Tag: Elise Connors

ebooks, Elise Speaks, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: “Top 5 Considerations for Effectively Pricing Your Self-Published Book”

Welcome back to our Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years.  What’s stayed the same?  And what’s changed?  We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

∗∗∗∗∗

[ Originally posted: February 3rd, 2011 ]

“Is my book too expensive?”

“Am I selling myself short?”

Traditionally-published authors usually don’t have any control over the price of their book. As a self-published author, though, how can you make sure you have priced your book appropriately? There is no hard and fast rule, unfortunately. However, here are a few things to consider while coming up with a pricing strategy for self-publishing a book:

  1. How much royalty will you earn from every book sale? If you’re planning on writing full-time, you want to make sure you’re making a sustainable amount per book ($1.50 – $2.75 is reasonable).
  2. What is your target market? Is your intended reader a teenager or an affluent attorney? You want to keep your audience in mind so that you don’t price yourself out of the market. You won’t be very successful if your ideal reader can’t afford to buy your book.
  3. Where do you want to sell your book? Trade discounts often determine where a book is sold. Most online retailers are fine with a short trade discount (less than 40%). However, big box stores, such as Borders, Barnes&Noble, etc. require at least a 50% discount (in addition to a solid marketing plan and full return-ability) to consider carrying your book. If you can’t imagine self-publishing your book without it being stocked on the shelves of your nearest B&N, you should consider going with 50% (though it will cut down on your royalties).
  4. How has your competition priced their books? Research books similar to yours. Make sure the page count is similar, it was published recently, and hopefully self-published. You don’t want to price your book too high above (or too low beneath) these books.
  5. Have you asked an expert? Now is not the time to guess. This is your livelihood. Your best bet is to employ the services of someone who is already familiar with the self-publishing industry, like a Publishing Consultant. These people know the book business, and they can help you with questions like these.

DISCUSSION: How did you decide on a price for your book?

– by Elise L. Connors

I absolutely love Elise’s post on ebook pricing, especially since most of the points hold steady in the face of a rapidly changing market.  There’s very little that’s the same in 2016 as it used to be in 2012 when it comes to the world of self-publishing in digital formats––except for this!  And while some figures may require updating––and Borders has gone altogether out of business––I cannot think of better advice than what Elise gave us in these five simple points.

online shopping

One recent event has, of course, dramatically altered the parameters by which you should set your ebook’s price: Hachette won its suit against Amazon.  What does this mean?  Why should indie authors care about a battle between an online retailer and a traditional publishing company?  I can think of several reasons.

One: Amazon is far and away the largest online retailer of ebooks, outpacing Barnes & Noble by leaps and bounds and leaving Apple’s iBook store and the Google Play store to contend for the last percentages of the market with their book subscription services and bundles.

And two: Hachette’s win means that Amazon no longer gets to keep ebook prices artificially low––justifiably low, in Amazon’s opinion––as the prices of ebooks put out by the Big Five traditional publishing houses cannot be reduced by the third party online seller.  As a consequence, ebook prices have been soaring––as the Big Five set higher prices to rake in more profit, many self-publishing authors are following suit because of the luxury principle; they don’t want their books to be assumed inferior in quality just because they’re less expensive.

A lot of factors go into your price-setting decision.  Are you looking mostly for exposure?  If you are, then selling your book at a dramatically reduced price (say, a $0.99 deal) may well get your book in front of more pairs of eyes than if you price it higher (say, around $9.99).  A low price might also help lure in readers who are itching to try a new book but only have a little free cash to risk.  But a low price cuts into your royalties, and for Amazon especially the highest royalties (around 70%) come when you price your book around the $2.99 sweet spot.  You may lose a few risk-conscious readers, but you only need one reader to purchase your book to every two who turn away in order to break even in your royalties when you boost your price to $2.99.

Your book’s genre and length can also play a role.  Remember Elise’s fourth point, above?  If you’ve written a book that falls neatly to a particular genre (or perhaps, relates un-neatly to several) then you should take a long look at how similar novels of a similar length and style are being priced.  All books are wonderful things and no genre is inherently more “literary” than another, but a pragmatic author must recognize that human perception is flawed and nowhere near as egalitarian as we’d like.  This is to say, romances, Westerns, science fiction, and fantasy tend to be priced more cheaply than, say, a travelogue or political exposé.  You don’t want to price your book outside of your ideal reader’s expected range.

In a lot of ways, it’s easy to lose sight of your vision for your book when the price dominates conversation.  Here’s my advice for pricing an ebook in 2016: Do your research, consult an expert, and make the call.  Don’t spend too much time deliberating, or you’re missing out on the most important thing that you as an author can be doing: writing another book!  ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.
Elise Speaks, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Self-Publishing

From the Archives: “How Much Do Self-Published Authors Make Per Year?”

Welcome back to our new Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years.  What’s stayed the same?  And what’s changed?  We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

∗∗∗∗∗

[ Originally posted: July 13th, 2011 ]

You want to become a self-published author, but you also have bills to pay and a lifestyle to maintain. So you pull up Google (or your search engine of choice), and search for “average income for book authors” or “average income for self-published authors”. You skim the results but can’t find any solid statistics. There’s a good reason why. Ready for it? Authors aren’t paid a salary. They earn royalties based on the sales of their book. These royalties are paid to them on a set schedule – usually provided that they meet the agreed upon “minimum earning threshold”.

So, will I be able to pay my bills if I become a self-published author? That’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” answer to it. When you publish a book, you are essentially taking a “gamble” on yourself. Many authors keep their day jobs until they are able to earn enough to support themselves on their book sales alone. One dedicated Outskirts Press author made $100,000 in only 180 days (6 months). However, there are some authors who don’t earn anywhere near this amount in a year. Furthermore, there are some authors who may not sell even one book over the course of a year.

