was starting to take shape and they saw an opportunity to control it. But ebooks have existed for a long time as a viable format.

I can tell you EXACTLY why the 99 cent point worked originally, and it had nothing to do with "new authors." Because by the time Amazon's Kindle came out, ebook readers had an expectation of paying $4.99-$9.99 for an ebook. Because originally, people did not realize that the bulk of Amazon's ebook catalog was self-published books, people thought they were getting "deals" because the expectation was that ebooks costs $4.99-$9.99.

But then the market became flooded with low-priced books, and, in the beginning, low quality. That is when the "self published books are crap" mantra started. Before Amazon, there were plenty of bad self-published books, but because most digital retailers curated their virtual shelves, readers didn't see them. So the self published books people were exposed to met certain minimum expectations (because the ebook sellers were in the market to sell ebooks, and only ebooks, it was in their interest to make sure they didn't spook customers away with a ton of crap in the store).

But Amazon didn't curate. Amazon sold anything and everything. And all the crap that had previously been hidden from customers flooded to the surface.

Regardless, the existence of ebooks is not relevant. Even today, trade publishers are not selling the work of new authors for 99 cents as the norm. Even today that doesn't happen.

I apologize in advance for being nitpicky. Having had website issues all week is probably putting me in a bad mood.

That said, in the post I was responding to, you said

Nora Roberts was once a first-time author. Her first book was not sold at 99 cents. Stephen King was once a first-time author. His first book was not sold at 99 cents.

While I agree that ebooks have been around for a while, Nora Roberts published her first book in 1981; Stephen King published his first in 1973. Both were comfortably before the mid-90s, and, as trad-pubbed authors, had not control over their pricing, anyway. I think there is an argument to be made for pricing lower as a newbie indie author, just as there is for permafree first-in-series. Indies, after all, don't have all the promotional opportunities and advantages that trad publishers have, which to me suggests that following the same strategy the trad pubs follow might be a mistake. I think the problem is so many people overdoing it so much, creating the glut you described earlier. More nuanced and restrained use of the tactic might have some value. In the old days, virtually every book store had a bargain table, and those bargain items moved fast. They drew customers, who then also bought some full-price items as well. Of course, there were a much more limited number of bargain books relative to the whole store than is probably the case in the kindle store. That's a critical difference.

It's true that trads still don't debut people's ebooks at $0.99, but they may err in the other direction, given their stated desire to slow the adoption of the ebook format. I've also heard complaints from some people that trad publishers overpriced their ebooks, which ended up not selling well. The people I'm familiar with weren't pushing for $0.99 either--they just wanted the ebook to be comfortably below the paperback price. In a couple of cases, they self-published when their rights reverted and did better than the publishers had, both in terms of sales and revenues.

A better guideline than the trads might be how experienced indies, such as yourself, price ebooks. I think you posted about that at the other place, if I recall correctly. (Or maybe I'm thinking of your helpful information about pricing paperbacks.) What this thread needs might be a little feedback from indies who price higher and are successful. Or maybe that deserves a pinned thread of its own.

The situation is unlikely to change unless a fairly large mass of indies starts pricing higher. Of course, Amazon could raise the minimum price, at least for full-length books. But since, as you point out, Amazon wants to sell Kindles, and a lot of cheap ebooks to fill them helps do that, I think that's unlikely to happen.

[Bill Hiatt]

Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, we know exactly how we got here, and I mean exactly; hint: it was Indies/self-publishers. But as Tom says, it doesn't matter who says what now, this is the new world order. CPC marketing is more of the same, but that's not going anywhere anytime soon either. As I've said before, there's enough newbies, wannabes and hatters out there to keep all of these predatory platforms supplied with content, no matter how onerous the terms of use become.

The only way to win is not to play...

We need a better, more creator friendly, curated platform – a better mouse trap kind of thing. It's only going to get worse until we do.

Indie authors certainly contributed, but I think it's important to note the forces that shaped those decisions.

As Julie points out, Amazon encourages low price points (though not necessarily $0.99)...

Amazon didn't encourage 99 cent price points any more than it encouraged $9.99 price points. Most Indies had/have zero business experience. Back in 2012, no one was talking about branding or messaging or even practical marketing. But virtually every self-publisher had seen advertisements for Memorial Day mattress sales. They all understood how to compete on price, or thought they did - and that's what drove down prices: they didn't have to outrun the bear, just their fellow self-publishers.

But I would have to say that Amazon, at the very least, appears to be complicit in the misuses of their platform, simply because they chose not to address the behavior when it came up. I mean, everything Nora is talking about is ancient history in Indie world.

Have you checked out the pricing tool, which now seems to typically recommend $2.99 to everyone? True, that's not $0.99, but it is the lowest price point for the 70% royalty, which seems a little bit as if it's in general a push for lower prices.

