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When I sold VHS movies for a small, privately owned company in Minnesota years ago, I dealt with retailers who haggled on the price of a movie. My boss would grin and say, “Don’t worry, whatever money we lose on individual sales, we'll make up for in bulk sales.” The joke, of course, was that if one movie sold for 99 cents and lost money, selling one hundred movies for 99 cents each would still generate no profit.
Granted, selling an e-book for $.99 will get a book into the hands of a reader, but will the reader be inclined to read the book without additional motivation such as advertisements or word-of-mouth recommendations?
Hence the question: Is a quality sale better than a quantity of sales - or - is a quantity of sales actually a quality sale?
I would think quantity would mean some of those would also be quality. Not as many as if you'd had full marketing push, but some for sure.
ReplyDeletemood
Moody Writing
Quality always :)
ReplyDeleteI'd rather have 10 people read a book I was proud of writing, than 100 people reading a book I knew wasn't my best effort. So quality wins every time for me.
ReplyDeleteGood question. I'd have to go with quality (but quantity is good too). Okay, I want both.
ReplyDeleteI’m A-Z Blogging on Langley Writes about Writing and Langley’s Rich and Random Life
Okay, I'll buy Quality with Qualification.
ReplyDeleteI think quality is the more important trait--but if we were to look at the publishing industry, stats are everything. Quantity will win over quality all the time. I"ve seen a lot of quality books go out of print simply because they were selling many copies.
ReplyDeletenutschell
www.thewritingnut.com
The problem with the $0.99 pricing is that it is training the buyers that that's all a book is worth. "Look at all of these books for a buck; why should I pay more than that?" But a writer can't make a living off of books priced at $0.99 unless said writers sells books in Harry Potter quantities, and that's just not going to happen. I believe that a writer, just like any artist, should be able to make a living at it if they are any good at it. But we're teaching people that we really shouldn't support writing when we sell at that price. In fact, we're teaching people that they're entitled to cheap literature. That the are owed it by the author and that the author needs to figure out his own living arrangements apart from writing.
ReplyDeleteI know that's not the simple answer you were probably looking for, but this is one of those topics I've been keeping up on and thinking about. I've posted about this topic myself.
Not to disrespect Andrew, I agree with his premise. However, John Locke has 9 books for .99 each and did so in one year and is making close to $100,000 a month. He was detailing his plan on Joe Konrath's blog who is also making a killing.
ReplyDeleteNow for my take: I have my epic fantasy on sale through April 30 this year for .99. I did that to attract readers. What I believe is, that you must introduce yourself with quality work for a price most will pay when you are unknown. Once people like you, they will pay more to read you.
Nancy
N. R. Williams, The Treasures of Carmelidrium.
Very interesting question. I do not sell very much right now, but I have gotten lots of excellent feedback from those who have purchased my stories. I would love to sell a lot simply because I would love to make a living writing. However, I do not want to sacrifice the personal relationships that I am developing and would rather work a day job forever than lose that.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad we connected on the Challenge.
Speaking as a reader, time is my limiting factor, not a few dollars difference in the cost of a book, so I'm happy to pay more for a book I can respect and enjoy, and I _always_ sample first, whether the price is $0.99 or $9.99, because I don't want to be inadvertently supporting writers just because they've heavily discounted their work. Frankly, I don't want to encourage $0.99 cent books, because I'm a writer too, and I think Andrew is right. A handful of writers have done very well at the $0.99 price point, but those are the far outliers. $0.99 might work as a promotion, or to introduce yourself, but it makes more sense to me if you've got several books out, and at higher prices.
ReplyDelete