How do you know where you fall? Self-publishing is all about investing in yourself. Given that successfully publishing a book involves 20% writing and 80% marketing, you should naturally spend most of your time/money on promoting the book after you write it. If you need help, you may consider enlisting the services of a book marketing consultant.

The income of a self-publishing author is 100% in their own hands. No one can “predict” how much you will earn as that is only a result of two things:  the quality of your book and substantial effort in marketing it to the right audience.

money in the bank

Back in 2011, Elise was so perfectly on point that it’s almost a crime to revisit her post and attempt to add a touch of 2015 to it–––but I’d like to deliver some good news.  With the expansion and stabilization of the  indie, hybrid, and self-publishing markets, greater numbers of authors than ever before are able to make bank at the end of the year.  Exceptions like the one Elise mentioned remain exceptions, but now it’s not unheard of to stumble across authors like Mark Dawson, who reportedly put away some $450,000 after selling his book through Amazon Direct.  And the very fact that we can now cast a skeptical eye toward Amazon shows just how far we’ve come, I think, in that we now have established parameters for what’s “acceptable practice” and “sound ethical behavior” in our self-publishing platforms.  We have options, now, and we can afford to pick fights with industry supergiants if they act like the profit-driven corporations we know they are.

That said, we also have made progress in nailing down some of those “solid statistics” that Elise mentioned––another benefit of participating in a maturing market. In May 2015, AuthorEarnings put out its annual report.  AuthorEarnings, a website which has made its purpose to “gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions” also has a “secondary mission […] to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts”––which is pretty wonderful for self-publishing authors like you or me, who want to know where we fall on the spectrum of wage-earners in our industry.  AuthorEarnings’ report shows, in great detail, how the profits from the sale of ebooks is divided up between authors, publishers, and Amazon.  And in their longitudinal study, published in September of this year, they give us a few handy statistics.  For example:

“5,643 authors in our longitudinal data set — or roughly 2.8% of the original 200,000 — whose Kindle best-selling ebooks appearing on Amazon best seller lists were consistently earning them $10K/year or better.”

And:

“[A]lmost half of these 5,600 authors — over 2,200 of them — are consistently making $25K/year or more on their Kindle bestsellers, and more than a fifth of them — over 1,200 authors in the data set — are making $50K/year or more on their Kindle best sellers alone.”

Keeping in mind that we’re talking about trends and percentages, not instruction much less guarantees, these numbers present a huge leap forward from what we had at our fingertips even just four years ago.  They present lots of opportunity for hope (lots of self-publishing “midlisters” are making good money), but also groundwork for caution (lots of authors are not visible in the data at all).  You certainly ought to keep Elise’s admonitions to self-promote carefully, often, and effectively.  The best way to sell your books is to make sure that they’re readable, “findable,” and affordable!

In closing, I’m going to ask the same question now that Elise did in 2011: What level of success have you seen as a self-published (or traditionally-published) author? Have you been able to maintain your lifestyle on royalties alone?  We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.  And even more, we’d love to be on hand to cheer you on.  You’re not alone in this endeavor!  ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.
Elise Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book

3 Things that are Wrong with Your Book Marketing Plan

If you’re following the advice that you find on every site that talks about marketing a self-published book, you have already created a book marketing plan. From this, you may have tried to use various marketing methods (i.e. virtual book tours, book signings, etc.). However, your sales statistics aren’t showing any signs of improvement.

How could this be? You are following every piece of advice you have received to the letter. It may be that your book marketing plan’s structure is, in fact, costing you sales. This is actually a fairly common problem among self-publishing authors.

Here are a few ways that your book marketing plan is working against you:

  1. You haven’t clearly defined your target market. When you wrote your first book, you knew that everyone would love it. It would make you the talk of the town (or maybe even the talk of the nation or globe). It would be the “it” book that everyone would want to read. That’s a Book Marketing Planrather lofty goal. Even the most successful authors (Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, etc.) aren’t able to reach EVERYONE with their books. That’s fine for them, though. They have developed a very loyal audience of readers who are committed to them and their books. That’s the type of audience you want to seek out. Figure out who will love your books and focus on marketing to them. If you don’t, you may find yourself wasting quite a bit of effort attempting to turn someone who loves horror books into a romance novel lover.
  2. You don’t know what differentiates your book from the other books available to your target market. Can you tell me why your book is better than any other book on the market? Is there a lesson taught in your book? Are your characters easier to relate to? There has to be a reason why I want to read your story about vampires versus reading Twilight. Find out what makes your book special and use that as your unique value proposition.
  3. You don’t update your book marketing plan on a regular basis. The book marketing industry, like any other, is changing rapidly. If you don’t keep your plans up to date, you can easily become irrelevant. I recommend that authors review and update their book marketing plan at least once per year.

Have you been making any of these mistakes? How did you bounce back to have a book marketing plan that “sticks”?

Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE L. CONNORS:
Elise works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.
Marketing Your Self-Published Book

3 Reasons Why Friday is the Best Day to Promote Your Book

Ok, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement…

However, there are some ways that Fridays can work to your advantage.

  • Friday is payday for many people. Payday means more money. More money means more buying power. With that new buying power, people will most likely be more inclined to purchase things they wouldn’t have before – one of those things could be a copy of your book.
  • Friday is at a crossroads that represents a red light for the workweek and a green light for the weekend. We’re ready to relax. What better way to relax than soaking up some sun on the beach or by the pool while reading a new book? Doesn’t your book deserve to reach this audience?
  • Friday is today! Have you ever heard the old saying “there is no time like the present”? Though it may be cliche’, it’s rather apropos when it comes to book marketing. If you haven’t started yet, make haste.
How will you be using your Friday?
Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE CONNORS:
Elise Connors works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.