Amazon didn't stop the behavior because, as Julie points out, it was to its advantage to have a lot of cheap Kindle content.

Also, the behavior worked for some people. I used to know someone on the KDP forum who priced everything at $0.99, regardless of length. She made $30,000 a month. There are other examples.

That said, I don't disagree that the $0.99 strategy has been much overused. I'm just suggesting indie authors weren't working in a vacuum when they made those choices.

I didn't mean to suggest the 'cheap' (commodity) strategy doesn't work, after all, they sell lots of mattresses on Memorial Day weekend too. But this is still the impetus that devalued the fiction market. The $2.99 recommendation is more of the same. It comes from a statistically high number of books being published at that price, and these publishers are setting that price based on the 70% royalty rate as you point out. Again, they are gravitating to this price because it is the lowest available at the better royalty rate, not because of an analysis of market expectations.

I'm like a broken record at this point, but this is why traditional publishing was losing their collective minds and doing everything possible to discredit Indies - we were destroying their industry along with our own. These companies are not run by clueless ****, they're run by greedy conglomerates. They were just circling the wagons, but we set the wagons on fire and have effectively wrecked the entire publishing industry.

Which is why I keep talking about a new disruption - in spite of the success of some, the industry itself is in free-fall.

I agree with the general point about the problems of pricing too low, but I'm inclined to question the idea that the entire publishing industry is wrecked. In fact, the trad revenue picture looks more or less steady. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271931/revenue-of-the-us-book-publishing-industry/ I'm sure the trads would rather have seen enormous growth rather than a relatively flatline situation, but part of that, to judge from Author Earnings Reports, is that indies are taking a bigger piece of the pie. If we had an accurate picture of indie earnings, we might well find that publishing income as a whole has actually grown.

[sstreet]

All I gotta say about all this is you all are a lot smarter than me!!

That aside. The world is full of literary snobs which could mean a lot of things. Some people only like trade-pub authors that come out with snazzy covers and have awards and NYTBS tags after their names, but on the flip-side there are people like me who couldn't give two craps about that junk. I read a book a day at least (which I likely couldn't sustain without KU). Nora Roberts is not considering this because of who she is and what she does, but not everyone cares. I know I sure don't. And that doesn't mean she isn't great, she is, but you know what? I really like the $0.99 books and FREE with KU books I read daily just as much...probably. I can't afford to read her books since I keep forgetting to return library books and my fee is too high to borrow any of them (I'm kidding) But come on. She is living in the past when it comes to readers, in my opinion, and only looking at this from her own lofty perspective, no disrespect. I'd love to be in her lofty position.

I guess my point is, it doesn't have to be an either/or situation. Why can't we just co-exist?

[lyndabelle]

I'm going through a complete redistribution of my catalog as I'm continuing going wide this year. And I really thought through how to price my books to do this. Now, I do have romantic shorts, one - two hour reads. These don't usually sell well above $0.99. I even put a series together into an omnibus edition, but at $2.99. That way, I usually use the first in the series to promote it as a permafree or freebie/giveaway.

With that said, I have noticed when I was doing new releases, if I sold them even slightly higher, like at $1.99, which I did for one of my shorts, it tanked, badly. But when I lowered the price to $0.99, it started to sell. I'm not sure if this is because the buying public is trained to buy at $0.99 or not. I still even get complaints that a person is getting a short for $0.99 instead of a full novel. But even at $2.99, it's still not going to break my costs. But raising it to a higher price doesn't seem to sell them. I'm not sure if that's because I'm more of a prawnie level author or what. But I'd rather have my books sell than not sell. Having a novel sit and not sell at $4.99, but then sell at $2.99? Which would you choose?

Not to mention the fact that AMS costs so much more than the previous version of advertising on the Zon. I keep hitting the run out of budget on my ads, and if I raise it, my costs will go through the roof. I mean, $100 of advertising a month is about my cap. And still, I'm only making like $25 on Amazon from selling books. SO, the whole AMS ads seem like a scam these days. I was able to get the old system to work for me better, but now that I can't advertise ANY of my spicy or erotic titles, I'm stuck with just the contemporary romances. So, yeah, Amazon REALLY doesn't care about it's authors, and you have to really pick price points that work for your business plan. My current wide plan is starting to get on track again, but it's taken 6 months to get my sales numbers back up. But luckily, I have to release the last half of my catalog still. So, doing better than being in KU. But heah, that's a whole other thread of discussion, right?

Anyway, I find that moving the price of books out of $0.99 or $2.99 for a full novel seems to kill sales, and I'm guessing, people are just conditioned now to buy at those prices. Though, I did hear at a romance con from a reader that she likes to read strictly Indie, and not the trads. So, here's a positive. In all this pricing and marketing we've been doing in the last several years, an Indie market has been created for readers to choose from. And maybe that is something special in itself.

