Amazon Lowers Unlimited Payments

I don’t personally have anything enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (or Kindle Select, or anything else exclusive), so I can only share what I’ve read.

Apparently Amazon has expanded the Unlimited subscription service (which normally allows subscribed readers to read as many enrolled ebooks as they want for the $9.99 monthly fee) to India where they are only charging $3.00 a month to subscribers, meaning that authors will make less on an enrolled book read in India than if the same book was read in the United States or another country. (I don’t have Amazon’s numbers but I would guess since the fee is roughly 1/3 the cost of the normal subscription, reads would be worth 1/3 as well – again, this is only a guess on my part.)

If you don’t have many Indian readers, you may shrug and say “so?” But the worry of many indy authors enrolled in Unlimited is “What’s to stop them dropping the price to $3.00 everywhere?”  And then cutting the author’s paycheck. This is of especial concern when 1/3 of ALL authors already make LESS than $500 a year. 

The effects could be farther reaching than just author’s Amazon paychecks. As books are devalued – worth less to readers who are used to getting them for free – sales drop on all platforms. I’ve personally seen several reviews on Amazon that state something to the effect of “Wait until the book goes free” – as if the reviewer “knows” that ALL books will eventually be free. Mark Coker of Smashwords (who posted a very good blog about the Unlimited effect) quoted Randolph Lalonde who despite getting good reviews on his $2.99 to $3.99 books has gotten angry mail from people demanding that he make his books free. 

Am I advocating jumping ship from Amazon? No. I don’t advocate abandoning ANY platform.

Exclusivity is a personal decision for an author, and while I refuse to ever do it, someone else may be happy that way – and that’s great. What I think is sad, however, is how many authors I’ve spoken to who AREN’T happy but feel like they have no choice. “Amazon is the biggest.” That’s true, but Amazon is only the biggest because we make them the biggest – not just as readers (quick, and be honest, where do you buy books at?) but as authors. When we list our links most of us (myself included) list Amazon first. We submit books to email lists that cater exclusively to Amazon links.  When we post a link on our twitter profile (or our tweets) we use the Amazon link rather than a personal webpage that has links to all retailers. And I know, if I’m in a hurry in an email message or Facebook comment, I will ONLY give someone the Amazon link because I think “It’s the biggest. Everyone buys there”. Much like reading Twilight, we’re all doing it because “everyone else is” – and everyone else is because that’s where all the links point – that’s where the top link is, that’s where we’re told is the best place to go – either literally or subliminally.

If you’re happy reading Twilight (and some people are – there’s nothing wrong with that!), then you should keep doing it – stay exclusive and post Amazon links everywhere. But, if you’re only doing it because “you have no choice” or “everyone else is”, remind yourself that you DO have a choice. Either way, go check out Mark Coker’s great article. 

CreateSpace’s New Distribution Options: Pros and Cons

Recently, CreateSpace added several new free distribution options to their distribution channels. This includes distribution to bookstores like Barnes & Noble and your local bookshop, academic institutions and libraries, and to CreateSpace Direct. These options, once available only to authors who were able to afford them, are now available to self-published authors with all sorts of incomes, writing styles, and fan followings.

Now there are definite perks to doing this. Authors would love more readers, and if they are able to reach readers in places previously unavailable to them due to monetary concerns, this can only be good for them. And bookstores, which have been suffering with the rise of the e-book and online distributors, will probably benefit being able to cater to the fans of authors whose works were before only available on certain online retailers. In a way, it’s a symbiotic relationship, both for authors and booksellers.

Not only that, but the books of self-published authors are sometimes rejected by libraries and academic institutions because they are self-publsihed in the first place, or their self-published status means that the books don’t come from certain distributors. If authors are able to get their works into libraries, that means people who don’t own e-readers or who can’t afford to buy books online can now read the books of self-published authors through this new distribution system.

And, using the expanded distribution channels means a potentially higher royalty rate for every copy sold.

However, there are drawbacks to this. Amazon, which owns CreateSpace and it’s print-on-demand services, determines minimum prices for all works published through them. They calculate these minimum prices by determining the length of the book, how much it’ll cost to print, how much they get from the sale of the book, and how much they need to give the author. Recently when I published my novel Reborn City, I saw that the minimum price they gave me was a little less than nine dollars, much higher than I’d expected. I wasn’t happy about it, but I decided to go with it and make the best of it.

When today I decided to try these expanded distribution options on RC, I found out that in order to use these expanded distribution channels, the list price would go up to at least thirteen dollars. In other words, the increase didn’t cost anything for the author, but it did cost extra for the reader.

