03 Mar 2012, Posted by caburkes in eBooks, 0 Comments Tagged Android Galaxy Tablet, Butta Worldwide, EBook, Response Possibly
EBook Pricing Strategy – The Walmart Attack Plan
How much is an EBook worth to you? Since I can’t hear your response, I’ll have to put myself in my own shoes and ask the same question: How much is an EBook worth to me?
I don’t own an eReader except what I can get on my IPod Touch and the screen is too small to really take it seriously. When I first put IBooks on the IPod, it was a cute novelty. But let’s face it … the screen is too small and I’m not getting any younger. I recently had my hands on an Android Galaxy Tablet and LOVED it. I could even type somewhat of a novel on it on the go.
That said, tablets are the way to go when reading ebooks and I don’t even have one of those yet.
So I don’t buy ebooks like some readers do. I’m not a good candidate for that study. Also … I really don’t do too much reading with this explosive amount of writing I’ve been doing. Too distracting.
So if I did go and buy an eBook, how much would I pay for it? Any author? Considering I don’t do too much reading and lets say the author is new … plus I don’t have the right device to put it on. All that considered …
.99 cents seems about right.
I’m looking at the sales of Butta‘ compared to the other novels out there of my own and see that the price point is almost 100% of it’s own marketing. I changed the price of Scratch from $1.99 to .99 cents and its already moving better than it did prior. same story. Same great reviews at $1.99, but it’s selling more at .99 cents.
My ego and pride started bothering me and don’t want to accept that what I’m writing is worth .99 cents. I create a few short stories to keep my name circulating on the net and I put them out for free as part of the overall strategy. But the stuff with a price point needed, I thought, to stand pat! To sort of offset the free stuff with ‘something’ generating money.
Well, .99 cents is generating money and I shouldn’t complain, right?
Well that’s what this journal is for: my place to bitch and complain.
Butta‘: Worldwide is coming in May and I don’t think I should be charging .99 cents for it. All of this is that haunting ‘Kickstarter’ annoyance again. Always a discussion over how much I should set a price and what people would pay. Meanwhile, other people are charging $4.99 or more for their EBooks. Rule of thought on that matter are the following:
a) Maybe they’re a better writer? Response: Then why am I getting great reviews and massive downloads of my free short stories?
b) Maybe they aren’t really selling? Response: Possibly. I don’t have access to their financial records so I can only go by ranking on Amazon … and some of them rank fairly high.
Generally speaking, you price your work to draw quality buyers. Barney’s New York is for the buying elite. Shoppers who want quality. so much so, they don’t even show the price on anything. It’s always hidden as if discussing price isn’t cool. If I tried that with my books they’d gather dust.
But to be honest, an EBook pricing strategy equates to an EBook Quality Standard strategy. How you perceive the quality of your book is based, in the mind of the buyer, by the price of your book and then followed by the formatting and so on. I think my EBooks have a very good quality and down the line, I plan to offer more incentives (i.e. gimmicks) to enhance the ownership of one of my ebooks. I can see a book of mine priced at $4.99 because you not only get a great story, but you also get all the extras like a Blu-Ray DVD with features and more. That’s MY kind of EBook. Shit, if I charged $100 for an EBook it would be because you get a full length motion picture with it.
That would certainly make news: First EBook ever priced at $100. Didn’t I see that recently? Hmmmm….
The pill I’m swallowing 3 months into the year is that I am a new author no matter how long I’ve been writing and the industry and readers are just getting to know me. Once I get past that, I can start pricing in the reasonable range.
Here’s a for instance:
Butta‘ has sold over 1000 copies since January. Will likely sell, at this rate, close to 2500 by May. Butta:Worldwide comes out in May and I should charge at minimum $2.99. Reasonably and logically, if the story is as interesting as people have expressed, they’d pay $2.99 for it without complaint. It’s the next episode in the series and people have enjoyed it. Early reviews of the sequel have been amazing.
I can take the position that if an EBook was like a hard copy, I couldn’t change the price and be forced to market hard. changing the price of an Ebook is almost too easy and gives me an easy out if I fear no one is biting. If it was a hard coded price, I’d be forced to make it work. For hard copies of novels, you can’t change a $15.99 price the next day after 1000 copies have the price printed on the back.
Maybe I’m being lazy when I fear no one buying at higher prices. I can go a year at .99 cents only on everything and collect a pretty nice check with multiple books coming in at 30% revenue on each book. One book … no. Multiple books … yes. Roughly 30 cents per book.
So, picture this … currently, every day, Butta‘ brings in about $1.80 ($0.30 cents x 6 books). Average 6-10 books daily.
Scratch just sold 3 books …that’s .90 cents. If I can get Scratch to sell like Butta‘, then suddenly that’s $3.60 a day. That’s not the case right now, but it’s still money in the bank.
I drop the price of Gravity Gone to .99 cents and post another novel soon at either .99 cents or something whacked out like $1.19. If I can generate 2-3 books a day from all of them, including the regular sales of Butta‘, suddenly this book selling thing has become interesting as I’m making roughly around $5 to $7 a day over four or five books … give or take.
Yes, going for the gold at $4.99 would be fantastic … but we need to take it back to the drug dealer mentality and create series that will be interesting to readers and starting at .99 (the first one is always free, sort of speak) and then once addicted, jack the price up. Such is the case with Butta‘.
That settles it. I needed to write this through to really figure things out and time stamp this strategy. Part of me hates to do it but its a working plan: for 2012 EVERYTHING I put out (not a short story) will be .99 cents, with a window of play up to $1.50. I’m going to try crazy numbers like $1.05 and $1.09.
Ahhhhh Walmart … my Assistant Manager past is coming back to roost. Gotta pull out all my Walmart sales techniques and paperwork.
Give me a ‘W’ …
Corey A. Burkes Author/CEODesktopEpics Entertainment
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