[LD]

With that said, I have noticed when I was doing new releases, if I sold them even slightly higher, like at $1.99, which I did for one of my shorts, it tanked, badly. But when I lowered the price to $0.99, it started to sell. I'm not sure if this is because the buying public is trained to buy at $0.99 or not.

$1.99 is considered a dead zone.  Not high enough to give the impression it's a worthy read, and not low enough to give the impression it's a good deal on promotions.

I price according to word count.

[David VanDyke]

It's a matter of scale I think. 2000 is a very active author doing a lot of advertising. 10,000 is an excessive amount.

More totally unsupported opinion, with no basis in fact. This is like a small business owner claiming Coke spending $100M on a Super Bowl ad is "suspicious." He has no experience with that level of ad spend, so he thinks it's somehow "suspicious" or unfair.

Baloney.

I generally spend 4 figures of advertising per month. I could easily do 5 figures. I don't because I find there's diminishing returns and it's not worth it to me--but it's worth it to others. The numbers don't magically equate to "suspicious."

Advertising is what drives business. Period. I work in contract packaging. When a client drops $250,000 on displays to go in stores to market a new toothpaste, are they "purchasing their way to success" or are they doing what they are supposed to be doing: promoting their product?

There is nothing nefarious about buying advertising. That is a normal business practice and has been for CENTURIES. Even so called "word of mouth" and "viral" success is launched with advertising.

This ^

[Lorri Moulton]

As more people 'go wide' I don't know why $1.99 is seen as a dead zone.  It pays $1.18 on D2D. 

Since going wide, I price my short stories at 99c and $1.99, novellas at $2.99 and novels at $3.99.  My non-fiction is shorter, but I have that at $4.99.  It's trial and error, but these prices seem to work for now.  I don't sell huge amounts of books, but again...I can't afford to pay for advertising.

That's not to say advertising isn't a good idea.  I am just trying some options that take more time than money right now.

[TimothyEllis]

I'm sure the trads would rather have seen enormous growth rather than a relatively flatline situation, but part of that, to judge from Author Earnings Reports, is that indies are taking a bigger piece of the pie. If we had an accurate picture of indie earnings, we might well find that publishing income as a whole has actually grown.

Dataguy at the 2018 Nebula conference. He proved it. The presentation is on youtube.

Ebook sales are booming, not growing.

The Trads are losing ground to Indies at a rapid rate.

[Bill Hiatt]

It's a matter of scale I think. 2000 is a very active author doing a lot of advertising. 10,000 is an excessive amount.

More totally unsupported opinion, with no basis in fact. This is like a small business owner claiming Coke spending $100M on a Super Bowl ad is "suspicious." He has no experience with that level of ad spend, so he thinks it's somehow "suspicious" or unfair.

Baloney.

I generally spend 4 figures of advertising per month. I could easily do 5 figures. I don't because I find there's diminishing returns and it's not worth it to me--but it's worth it to others. The numbers don't magically equate to "suspicious."

Advertising is what drives business. Period. I work in contract packaging. When a client drops $250,000 on displays to go in stores to market a new toothpaste, are they "purchasing their way to success" or are they doing what they are supposed to be doing: promoting their product?

There is nothing nefarious about buying advertising. That is a normal business practice and has been for CENTURIES. Even so called "word of mouth" and "viral" success is launched with advertising.

This ^

Unfortunately, the fact that some scammers allegedly have big ad spends has led some people to conclude that big ad spends are inherently wrong. There's nothing wrong with it if you know what you're doing and if you're not using it in conjunction with questionable practices.

Whether an ad spend is reasonable or not depends on what an author's ROI is, not on the raw spending total.

[TimothyEllis]

Unfortunately, the fact that some scammers allegedly have big ad spends has led some people to conclude that big ad spends are inherently wrong. There's nothing wrong with it if you know what you're doing and if you're not using it in conjunction with questionable practices.

Whether an ad spend is reasonable or not depends on what an author's ROI is, not on the raw spending total.

Unfortunately, it makes a mockery of ranking systems. Those with money can buy their way to the top. Everyone else cant.

Personally I think AMS is the worst thing to happen to eBooks.

Ranks used to mean something. Now the top ranks dont mean this is a great book, it means most of the top ranks were bought. Getting a top rank without spending tens of thousands is now the exception to the rule, unless you have a huge mailing list, in which case you get there, but only a big spend can keep you there.

With pay to play, the majority of us are basically screwed before we start. I'm resigned to never getting above 1500 again.

