Sometimes I get email responses to posts here on my blog. I always enjoy that! It makes this blogging experience a lot more intimate and personal for me. It's exactly where I want this blog right now. Last week I put up a post about Amazon making my short story collection, True Colors, free.
Since then, I have removed the post for reasons I don't want to get
into, but I received an email response to that post from one of my
readers, Laura Pauling. I don't know Laura very well, but I'm happy she emailed me because it lets me get to know her better, plus I loved her response. I thought it deserved some attention, so first I'll let you read her response to my post:
Amazon reserves the right to reduce prices on books. So when your books is priced at 99 cents they have no lower price point to go to but zero. If a book is priced at 2.99, they usually drop it to 99 cents.
I've seen many authors get very upset about this as in they think they are losing sales. But others say that most likely those people downloading the freebie probably wouldn't have purchased the book. And it shoots your books up in ranks and gives it more visibility.
In the end, we don't have control over it.
Hope that helps.
Personally, I don't struggle with the devaluing of books. I think of it from the author's pov. If a self published author is making more on a 2.99 book than a trad. published author is making off a 15 dollar book. Who is being devalued? I'd say not the one selling their book for 2.99. If offering a free book, which seems to impact sales the most if you have a lot of books up, brings in more money in sales for the author, then it's a marketing strategy. Most businesses use the concept of loss leaders and freebies all the time.
What do you think?
Laura Pauling
In essence, I agree with Laura. The first point she makes is that Amazon reserves the right to reduce prices on books (just like most bookstores reserve the right to reduce prices on books). I agreed to these terms when I chose Create Space (Amazon's POD publishing arm) to publish my book. If I had a problem with these terms, I shouldn't have published through them or put my book on Amazon. I don't agree with Laura, however, when she says Amazon usually drops $2.99 priced books to 99 cents, though. A $2.99 book published through Create Space gets Amazon 70% royalty. Anything below that only gets 30% royalty, so I personally haven't seen Amazon lower my $2.99-priced books to 99 cents. Free, however, they did. But they didn't lower it to free from 99 cents. They lowered it to free from $1.99.
For the most part, I agree with Laura that in the end we don't have control over these price reductions. In a lot of ways, a self-published author does have control. You can decide not to put your book on Amazon, but good luck making lots of sales. One thing I do have control over is not using Create Space anymore - something I am in the midst of doing at this moment (not because of any of this free thing) as I transfer True Colors to another printer and also remove Cinders from sale completely in the next few months.
As far as devaluing books, Laura brings up an excellent and interesting point about who is really being devalued when it comes to pricing books. Is it the author getting a higher royalty on a lower-priced book? Or the traditionally published author getting a low royalty on a higher-priced book? Who makes more? I can already tell you that countless factors come into play with that question - so many that I can't even begin to explore them in a simple post. But I do know that I do not feel devalued by my publisher. Yes, I get a much lesser royalty on my books through them than I would if I self-published. But I also get professional editing, cover design, marketing, advice, and most of all, a huge support system. I could get those things on my own, for the most part, but I'd still have to pay for many of them. So how much of my royalties would go toward that? Technically, if I made the same amount of sales through self-publishing as I did traditional publishing, yes, I would probably make a lot more money on my own. So what it comes down to is personal preference, and I prefer a traditional publisher for my novel at this point in my career (for many reasons I won't get into here).
Laura also brings up a good point that making a book free is a marketing strategy, yes. I just wonder at this point what Amazon is getting out of it. And as I said in my other post, my other books didn't seem to benefit at all from this free promotion, at least during the promotion. Cinders sales? ONE the whole week while True Colors was free. Monarch sales? I haven't asked my publisher yet, but I doubt it really benefited during the week.
BUT!
Now that the free promotion is over, my Cinders sales started back up. A lot. Monarch, I don't know yet. Again, I need to ask my publisher, and they might not know either since sales reports can take a little while to come through. True Colors? NOT ONE SALE since the free promotion. Not one stinking sale. Interesting, eh? And who knows how much all of this has to do with the 99 cent sale I did in December. Who knows how much of it has to do with anything I do promotion-wise on my end.
From my experience in publishing - my own 100% personal experience, not anyone else's that I've seen - I cannot deduct much from any of these numbers and facts until years from now. It takes a long time to see trends and "immediate results" from promotions and marketing strategies. In traditional publishing, it can take six months or more to see true sales numbers from all the channels to where the book was distributed (bookstores, tiny little indie sites, international sales, etc.). There are so many factors that come into play in all of this, and what works for one book may not work for another. What works for one author may not work for another. What works for my books through Rhemalda Publishing may not work for my collections I put out on my own. Everyone single one of us is different.
I also know this: There is no magic formula to making it big as an author. Period. Unless, of course, you consider millions of dollars poured into marketing a magic formula. It's all about being seen, and money can do that. But I've seen books go big and authors fail in the long run. I've seen tiny budgets make a book go big. Again, many factors come into play. It's not magic.
So those are my thoughts for Laura this morning. Thanks again, Laura, for your response and allowing me to post it here on the blog! This whole publishing-world thing is fascinating, isn't it? And I thought it was as simple as just writing stories. Perhaps it should be. *smile*
If you would like to comment on this post, send an email to michelledavidsonargyle@gmail.com. I appreciate and answer all comments.
