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Distinguished Scribe
gb18
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Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

Distinguished Bibliophile
keriflur
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

Bestsellers where?  On what list?  The article doesn't say, and without that, it's not meaningful.

 

If they're bestsellers on the NYT, that means something.  But every week there are two self-published bestsellers on the top of the KDP list.  So...

Doug_Pardee
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2


keriflur wrote:

 

Bestsellers where?  On what list?  The article doesn't say, and without that, it's not meaningful.


On Digital Book World's e-book bestseller list. It appears underneath the article. They describe their methodology here.

 

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keriflur
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2


Doug_Pardee wrote:

keriflur wrote:

 

Bestsellers where?  On what list?  The article doesn't say, and without that, it's not meaningful.


On Digital Book World's e-book bestseller list. It appears underneath the article. They describe their methodology here.

 


Ah, so it's an ebook only list.  Okay, thanks for clarifying.

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patgolfneb
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

These lists evidently don't include Amazon sales? And of course don't include DTB sales. Within those limitations it is interesting to note that the best selling author elected to drop her price from 3.99 to .99 to try and become the #1 seller on Amazon. This kind of pricing is tough on retailers and publishers. I frequently criticize publishers for their lack of price flexibility, and publishers for bloated overhead. I see the .99 pricing as damaging long term. What is a fair price? Market forces aside it seems unlikely that most traditionally published authors with less than 5 or 6 books published can make a living with a price lower than 5-8 dollars. If your self pub work is good is it really necessary to go lower than 2.99-3.99?
Wordsmith
TnTexas
Posts: 893
Registered: ‎10-22-2011

Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

patgolfneb:  If your self pub work is good is it really necessary to go lower than 2.99-3.99?

 

Depends on whether or not you want to reach the segment of people who won't pay more than a dollar or so for an e-book - no matter how good it is. Have no idea how large that segment is (although I suspect it's fairly sizeable), but it is out there.

 

 

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keriflur
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2


patgolfneb wrote:
These lists evidently don't include Amazon sales? And of course don't include DTB sales. Within those limitations it is interesting to note that the best selling author elected to drop her price from 3.99 to .99 to try and become the #1 seller on Amazon. This kind of pricing is tough on retailers and publishers. I frequently criticize publishers for their lack of price flexibility, and publishers for bloated overhead. I see the .99 pricing as damaging long term. What is a fair price? Market forces aside it seems unlikely that most traditionally published authors with less than 5 or 6 books published can make a living with a price lower than 5-8 dollars. If your self pub work is good is it really necessary to go lower than 2.99-3.99?

IMO from the seller's persective, what's fair is whatever gets you the income you need, and from the buyer's perspective, what's fair is whatever you feel the work is worth.

 

I've no desire to buy a bunch of crappy $1 novels, so I vote with my wallet and only buy the stuff I like.  But TnTexas is right - there are a lot of folks who prioritize price.

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5ivedom
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

Difference between $1 and $5 can be 10 times in sales.

 

If you have more than one book to sell then you have to ask yourself -

 

1) Would you rather sell 10,000 copies for $3.

 

OR

 

2) Sell 200,000 copies for $1.

 

The way Amazon sets up its prices you make a lot more per copy with $3 or higher. However, you sell a lot more copies with $1.

 

*******

 

Keriflur, you can just wait a few years. Then even your favorite lists will have self-published books at #1.

 

Self-published books have hit #1 lots and lot sof times in the Amazon Kindle Store.

 

Yes, you're 100% right it's only ebook lists, and that combined lists would not have self-published titles at #1.

Wordsmith
TnTexas
Posts: 893
Registered: ‎10-22-2011

Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

keriflur: there are a lot of folks who prioritize price.

 

And unfortunately (in my opinion), many of them aren't really concerned about the quality of the writing in those 99-cent books. They may not want tons of misspellings and obvious grammatical errors; but they're not all that concerned with the more subjective aspects of quality like style and pacing..

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keriflur
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Re: Self-Published Ebooks Are Nos. 1 and 2

[ Edited ]

5ivedom wrote:

 

Keriflur, you can just wait a few years. Then even your favorite lists will have self-published books at #1.



That's not how it works, sorry.  The listmakers choose what to include, and how to weight and measure.  If they never want to include self-pub, they won't.  If they want to include it but skew the results with weighting, they will.

 

I think you're forgetting that the industry of critique and rank is even more old-fashioned than the publishing industry.

 

I'd love to see real sales data determine rankings, but that's not how they do it.
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