[PJ Post]

The really weird thing is that Amazon's original claim to fame was their recommendation algo. And as far as I can tell, they've pretty much abandoned it in favor of CPC marketing. And while AMS may make way way way more money, the customer experience is clearly suffering. I'm having a hard time finding stuff on Amazon lately because so much of my search is filled up with sponsored products, rather than what I'm actually looking for. But they're big enough now (monopoly powers) that they don't care. They're making money on both ends, their customers are their customers, and so are their vendors.

[Bill Hiatt]

I'm sure the trads would rather have seen enormous growth rather than a relatively flatline situation, but part of that, to judge from Author Earnings Reports, is that indies are taking a bigger piece of the pie. If we had an accurate picture of indie earnings, we might well find that publishing income as a whole has actually grown.

Dataguy at the 2018 Nebula conference. He proved it. The presentation is on youtube.

Ebook sales are booming, not growing.

The Trads are losing ground to Indies at a rapid rate.

Here's the link for those who might be interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdXU2V_Wr48

Of course, he's only talking about two genres, but the figures are consistent with his earlier reports. A case could be made that the publishing industry is changing rather than being destroyed.

[Bill Hiatt]

Unfortunately, the fact that some scammers allegedly have big ad spends has led some people to conclude that big ad spends are inherently wrong. There's nothing wrong with it if you know what you're doing and if you're not using it in conjunction with questionable practices.

Whether an ad spend is reasonable or not depends on what an author's ROI is, not on the raw spending total.

Unfortunately, it makes a mockery of ranking systems. Those with money can buy their way to the top. Everyone else cant.

Personally I think AMS is the worst thing to happen to eBooks.

Ranks used to mean something. Now the top ranks dont mean this is a great book, it means most of the top ranks were bought. Getting a top rank without spending tens of thousands is now the exception to the rule, unless you have a huge mailing list, in which case you get there, but only a big spend can keep you there.

With pay to play, the majority of us are basically screwed before we start. I'm resigned to never getting above 1500 again.

There's no denying that it's harder to get up to a higher rank. I used to do better, at least in the subgenres, when I first started than I can do now, despite having a larger (but still prawny) fan base.

On the other hand, isn't what you're describing pretty much true in any business? Don't the companies with the biggest ad budgets tend to also have the highest sales?

Getting into better ranks is harder also because the competition keeps growing in numbers. One of the reasons some indies started spending more on ads was that it was harder and harder to get visibility. In other words, I think big ad spends are partially a result of visibility issues, not just the cause of them.

I'm not a big fan of AMS ads, either, but I think if they didn't exist, the people who are spending huge money on them would simply be spending huge money outside Amazon. True, FB ads might not be as effective, but clearly someone dumping huge amounts of money into FB would have a better chance than someone with modest ad spends or none.

Perhaps PJ Post is right, and we need to develop a completely new set of platforms and a new business model. But in what business model is ad spend not going to have an impact? I don't see that problem going away.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love it if books rose or fell solely on merit, as determined by readers. But readers can't support what they don't know exists.

It would also be great if self publishing gave everyone an equal chance to succeed. That's never really been the case, though, even at the beginning. People who could afford better editing, covers, etc. would always have had an advantage. I heard people bemoan how expensive self publishing could be long before AMS ads even existed.

[Bill Hiatt]

The really weird thing is that Amazon's original claim to fame was their recommendation algo. And as far as I can tell, they've pretty much abandoned it in favor of CPC marketing. And while AMS may make way way way more money, the customer experience is clearly suffering. I'm having a hard time finding stuff on Amazon lately because so much of my search is filled up with sponsored products, rather than what I'm actually looking for. But they're big enough now (monopoly powers) that they don't care. They're making money on both ends, their customers are their customers, and so are their vendors.

This may depend on where one is (and what kind of A/B testing Amazon is doing). I think we all agree that there's too much advertising on the product pages, but mine are still showing also boughts at the top, right under the cover and product description, I tried searching for fantasy. The search results had one big ad at the top, followed by two sponsored product ads. There were also two ads at the bottom. All the other search results were actual search results. It's easy enough to skim over the sponsored product ads if one wants.

[Anarchist]

Unfortunately, the fact that some scammers allegedly have big ad spends has led some people to conclude that big ad spends are inherently wrong. There's nothing wrong with it if you know what you're doing and if you're not using it in conjunction with questionable practices.

Whether an ad spend is reasonable or not depends on what an author's ROI is, not on the raw spending total.

Unfortunately, it makes a mockery of ranking systems. Those with money can buy their way to the top. Everyone else cant.

No more so than the ability to buy one's way onto the NYT bestseller's list.

Personally I think AMS is the worst thing to happen to eBooks.

Maybe. But for me, AMS has been an absolute boon.

I prioritize my own success over the state of a market.

Ranks used to mean something.

Sales ranking systems that are shown to customers have always been flawed. They're a form of social proof, so they get gamed. It's inevitable.