I decided not to take these extra distribution channels because of the price hike it’d require. Some of my friends and family would not be able to afford a paperback copy because of a list price, or they’d be much more reluctant to buy it because is it not  their genre in addition to being over thirteen dollars. Plus, I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t want to make people pay too much for his work more than he wants them to actually read his work. Terrible character flaw, I know, but I live with it.

However that’s my own personal choice. If you wish to, go right ahead and sign up for these new channels. It’s your choice, which as I’ve said before is one of the best perks of self-pbulishing.

And who knows? You could see your sales go up dramatically, and your fanbase expand like a hot-air balloon. Not to mention the joy of telling friends and family that your work is now available in bookstores and libraries.  That’s always something to make you feel good. And for some books, the increase in the list price might not be too high, so if you have my problem with pricing books too high, it may not be so bad after all. I might still use these channels for my collection of short stories, which is already very low-priced.

What do you think of these new distribution options? Are you planning on use them? If so, why or why not?

*Note: Since this post’s publication, I’ve had a change of heart and I’ve decided to try distributing my books through these new channels in the hope of reaching more readers. Whether or not I’m successful, we shall see. Wish me luck, as well as everyone else using these options for the first time.

eBook Pricing, or how much is your eBook worth?

For those that have been around since the beginning of Self-Published Author’s Lounge you know that I’ve never posted more than once a week and never one day after the other, but today is different because after reading the comments on What Do you Think is a Fair Price for an eBook? I really wanted to post these links and I didn’t want to wait until my next scheduled posting date. 😀

I know that eBook pricing isn’t a simple thing. Deciding how much your book is worth can be a practice in patience. So how do you find the eBook sweet spot? Rather than repeat what others have said about eBook pricing, I thought I would post the links to their articles.

“…Writing fiction is my living. It’s what puts food on my table and pays my bills. If I ever can’t make a living doing it, I have to STOP doing it, and go do something else. This is not complicated. If we lived in some free hippie love culture where money didn’t exist, sure, I would write for free, just to share my words and be thrilled doing it. I’m not “in it for the money”. I just “need the money” for it to be worth it in the world we live in for me to put so much effort into entertaining you…” Ebook Pricing: Or… Where Zoe Says Something About Publishing

“…Naturally, people would rather pay less for something than more. And in a digital world, like we’re rapidly becoming, consumers have shown consistently in other forms of media that they place less value on downloads than on physical products…” The Value of Ebooks

“…But what to set the price at? Is Joe Konrath right about the $2.99 price for a full novel? But I heard another author got great sales on a full novel at 99 cents. And yet another getting great sales at over $6.00 prices. Authors are confused because up until this time in history, setting a book price was never a question they had to face…” E-book Price Post Redone by Dean Wesley Smith

…Halfway through the month I lowered the price to $2.99 and then to $0.99. Did I sell more books? Yes, I did…Now, you could argue that more books sold will create a larger pool for the “word of mouth” that you hope will spread the news of your great read. And for authors with a large back list–those who are able to put out many titles simultaneously–that strategy is certainly one worth taking a look at because they have the advantage of volume… Guest Post by Elle Lothlorien

So how do you find the eBook sweet spot? Well, no one author can tell you that, because like reading, pricing is subjective. But we can share how we would price our books. Until the end of February all my books have been placed on sale for $.99, however, my usual pricing guide is:

	eBook Price	eBook Length
Short Shorts	FREE	Under 6K
Shorts	$0.99	6,000 to 12,000 words
Short Stories	$1.99	12,000 to 20,000 words
Novelettes	$2.99	20,000 to 30,000 words
Novellas	$3.99	30,000 to 50,000 words
Novels	$4.99	50,000 to 75,000 words
Super Novel	$5.99	75,000 to 140,000 words
Super XL Novels	$6.95	140,000 to 250,000 words
Super XXL Novels	$7.95	250,000+ words

What Do You Think is a Fair Price to Charge for an eBook?

For a while now I’ve been interested in this little web debate on the 99 cent eBook pricing and what other authors have to say about it. So while researching the 99 cent Debate on the world-wide web, I found a few great articles on both sides of the debate. The pros and cons of each really made me see a new side to the story. My favorite articles were:

99 Cent eBooks… Who Gains? by Toni Rakestraw
Read it here http://rakestrawbookdesign.com/99-cent-ebooks-who-gains/

Will 99-Cent E-Books Destroy The World As We Know It? by David Gaughran
Read it here https://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/will-99-cent-e-books-destroy-the-world-as-we-know-it/

And Zoe Winters on ebook Pricing Interview at http://allindiepublishing.com/author-interviews/zoe-winters-on-ebook-pricing/

I also thought it would be fun to have a poll to see what everyone thinks is a fair price, so please vote for what you think is a fair price, and while you’re at it, let me know what you would pay for an eBook in the second poll. Any comments you have, please share below. 😀

Thanks for voting! Come again soon!