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Post by JesusNinja on Oct 16, 2020 20:55:30 GMT
Most of my books are short. Usually under 100 pages. I price them on average $8. I make a little over a $1 per copy that way. I have one book of 32 pages that sells at $7.99. But I'm noticing that many people price their paperback with page counts under 100, for $12 to $15. That would be nice but I'm afraid I'd never sell enough copies at that price. Anyone have suggestions on this?
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Post by benziger on Oct 16, 2020 21:58:49 GMT
I compare with books I like - not POD: - paperback from Agathe Christie, 208 pages €11.00 (Diogenes)
- paperback from Droste-Hülshoff, 112 pages €2.00 (Reclam) - paperback from Goethe, 136 pages €2.60 (Reclam)
Admittedly, Reclam Publishing is very inexpensive. Especially with old authors.
Personally, I think you get more if you sell 10 books and make $1 each than if you sell 1 book and make $10 profit. Because if one buyer is lost, in one case there are nine left, in the other there are no more. In our industry we (POD) tend to be high in price anyway. If you pay more than 10 for less than 100 pages of text, then that must be very good. Because even reputable authors usually cost between 12$ and 19$ (depending on the size, but more likely 150 to 300 pages). -- All in all I think your end prices are fair (even if the margin is small).
As far as prices are concerned, I use $ equivalent to Swiss francs; I use € because books are much cheaper in neighbouring countries. 1€=1.10$
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Post by JesusNinja on Oct 16, 2020 22:17:56 GMT
Thank you. That's what I'm thinking. I make an average of $1.00 per book whether print or ebook. I just priced my new 80 page paperback though at $11.99. I'll get two dollars profit for that. The ebook version is $2.99. We'll see what happens. If it doesn't sell, I'll lower the price by $1.00.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Oct 16, 2020 22:46:18 GMT
Okay, whatever platform you use to get the books out to people an easy rule of thumb is going for $0.50 to $1.00 of royalty from a book. Another consideration is what audience you're trying to reach, how much money said audience will spend, and how previous books you've written have sold. nybookeditors.com/2018/06/how-to-price-your-self-published-book/If you were going through a Traditional Publisher you might make up to $1.50 per book after averaging things out [advance, royalties for first X number of copies sold by format, then royalties for second X number of copies sold by format], but that involves economies of scale which you won't have as a Self Publisher. For a way to help break things out selfpublishing.com/tools/book-royalties-calculator/The type of work you write also plays a part. |
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Post by potet on Oct 17, 2020 7:58:49 GMT
Not that long ago, a copy of my _Grande grammaire du tagal / philippin_ (about 740 pages) whose price was 35€ was bought in the UK through Amazon. My royalties were nihil. I asked Lulu why. They answered that, for this particular sale, my royalties were negative, hence nihil since Lulu did not enter negative royalties in authors' accounts. Then followed an explanation why the royalties were negative. I asked a friend, a retired banker, to explain their explanation. He said the whole process had cost more than 35€ - which we both found very odd. He advised me to put the price at 40€.
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Post by BlueAndGold on Oct 17, 2020 22:51:02 GMT
A Dollar isn't nearly a Dollar anymore (it's about two cents) and I'm certain a Franc or a Euro or a Pound certainly aren't what they used to be either. (Can you exchange a Pound for a pound of copper metal? No. You can't exchange a Dollar for a Dollar of silver or gold anymore either. Neither will I exchange my products for one silly little "Dollar" in royalties. That won't even buy a cup of coffee. EDIT: Well, maybe in retrospect I should? I'm new to this game. But I certainly won't drop it to Zero. That's just nutty.]
Everything else is "going up" in price. Books should too. Set your price to something that reflects the times, or you are robbing yourself. [RANT MODE = OFF] |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Oct 18, 2020 0:29:58 GMT
B&G,
While a dollar, a peso, a franc, or a pound [et cetera] aren't worth what they were 10, 20, 40, or 60 years or more ago, what people below the 0.1% get paid hasn't changed much.
If you Self Publish in a very niche market with little competition you'll sell more books, but due to less reader interest you'll make less overall.
Publishers don't make a ton of money and stay in business because they make a ton of profit per book sold, they stay in business by selling more copies for less profit per copy.
I agree books should go up in price, but the current situation with virus and so on means that isn't likely for a while because books are considered a luxury unless needed for class or work. Then again I don't know much.
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Post by benziger on Oct 18, 2020 8:05:10 GMT
A Dollar isn't nearly a Dollar anymore (it's about two cents) [. . .] Everything else is "going up" in price. Books should too. Set your price to something that reflects the times, or you are robbing yourself. Price comparisons with the past are always difficult. Let us try it this way:
In my bookcase I have old paperbacks with an imprinted price: 2.30. Today comparable paperbacks cost 12.00 or 14.00. But back then someone earned 2000-3000 a month, today 4000-6000. Compared to the salary, 5.00 would be adequate for a book or compared to the book price, I would have to earn at least 10 000.