I'm pragmatic. I look for ways to exploit the current state of things.

Getting a top rank without spending tens of thousands is now the exception to the rule, unless you have a huge mailing list, in which case you get there, but only a big spend can keep you there.

I got into publishing as a business. From the beginning, I focused on PPC and email. I could see the direction the winds were blowing. Everyone could (I'm not clairvoyant).

Today, I have a big ad spend and big mailing lists. I ignore everything else. I'm not launching under 100 like Amanda, Wayne, and Ellsworth. But I can easily get under 500.

I've never been a complainer. If something is unfair, I don't agitate about it. I try to get on the right side of it.

[Lorri Moulton]

As others have mentioned, if Amazon changes anything, it will be for the readers.  If enough readers stop buying on Amazon because they can't find the books they're looking for in the appropriate areas, they'll go elsewhere.  And the advertising money will follow the readers.

[Bill Hiatt]

I watched the Data Guy video that Timothy pointed out earlier. (This is perhaps why I'm still a prawn--I keep doing things that take me away from writing!)

I wrote a long post summarizing DG's findings, only to realize I might be running into infringing on copyright territory, so I'll be much more general and let you watch the video for the evidence.

In the genres examined (fantasy and science fiction) for the period examined (April 2017-April 2018), based on ebook sales at Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble, trad publishers are doing OK, indies are doing better on unit sales, somewhat worse on gross dollars, better on gross author share of dollars, than their trad counterparts. There are more indies, of course, but the number is not grossly larger than the increased size of their unit sales. There isn't much fodder here for the narrative that the publishing industry is collapsing. (That doesn't mean that it couldn't, merely that it isn't trending in that direction. Ebook sales are up considerable in the two genres studied.)

There are more indie authors in the top 2000 in these genres than there are trads. Make of that what you will.

In terms of pricing, most of the trad ebook prices fall between $7 and $9. Most of the indie prices fall between $3 and $5. Is the difference justified by differences in production cost and other overhead? DG didn't address that question.

He did say something interesting to the effect that the indies that were most successful were likely to find their way to the optimum price point for their work. I thought it would be interesting to look at some successful indies and see how they're pricing. (I just picked a few names I knew. This isn't a scientific sample. Also, I got a general feel for prices without trying to get an exact average.)

Amanda Lee: $3.99 to $4.99, with $9.99 box sets
Bella Forrest: $3.99 to $4.99, with at least one $0.99 (the first book in a fifty book series)
Michael Anderle $4.99 (with at least one $0.99 box set, but I don't know if that's a promotional price)
(Not relevant to the discussion of ebook prices, but I noticed Anderle prices most paperbacks at $9.99, while Forrest varies more but seems to average over $20.)

At that point, I decided to look at Amazon's fantasy top 100. I didn't have the patience to be really systematic about it, but it appears the predominate indie price point for listed books is generally $3.99 or $4.99. There were some $2.99, one of which was trad published. There were a couple at $1.99 (from 47 North, one of Amazon's imprints--go figure), and two $0.99, both from the same author and both with man chest covers, whatever that may or may not tell us. Most of the trad books covered a wider range from $6.95 to $13.99.

From this quick, unscientific survey, it looks to me as if the $3.99 to $4.99 zone might be the current sweet spot for indie novels, at least to judge from those who are successful sellers. There's some room for lower--it doesn't appear low price points are an automatic turnoff if some of them are hitting the top 100. Still, the variety of people pricing in the range mentioned above and succeeding there is striking.

Take all of that for whatever it's worth.

[bardsandsages]

That said, in the post I was responding to, you said

Nora Roberts was once a first-time author. Her first book was not sold at 99 cents. Stephen King was once a first-time author. His first book was not sold at 99 cents.

While I agree that ebooks have been around for a while, Nora Roberts published her first book in 1981; Stephen King published his first in 1973. Both were comfortably before the mid-90s, and, as trad-pubbed authors, had not control over their pricing, anyway. I think there is an argument to be made for pricing lower as a newbie indie author, just as there is for permafree first-in-series.

It doesn't matter when Roberts or King first published. Even today, trade publishers don't price their new authors cheaper than their bestsellers. They just don't. Because their costs for publishing a first time author are the same as their cost for publishing a bestseller (with the up-front difference of an advance). But the cost of running the printing presses doesn't change because it is a new author. The price of paper is fixed by the commodities market. Shipping and warehousing costs are the same. Your accountanting and legal departments get paid the same regardless of who you are publishing.

Insofar as trade publishers overpricing their ebooks, they price based on their profit structures. Indies, alas, often think backwards. They think they have to get a great sales rank before they can make money. Sales rank is a BYPRODUCT of sales, not the other way around. The indie obsession with sales rank causes a lot of the disconnect when it comes to looking at pricing. You think trade ebooks are overpriced because you are looking at it as an indie with no real corporate overhead and expenses.

