Posted By Scath on September 3, 2009

Consumers who read and are embracing e-books and digital readers in order to go green or to stop turning their homes into fire hazards because of the continually growing size of their personal libraries KNOW that publishing expenses for e-books aren’t anywhere near the publishing costs for print titles.

That would be why those titles you’ve released in digitized format aren’t selling too well with prices over $9.99 at Amazon.

Many Kindle owners purchased Kindles based partially on the fact that Amazon advertised ‘thousands of titles for $9.99 or less’ including new releases. Upon beginning to purchase for their new reading devices, they discovered quite a few of the traditionally published titles available for Kindle were priced higher than $9.99 and in some cases, only a couple of dollars less than a hardcover version of the same title.

Which is when Kindle owners organized the 9.99 boycott, hoping to drive the costs of content for their expensive reading devices down to something more affordable and more in line with Amazon’s advertising.

E-books aren’t another way to recoup your publishing expenses.

Purchasers KNOW that publishing costs range from non-existent to relatively minor, with the biggest ‘expense’ being the author’s time and effort in writing the story.
You aren’t dealing with uninformed any longer.

The costs of producing e-books is as follows:

• 1. Author’s time and effort producing the story
• 2. Professional editing
• 3. Formatting services
•  4. Cover design
•  5. Marketing/advertising

The first can’t be side stepped in any way. Serious authors spend hours writing, re-writing and polishing their work.

The second isn’t side stepped by your serious author, and can run into a few hundred dollars out of said author’s pocket.

The third is only necessary if the author is unable to figure out how to format their e-book themselves.

The fourth is only necessary if the author lacks a creative visual bent.

The fifth doesn’t have to cost them a dime more than whatever their yearly domain registration fee might be, not with free to join social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve personally seen it stated that people will pay higher prices for non-fiction titles, such as textbooks, that they know they’ll use on a regular basis but they won’t for fiction titles, which are entertainment and may or may not be re-read.

Since e-books aren’t print books, and the purchaser can’t ‘give’ them away or ‘loan’ them to a friend without committing copyright infringement, illegally distributing them or interfering with the author’s/publisher’s ability to earn a livelihood, purchasers just don’t want to pay high prices for them.

I’ve also seen it stated that since e-book production doesn’t involve a printer, book binder, etc. that readers feel the authors should receive higher percentages of the sales of them.

E-books are a totally different market than print books. You can’t handle them the same. You can’t expect great sales if you price them the same or only a few dollars different.

Not that I have an e-reader (yet!), but I already know I won’t pay over $7.99 for an e-book, except in special circumstances (such as anthologies or bundled series collections). I just won’t do it.

Print books have become so expensive that I hit dollar stores to look for interesting paperbacks and haunt the clearance shelves at Barnes & Noble rather than pay regular price for new additions to my library. Or I check out books from my local library to feed the ‘gotta read’ urge.

What I will do, once I have an e-reader, is pay .99 to $7.99 and discover some of those independent authors who are taking to e-books like ducks to water at places like Smashwords.com (who, by the way, offers 82% to authors/publishers and your title is made available in 8 different formats…including a DRM free .mobi that Kindle owners might be interested in).

Traditional publishers need to consider only the costs actually involved with production of e-books when setting their prices. It’s not that difficult of a concept. They might also consider not using only the big names like Amazon as sales venues.

BTW, readers: Amazon, etc. doesn’t set the prices for e-books. The author or publisher does, so blaming Amazon, etc. for the higher prices on some titles is a waste of time.

P.S. I totally list my titles at Amazon too. Why miss out on a good sales venue?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Categories: Self-Pubbing
Tags: Amazon, Babble, DRM free, e-books, Twitter