Thursday, August 17, 2017

What's In A Price? - Kara Isaac



Almost two months ago, I independently published my third book, Then There Was You. It was a steep learning curve from the beginning and I'm still very much a learner when it comes to all things relating to being the publisher, distributor and promoter of my book!

One of the things that I agonised most over was the price. Like most authors, I had received a number of reader emails asking when my other two books would be "free" or "99c". Some readers seemed to consider it a badge to honour to tell me that they didn't believe in paying for books anymore!

Some readers (and other authors) have expressed an interest in how I ended up coming up with my final pricing. So I thought I would share it here with you today :)

  • The cost of investment. For Then There Was You this included a developmental editor, copy editor, cover designer, and formatter, as well as a budget for marketing/promotional activities; 
  • My family's personal finances. I'm currently on maternity leave from my "day job" with our third child so we are on one income. We needed this book to at least earn back the money that we had invested in it in the first three month;
  • The length of the book. Then There Was You is a full-length novel at 85,000 words (340 pages);
  • What comparable authors (in my instance, people like Melissa Tagg and Jenny B. Jones) were charging for their independently released titles;
  • My personal beliefs when it comes to what a book is worth. Put simply, I believe that authors put a lot of time and emotional energy into writing a book and they deserve to be paid fairly for that. Creating a culture where consumers expect that, sooner or later, they are going to be able to get any book they want for free (or under a dollar) devalues that work; and
  • A price point (particularly for the eBook) that would seem more than reasonable to my existing readers but also at a level to hopefully attract new ones.
  • Whether I was going to initially go exclusively with Amazon for the eBook (who give authors a much higher royalty rate if they do) or "go wide" i.e. list it on other platforms like iBooks, Nook etc.
All of those considerations combined gave me an initial ballpark of somewhere between $4-6 (USD) for the eBook which became $3.99 for preorders and $5.49 as the post release price and gave me some wiggle room if I ever wanted to occasionally put it on sale.

So there you have it. It is far from an exact science but it was the best I could do and (so far!) feedback has been that I've gotten it in the right ballpark :)

How about you? Have you found the price you're willing to pay for an eBook these days impacted by the proliferation of cheap or free titles? 

Kara Isaac lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She is the author of Close to You, a RITA Award Double Finalist, and Can't Help Falling, an RT Review Top Pick. Her latest book Then There Was You released on June 22. When she's not chasing three adorable but spirited little people, she spends her time writing horribly bad first drafts and wishing you could get Double Stuf Oreos in New Zealand. She loves to connect on her website, on Facebook at Kara Isaac - Author and Twitter @KaraIsaac

10 comments:

  1. Thanks, Kara, for that outline. So important as authors that we all work together too "maintain" reasonable price points. The reading community has been spoilt with "free" and $0.99 deals (of which I've taken advantage of from time to time) but things of value should have a price attached. And as you point out it costs a good chunk of money to produce a book and it is only reasonable that an author/publisher should be able to at a minimum recoup their investment.

    Bravo to you, Kara.

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  2. Thanks for this informative post, Kara. Congratulations on doing your new release your way! It is somewhat shocking to consider just how widespread the 'free' book expectation is, especially when we consider the not-so- very long ago days of paying $15+ for paperbacks, etc, which most people would consider fairly reasonable. I wonder if you have plans on doing a similar post regarding your paperback price? ;)

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    1. Hi Caroline! The paperback price of $12.99 was a combination of what comparable authors were charging for their paperbacks and wanting to make a similar royalty per copy as for eBook (the price being that much more because with eBook the sale is split just between Amazon and myself, but with the paperback it is split between CreateSpace, Amazon and myself :) )

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  3. An informative post, Kara. I agree wholeheartedly with Ian's point that we readers have been very spoiled by the frequent $0.99 book deals we receive. One of the best comparisons I heard was people's willingness to pay $5+ dollars for a cup of coffee, which takes five minutes to make, but we'll shy away from a book that costs $15 or $20, even though it's taken months or even years to write and publish.

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    1. Hi Adele! It's so true. Not to mention a coffee is finished in minutes while a good book is hours of enjoyment!

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  4. This is something I also have struggled with recently, Kara, in putting up a book without a traditional publisher. And Adele, comparing it to buying a cup of coffee is so true! We pour so much time and energy, hours upon hours, that it isn't viable just to give it away when we have to earn a living. Your price point, Kara, is what I settled on as well. Great topic.

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    1. So true, Lisa! I am very envious of the writers who have the ability to write and release books and a speed that makes it viable for them to be able to give one away or for less than a dollar as part of their strategy to build their readership. But for someone like me who can only manage a book every 9-12 months I can't afford that luxury! Not yet anyway :)

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  5. Kara, great post! Book pricing is a complicated business. It's generally accepted that publishers/indie authors will often use book 1 in a series as a loss leader and a sales funnel into the rest of the series. I don't think it's reasonable for readers to expect that every ebook will at some stage be free or on sale for 99c. They can always borrow free print and ebooks from public libraries.

    I'll happily pay US3.99 for an ebook. Any higher, and I'm weighing up the risk of the book being a lemon. I'm prepared to pay more if I've enjoyed the author's previous books. If an ebook converts to more than $9.00 Aussie (approx US6.00-7.00) I'm weighing up the value in buying the print version vs. ebook. Thanks for sharing your pricing strategy with us. :)

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    1. Hi Narelle, that's one of the many suggestions I offer to readers who contact me wanting me to know when my books will be free/99c - requesting that their local library purchase it if it doesn't already have it.

      I'm similar to you. I will happily pay up to $6 USD for an author that I've read before and know I will enjoy but $4 is about as high I'll go for a new-to-me indie author. For a traditionally published debut author I generally keep an eye on bloggers that I trust and see what they think and make a decision based on word of mouth :)

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