Trade publishers are following a very common business model. Early adopters will be willing to pay more for a product when it first comes out. The marketing mantra is that you can always drop your price, but it is almost impossible to raise it. Psychologically, having a list price of say $10 for an ebook gives you more flexibility down the road for marketing. Because maybe one day they put the book on sale 50% off, and then all of those people who wouldn't buy it for $10 suddenly say, "WOW! It's 50%! I should get it now while it is on sale."

Because remember, Amazon allows the trades to actually "show" a sales price. And showing that discount is a huge psychological motivation. If your book is always 99 cents, there is literally no reason to get it now. I can buy it later for 99 cents. But with higher priced items, people will jump on a 50% off sale because it is time-sensitive. With a price-matched lower price, the customer thinks your sale price is the regular price and there is no time sensitivity to buy now.

I price most of my books around $5, but I use coupons through Smashwords and Drivethru all the time, because in order for something to be a "deal" it has to have a higher perceived value than what you are asking the customer to pay. This is why things like coupons and BOGO deals work so well in the retail environment.

Think about any new product that comes out: cereal, soup, cleaning products. Do they price at dollar store prices when they come out? No. They don't. New products price themselves the same as their competition, because they want customers to think of them as the same quality as their competition. Then they use other incentives to encourage customers to try. Maybe it is a coupon for $1 off. Or maybe it is a rebate. Or maybe it is a buy one/get one free. Or a loyalty program (buy X number of products and get Y for free). But they do everything in their power to preserve their list price because they don't want customers to simply think about their brands in terms of price. Because when people think about you only in terms of price, you become an interchangeable commodity.

[Tom Wood]

The authorearnings.com website is down, but here is the pricing/sales chart for SF&F from the presentation in that video by Data Guy:

[Bill Hiatt]

That said, in the post I was responding to, you said

Nora Roberts was once a first-time author. Her first book was not sold at 99 cents. Stephen King was once a first-time author. His first book was not sold at 99 cents.

While I agree that ebooks have been around for a while, Nora Roberts published her first book in 1981; Stephen King published his first in 1973. Both were comfortably before the mid-90s, and, as trad-pubbed authors, had not control over their pricing, anyway. I think there is an argument to be made for pricing lower as a newbie indie author, just as there is for permafree first-in-series.

It doesn't matter when Roberts or King first published. Even today, trade publishers don't price their new authors cheaper than their bestsellers. They just don't. Because their costs for publishing a first time author are the same as their cost for publishing a bestseller (with the up-front difference of an advance). But the cost of running the printing presses doesn't change because it is a new author. The price of paper is fixed by the commodities market. Shipping and warehousing costs are the same. Your accountanting and legal departments get paid the same regardless of who you are publishing.

Insofar as trade publishers overpricing their ebooks, they price based on their profit structures. Indies, alas, often think backwards. They think they have to get a great sales rank before they can make money. Sales rank is a BYPRODUCT of sales, not the other way around. The indie obsession with sales rank causes a lot of the disconnect when it comes to looking at pricing. You think trade ebooks are overpriced because you are looking at it as an indie with no real corporate overhead and expenses.

Trade publishers are following a very common business model. Early adopters will be willing to pay more for a product when it first comes out. The marketing mantra is that you can always drop your price, but it is almost impossible to raise it. Psychologically, having a list price of say $10 for an ebook gives you more flexibility down the road for marketing. Because maybe one day they put the book on sale 50% off, and then all of those people who wouldn't buy it for $10 suddenly say, "WOW! It's 50%! I should get it now while it is on sale."

Because remember, Amazon allows the trades to actually "show" a sales price. And showing that discount is a huge psychological motivation. If your book is always 99 cents, there is literally no reason to get it now. I can buy it later for 99 cents. But with higher priced items, people will jump on a 50% off sale because it is time-sensitive. With a price-matched lower price, the customer thinks your sale price is the regular price and there is no time sensitivity to buy now.

I price most of my books around $5, but I use coupons through Smashwords and Drivethru all the time, because in order for something to be a "deal" it has to have a higher perceived value than what you are asking the customer to pay. This is why things like coupons and BOGO deals work so well in the retail environment.

Think about any new product that comes out: cereal, soup, cleaning products. Do they price at dollar store prices when they come out? No. They don't. New products price themselves the same as their competition, because they want customers to think of them as the same quality as their competition. Then they use other incentives to encourage customers to try. Maybe it is a coupon for $1 off. Or maybe it is a rebate. Or maybe it is a buy one/get one free. Or a loyalty program (buy X number of products and get Y for free). But they do everything in their power to preserve their list price because they don't want customers to simply think about their brands in terms of price. Because when people think about you only in terms of price, you become an interchangeable commodity.

