Glamour of the God-Touched Announcement

[roncollins]

The print version of the first book is $5.49 on CreateSpace, $2.99 as an e-book. The $8.99 price of the second in print is a reflection mostly of the bump of CreateSpace manufacturing price. It's actually just a little shy of novel-length. In addition, when it gets to Amazon, I fully expect Amazon will drop the price (I have no control of Amazon's choices in that fashion...for example, while Glamour is $5.49 on CS right now, Amazon sells it at $4.94...I don't understand why Amazon doesn't align those).

The rest of the books are smaller than #2, so their physical print price will be smaller. I won't know for sure until I process #3, but I'm going to guess they will be in the $6.49-$6.99 range.

And, yes, once the book is available on CS, it will flow to Amazon (and other places) in 3-5 days. So, to ensure it's all there on 11/30 when e-books launch, I needed to publish these today or tomorrow at latest.

I wrote my bio in these fantasy books to accentuate my work in a more fantasy-centric fashion. When I launch a couple true SF books in Q1 or early Q2 next year, I'll rearrange my bio. I probably should have mentioned Picasso's Cat, though. Shrug. Live and learn.

[roncollins]

And just to be transparent, I make a bit over a buck a book for a print copy at those prices when Amazon sells them. I make a bigger chunk of e-book sales (at current prices, anyway), even though the price is about half (or, as the case will be with #2, considerably less than half).

PS - I did go back and rethink it a little. It should be $8.49 now.

[Mike Dunn]

And just to be transparent, I make a bit over a buck a book for a print copy at those prices when Amazon sells them. I make a bigger chunk of e-book sales (at current prices, anyway), even though the price is about half (or, as the case will be with #2, considerably less than half).

PS - I did go back and rethink it a little. It should be $8.49 now.

Yes, I'd been confusing Glamour's e-book price with its CS price. But I wasn't suggesting you revise the second book's price -- just curious about the gap between the two, on which I erred.

Two more questions:
--You implied that you set the CS price and Amazon then adjusts it. So do you have no control over the Amazon price?
--When you say you make a bigger chunk of e-book sales, do you mean as a percentage or in actual dollars per unit?

[roncollins]

This may be a lot more than you wanted ... but ...

Amazon will change pricing on print books often in order to provide discounts. I have no real control over that past a certain level. And Amazon the distribution services will always get their share, so if I don't price "properly" (read that however you want), it's possible that I would not make anything on a sale.

E-book sales and pay rates are fairly simple. Places like Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and Kobo provide pretty much a flat split--all at different rates (but for simplification purposes let's say 70% author, 30% distributor) no matter what. So at $2.99 I get ~$2.00, and the distributor gets ~ $1.00. Amazon works the same way as long as prices are $2.99 or more. So with Glamour, I make $2.00 a sale, and Amazon makes $1.00. If I drop the price below $2.99, the rates go to 35%/65%, so if I price at:

$0.99: I make ~$0.35, and Amazon makes ~$0.65
$1.99: I make ~$ 0.70 and Amazon makes ~$1.30

There are very interesting business ramifications to this arrangements if you think about it a bit. Basic supply and demand suggest that low prices ($.99, for example) drive high volume. So, writers want to drop prices in order to build audiences. And if they bring in 10,000 readers, that canmake sense. But if they do that, Amazon cleans up.

I suggest this is why series books are doing very well. Go look on Amazon's "Top" lists, and you'll find a lot of series work. Most have book 1 listed at Free or very low price, and then ramp price for later books. From the writer's viewpoint, it means that book 1 is often just a loss-leader (many indie writers I spoke with say they write a book specifically with the idea that its only purpose in life is to attract people to buy book 2 ... in other words, they have zero expectation to ever make any money on book 1, but they price to make up for it with books 3 and beyond). I'm learning every day as I'm going through this. But the bottom line to me is that e-book pricing is as much art as science right now.

Print books don't have quite the same dynamic because the print book's basement (lowest price possible) is limited by material costs. When you use CreateSpace, or other services, it will calculate the lowest possible price and then let you see the splits.

And the fun fact of the days is that Glamour is now #2 in the UK's Dark Fantasy list. :)

[Mike Dunn]

Thanks Ron. That's most definitely helpful (and not more than I want -- I want to learn all of this).

And congrats again on Glamour on the UK list. Hopefully that spills over to US lists and beyond!

[roncollins]

I'm hanging in the low 20s in the US. Sales remain good. I'm guessing that a couple one-star reviews due to its length are keeping me out of the front page. I'm happy that folks are enjoying the work itself--the story and the writing. It's a little annoying to have low ratings due to the length, when the length is listed right there for folks to see. But, sigh...it is what it is.

Rankings are another bit of mysticism that have all sorts of intriguing elements to them.

If you decide to publish independently, let me know and I'll be glad to skype with you on what things I know or suspect. But the bottom line is that you want to do as much work as you can to grab early sales and encourage early reviews (assuming, of course, they are positive). If you can do that, your work can then have a better opportunity to make a dent in the world. :)

[John]

This is fabulously helpful information, Ron. I'm jotting everything you've said down for future reference. Thank you so much for sharing in detail.

[roncollins]

No problem. I've been bending about a thousand peoples' ears to learn myself. :)

[roncollins]

Trail of the Torean is now available in all formats. :)

[roncollins]

Fun fact of the day ...Glamour was #1 in UK Dark Fantasy for most of the day today.

On the other hand, apparently someone didn't like it very much. Sigh. At least I can now say someone can picture me as a 12 year-old. That's several years older than my wife considers me. :)

[John]

And yet again, we have this review headline from Amazon.com: "A brilliant start. A great premise." It's a world full of snowflakes. Everyone's going to have their own tastes. But you're still putting your work out there in the face of certain criticism - there's always going to be haters - and that's something to be proud of.

Me? I'll be proud when my copy of Trail of the Torean arrives.

[roncollins]

Don't get me wrong...I'm only complaining a tiny bit. :) I'm actually very pleased with the overall response to the story. Most reviews are quite good, and the sales numbers are building. It's doing well enough, and I can derive a certain sense of happiness from the fact that the majority of reviews for #1 that have negative spin basically say "great story, but it's too short." I can live with that.

[roncollins]

I'm doing my best to limit these things going forward, but this may never happen again, so sorry about the seeming non-stop self-promo ... my cup in the UK continues to runneth over... GLAMOUR is still #2, and TRAIL is now #5.

[Mike Dunn]

That's great . Hope it spills over into USA charts.

[John]

Just got you two extra paperback sales on part 2 this week ... think my friends are hooked.