From an author's point of view, books are far too cheap. But I must also agree with Cameron: It is better to sell a book often at a small profit than not sell it at all because it is too expensive. Another point of view is this: How long do I have to work to be able to afford a book? In the past, 30% of your salary was for hire and 50% for food. Today many people still spend 30% for the flat, but a little over 15% on food. That leaves much more money for all the rest, including books. |
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Post by potet on Oct 18, 2020 10:12:55 GMT
When I taught English, I was paid the equivalent of 40€ per tutorial hour with a 3-student batch in preparatory classes to highly competitive R&D engineering schools. One day I tried to reckon how much one of my books would have cost if I had been paid at that rate to write it. Give or take a few, the total number of hours was, in round figures, 1000 hours. So this job would have brought me 40,000€. The potential number of buyers for a POD book is 250. So the basic price of a copy would have been 40,000€ : 250 = 160€. Adding 10% royalties, 160€ + 16€ = 176€, then the 5.5% VAT on books, 8.8€, the sale price would have been 184.80€ per copy. I don't know anybody around me who would pay that sum for a soft-bound 9x9" 300-page book. Most probably they would expect its price to be one tenth of it: 18.46€.  |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Oct 18, 2020 13:51:35 GMT
Historical comparison, it's easy enough. 1968, the US Minimum Wage was $1.60 per hour with some exceptions like wait staff at restaurants. Had that wage risen in tandem with rising productivity, the hourly wage [with certain exceptions] would have been roughly $10.15 per hour. A pocket book by Andre Norton, copyright and published in 1968 had a cover price of $0.75. She would have gotten roughly 15% of the profit per copy, in other words not much since the actual minimum wage at the time was far lower than it could have been. The current US Minimum Wage is $7.25 per hour, when if rising in tandem with productivity it should be just over $20 per hour. Meaning if there are complaints about why authors aren't making more from Self or Traditionally Published works, look at the economics, policies, and politicians funneling the vast majority of money into a relatively few hands. www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/I did a similar breakout back in 1999 during the public comments time before a lot of banking deregulation happened, but lacking a PhD my words didn't carry much weight.
** Note ** Tipped workers make a base of $2.13 per hour since with tips they should earn at least $7.25 per hour, i.e.: tipped workers are wait staff at restaurants.
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Post by ronmiller on Oct 18, 2020 14:18:33 GMT
Okay, whatever platform you use to get the books out to people an easy rule of thumb is going for $0.50 to $1.00 of royalty from a book. Another consideration is what audience you're trying to reach, how much money said audience will spend, and how previous books you've written have sold. nybookeditors.com/2018/06/how-to-price-your-self-published-book/If you were going through a Traditional Publisher you might make up to $1.50 per book after averaging things out [advance, royalties for first X number of copies sold by format, then royalties for second X number of copies sold by format], but that involves economies of scale which you won't have as a Self Publisher. For a way to help break things out selfpublishing.com/tools/book-royalties-calculator/The type of work you write also plays a part. The average royalty for a traditionally published book is 10%-12% of the cover price. That is, if your book sells for $10.00 you get $1.00. (What royalty you are offered depends, of course, on a lot of different factors.) If you received an advance, you don't get any royalties until the publisher recoups the advance (but you get to keep the advance regardless, even if the book doesn't sell a single copy). There is also a scale of varying royalties depending on where the book goes. For instance, there may be a slightly different for, say, book club sales or if the book is ever sold at a discount. Keep in mind, too, that as a self-published author any expenses incurred in publishing, advertising or marketing your book must come out of your own pocket and this impacts your actual income from the book. That is, what percentage of your income from the book went to editing or marketing? And your time spent doing these things is worth something as well. |
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Post by BlueAndGold on Oct 18, 2020 14:43:30 GMT
These are all good comments. Thank you, Guys!
The Self-Published are certainly between a rock and a hard place as regards to pricing. It is hard to be competitive with mass-market books. Niche markets might be a little easier. It is interesting to note that when you factor in the distributor's share, we often get far less than 10%. i.e. $3 on a $53 sale? That stings!
I have noticed too, that I make more on the sale of smaller books than on the larger ones. Perhaps there's something to learn there?
Lulu's previous service of allowing a discounted price to buyers through Lulu was certainly something one might leverage, with the proper advertising. It's a shame that function is no longer available. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Oct 18, 2020 15:24:47 GMT
For print if you want to set a discount for distribution, in the US Ingram Spark is where you want to go [do KDP print as a stand alone] since the Lulu Press discount only functioned on Lulu Press.
In the long run a Self Published book needs to earn back what it costs over time since it's competing with both well-known SP authors, as well as the unknowns who produce crap, as well as the big TP as are left.
Strategy, business or otherwise, is one key to a successful operation.
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