As always, you're providing much food for thought.

I think I wasn't making myself clear. I wasn't trying to suggest that pricing everything at $0.99 is a good strategy. I don't think it is at all. What I was suggesting was that trad pricing wasn't necessarily always a good model for indie pricing. In a POD environment, we're not paying upfront for running the printing presses, paper, warehousing, or shipping. Ebooks, of course, have none of those, anyway. We don't in general have legal or accounting departments. (Those of us running small presses might.)

However, in spite of the fact that we have less infrastructure to maintain, I agree with you completely that going for the lowest possible price, even when one is new, is a mistake. I would argue that newbies trying to build an audience might want a somewhat lower price point in the same way that restaurants often start out with lower prices when they first open (or at least send out floods of coupons)--not because of the sales rank, but simply because people tend to try something new more easily when trying is incentivized. I know trad publishers don't typically operate that way, but a lot of businesses have special introductory prices, and new software updates often debut with a limited-time introductory price. (Obviously, a limited-time introductory price is a lot different from having a low price all of the time.)

The price point you mention in your last post, the range Data Guy gives, and my own observations from looking at the top 100 list, all support the idea that successful indies are not generally pricing at $0.99. Even if the trads aren't necessarily always a good model for us, one would expect that successful indies would be. 

[Bill Hiatt]

The authorearnings.com website is down, but here is the pricing/sales chart for SF&F from the presentation in that video by Data Guy:

I fear that site might be down permanently, but near the end of the presentation Data Guy says he's trying to find ways to make his data available to indies. He simply hasn't found the right business model for it. (That could be an indirect way of saying he hasn't found a way to charge for it that would be reasonable for indies without being offensive to his larger corporate clients. But at least he's thinking about it.)

I don't think indies need anywhere nearly as much data as his corporate clients get. A few big-picture stats like his old reports used to have would probably be enough for most of us. If I recall correctly from looking at his website when he first monetized his data, it looked as if corporate clients were buying a ton of information, with estimated sales figures even down to the author level. While that data might be interesting, it isn't really necessary.

[okey dokey]

I wish Bill Gates and Microsoft had looked at pricing as we indies do.
"We have a new product, Windows. But nobody has heard of it So let's introduce it for free. If it generates interest, then we'll jump the price to 99 cents. It'll show profit at that price point, since we can buy blank discs in bulk for one penny. All we're doing is just copying the program.
"What we really want to do is hit the best seller chart. We can't do that until it's in the hands of a lot of people."

Welcome to the indie world, Bill.

[Bill Hiatt]

I wish Bill Gates and Microsoft had looked at pricing as we indies do.
"We have a new product, Windows. But nobody has heard of it So let's introduce it for free. If it generates interest, then we'll jump the price to 99 cents. It'll show profit at that price point, since we can buy blank discs in bulk for one penny. All we're doing is just copying the program.
"What we really want to do is hit the best seller chart. We can't do that until it's in the hands of a lot of people."

Welcome to the indie world, Bill.

Ha! I'm not sure whether that's sarcastic or not.

Probably, no two industries are exactly the same, though as Julie points out, there are some psychological factors about pricing that are common to many.

Microsoft enormously expanded its audience by giving MS-DOS away for free. Yes, I'm old enough to remember when DOS was the basic operating system, and when switching to one that didn't come with the computer cost money. I'm also old enough to remember when browsers used to cost money. Then, beginning with Windows 95, Microsoft started bundling Internet Explorer for free. Subsequently, other companies released free browsers (because they had no choice if they wanted to compete with IE). Oh, and remember when Microsoft, which used to charge for software updates, popped out Windows 10 for free? Remember when it started offering free cloud storage through OneDrive? Microsoft is no stranger to giving away things for free as a way of boosting market share--even if Windows 10 backfired to some extent.

Speaking of cloud storage, think about Dropbox, which has a free plan to get users hooked. People who like it can graduate to paid plans with more storage and other features. Some other cloud storage companies do the same. Many premium Wordpress plugins follow the same strategy--a free, limited feature version from which people can upgrade if they wish. Some kinds of software work the same way. Also, a lot of software has free, thirty-day trials.

Obviously, there's no good way to publish books with a free version and a paid version. I'm not suggesting that the software model can be adapted to us. Nor am I suggesting, as I tried to clarify earlier, that indies should be pricing full-length novels at $0.99. For most purposes, that's too low a regular price point. I am merely pointing out that companies don't always follow exactly the same model, and that some even use free or cheap as ways of building market share, just as some indies have.

[bardsandsages]

I think I wasn't making myself clear. I wasn't trying to suggest that pricing everything at $0.99 is a good strategy. I don't think it is at all. What I was suggesting was that trad pricing wasn't necessarily always a good model for indie pricing. In a POD environment, we're not paying upfront for running the printing presses, paper, warehousing, or shipping. Ebooks, of course, have none of those, anyway. We don't in general have legal or accounting departments. (Those of us running small presses might.)

