Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Rising Value of Ebooks

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A great article from Authorsearning.com (I'll be linking to Hugh Howey's blog excerpt for the specifics) about the rise in acceptable ebook price points. I have to say, this is explosive news all around.

When I first started looking into the self-publishing route, there existed only two price points: $0.99 and $2.99; also free, but let's talk about dollars. The $0.99 was to get the book out there with the most widespread audience possible, but at a lower return rate. The $2.99 was the respectable author amount. It signified there was something truly substantial to the work to price it above a dollar.

One of the most loud and common complaints from traditionally published authors was that these self-published books were devaluing books. Consumers would get too used to paying little and in turn, the price will never rise and stagnate; hurting everyone.

Once I finished The Dragon's Tear the $3.99 emerged. The new common price. I didn't have dreams of selling thousands of units, but I did want to support this change. I priced The Dragon's Tear at $3.99 first, know down the line it will go to the $2.99 that it's at right now. The point is to have some solidarity with other authors and make the ebook marketplace as author friendly as possible.

I released my novel nearly a year ago, and now we're hearing that $4.99 is becoming the new common price. In a year, it grew by a dollar. This is a great lesson to all those dead criticisms of self-publishing. It's not growing smaller, but bigger. Free, $0.99, $2.99, $3.99, all of these are still alive and viable, and it's going up.

My plan this year is for $4.99 to be the price of my next book. The more authors and readers who support this change, the better it will be for all.

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