Keep in mind, however, that indies will generally have higher per unit production costs for print due to POD. It costs $2.50-$4 to print the typical trade paperback novel via POD. The per unit cost for offset printing is around $1. And even with ebooks, though Amazon "theoretically" pays a higher royalty, the reality is the trades have different price agreements with Amazon (they aren't forced to allow lending, aren't being charged delivery fees, have more control over their listings and what appears on their pages. Penguin isn't accepting 35% on a book listed over $9.99. Yes, we have much lower overhead than large publishing houses, but that is somewhat offset by the limitations Amazon and other outlets place on us and other hidden costs of doing business.

I would argue that newbies trying to build an audience might want a somewhat lower price point in the same way that restaurants often start out with lower prices when they first open (or at least send out floods of coupons)

Again, don't confuse an incentive with "general low price." Companies work very hard to preserve their pricing structures. A coupon for "buy one dinner, get one free" is NOT psychologically the same thing as "$5 steak dinners"...even if the end result to the consumer's wallet is the same. I know it sounds like I am splitting hairs, but that is because I work in contract packaging, and these differentiations matter.

Example (and ugly little industry secret): Next time you go to the store, pay attention to the "number of servings per container" on your favorite brands. What it over time. It fluctuates depending on the time of year. The package itself remains the same size (as does the price) but the volume of product in the packaging will fluctuate based on the commodities market. When the cost of rice is low, for example, your package of Rice-a-Roni or Lipton rice and sauce may be 3 servings per container. When the cost of rice is high, it goes to 2.5 servings per container. Instead of changing their price every time the commodities market changes, most manufacturers simply change the number of servings in the package. Hint: whenever you see a "new packaging! same great taste" promo, it often indicates a volume change.

That is my only point. The price you set for your book is going to set the perceived value of the product. Once you set the perceived value, then you can incentivize customers with sales and deals...but not until they first see the "value" to encourage the purchase during the "sale."

[bardsandsages]

Speaking of cloud storage, think about Dropbox, which has a free plan to get users hooked. People who like it can graduate to paid plans with more storage and other features. Some other cloud storage companies do the same. Many premium Wordpress plugins follow the same strategy--a free, limited feature version from which people can upgrade if they wish. Some kinds of software work the same way. Also, a lot of software has free, thirty-day trials

Most free online services aren't actually interested in selling products. They are interested in gathering data, which has value. Facebook is a "free" service, but they make a lot of money gathering information on users to sell to advertisers. Or they are hoping to sell to a bigger company for profit based on the site's traffic (like that-site-that-shall-not-be-named).

[guest1291]

Example (and ugly little industry secret): Next time you go to the store, pay attention to the "number of servings per container" on your favorite brands. What it over time. It fluctuates depending on the time of year. The package itself remains the same size (as does the price) but the volume of product in the packaging will fluctuate based on the commodities market. When the cost of rice is low, for example, your package of Rice-a-Roni or Lipton rice and sauce may be 3 servings per container. When the cost of rice is high, it goes to 2.5 servings per container. Instead of changing their price every time the commodities market changes, most manufacturers simply change the number of servings in the package. Hint: whenever you see a "new packaging! same great taste" promo, it often indicates a volume change.

That is my only point. The price you set for your book is going to set the perceived value of the product. Once you set the perceived value, then you can incentivize customers with sales and deals...but not until they first see the "value" to encourage the purchase during the "sale."

Amazing. I'm going to start doing this on my books. Same great covers and packaging on the outside at the same price point, but with fluctuating word counts on the inside dependent on my personal mental energy stores in any given month when I'm writing or crafting my work.

So, with food at the grocery store, companies slyly increase my price per gram from $0.02 to $0.04 in tandem with what's happening in the commodities markets, I'm going to do the same with my price per word in tandem with my physical/mental constitution at the time I create.

Same great looking book, same price as usual, reduced by 8-10k words this time around. Maybe at the bottom of the blurb for Book 1 it says my book contains 70,000 words, for Book 2 (at the same price) it simply states word count: 62,000 words.

Okay, I might not actually do this, but I'm not completely convinced it wouldn't be justifiable for indie businesses. Are there indies out there who price their works by the word?

Regardless, I find this whole subject and conversation fascinating. I'm learning a lot too. I appreciate everyone's thoughtful posts here.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, this is why it's so hard to get anything done when there's a hot topic. But one does pick up quite a bit from following the conversation.

[guest1291]

Yes, this is why it's so hard to get anything done when there's a hot topic. But one does pick up quite a bit from following the conversation.

Amen to that. I haven't written a lick today.