Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea'

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GlynThincs Reading Civilization by Niall Ferguson

04 Aug 2012, 08:56 AM | Post: #1

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Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

In the Daily Telegraph today Donna Bowater reports Mark Billingham's assertion that cheap eBooks are devalued if sold for less than the price of a cuppa. Do low prices devalue ebooks?
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Lou Reading Ryria Series by Michael J Sullivan

04 Aug 2012, 09:17 AM | Post: #2

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

I think that low prices do devalue books. The problem as I see it though is you have to follow what everyone else is doing, unless of course you are a big name author and can command a higher price.

Perhaps the only way to redress the balance would be for Amazon etc to set a higher minimum price and tighten quality control, but that's probably never going to happen.

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Rosen Trevithick Reading

04 Aug 2012, 09:26 AM | Post: #3

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

I do resent having to charge as little as £1.99 for a novel but I think some people have got the price situation out of perspective. I believe somebody told Stephen Leather than by charging 77p for a book, he was essentially working for 5p per day (or similar) which is somewhat ignorant about the number of books you might sell each day at a low price. eBooks should cost less that paperbacks, but not by so much.

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cecilia_writer Reading Bang

04 Aug 2012, 09:34 AM | Post: #4

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

I'm in at least 2 minds about this. As a reader and as a writer I find cheap ebooks work for me and I'm reading more novels and taking more chances than I would with books at higher prices. Of course there are some so-called writers out there who are taking advantage of the system to publish things that nobody should waste their time downloading, but it's really a case of caveat emptor. I can see how some people might think this would ultimately result in a dumbing down of literature, but on the other hand, at the moment there is nothing to stop quality stuff being published at low prices to encourage people to try it instead of the rubbish.
I was at a talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival last year where one of the speakers said he only gets some ridiculously low royalty from books sold via the traditional route - I think something like 6p per sale but I may not have remembered that accurately. So getting even 25p from Amazon (more from Smashwords) is better for the writer than that.
However, having a Kindle has definitely had an impact on the number of books I buy (especially from charity shops), and an even bigger impact on my use of the local library, so I find that aspect a bit worrying. But perhaps both book-shops and libraries are going to have to evolve.

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skate Reading Pompomberry House by Rosen Trevithick

04 Aug 2012, 09:39 AM | Post: #5

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

I have one novel priced at 77p in the hope of attracting new readers before the sequel comes out in the not too distant future. It doesn't sell half as many as one that I have at 1.98 (sorry, I have an Australia keyboard, it doesn't do pounds). It's just as good a book as far as I can tell, but it just doesn't sell.

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Willie Wit Reading The John Lennon Letters

04 Aug 2012, 10:57 AM | Post: #6

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

Funnily enough after much price agonising i actually set the price of twenytinytales at the cost of a cuppa in my favourite cafe when it came out - about £1.60
I soon had to amend it to the price of a cuppa in my local library drinks machine £1...

:o)

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lyndawrites Reading The Midnight Man by Paul Doherty

04 Aug 2012, 11:55 AM | Post: #7

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

Yes, they're undervalued. It still takes me as long to write a novel whether I publish in print or ebook format. Then there are editing and cover costs which can be substantial - one editor told me he wouldn't edit Strictly Murder (78K words) for less than £1000. I found someone cheaper but still ending up shelling out £250.

I'll sell my books for 99p when I can find a plumber to fix my dripping tap for that price or a car mechanic who charges under a quid for looking under the bonnet.

Writers have bills to pay, too.

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Katherine Roberts Reading Bone Song by John Meaney

04 Aug 2012, 12:36 PM | Post: #8

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

Interesting thread... I am still experimentiing with prices. I found raising the price of my children's novels from $2.99 to $3.99 made very little difference to my sales in the US. But raising my price from £1-99 to £2-99 appears to have killed off UK sales completely (though it might be a bit early to tell, since I've only just done this, and it's summer and the Olympics are on, etc.)

But even priced quite low at £1-99, my ebooks pay me a better royalty than if the titles were POD via. a traditional publishing deal (which is where most backlist books end up once they go out of print, if you don't revert the rights). And they sell more copies than the more expensive POD versions used to, so for backlist cheap ebooks are still looking good.

If I were publishing a new novel as an ebook, however, I might feel differently... I feel (as a reader) that an ebook should be about half the cost of a typical paperback, or maybe up to two thirds. But if the ebook costs almost the same (or is more expensive!) than I will buy a paperback instead... and if there isn't a reasonably priced paperback version of the one I want, I'll buy a different paperback so the writer will lose a sale.

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cecilia_writer Reading Bang

04 Aug 2012, 02:01 PM | Post: #9

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

(04 Aug 2012 12:36 PM)Katherine Roberts Wrote: Interesting thread... I am still experimentiing with prices. I found raising the price of my children's novels from $2.99 to $3.99 made very little difference to my sales in the US. But raising my price from £1-99 to £2-99 appears to have killed off UK sales completely (though it might be a bit early to tell, since I've only just done this, and it's summer and the Olympics are on, etc.)

That's interesting, Katherine - I've had a feeling for a while that maybe the US market is quite different from the UK in this respect, with people in the UK apparently wanting ebooks for next to nothing whereas some US readers seem to see cheaper books as of lesser quality.
I started to wonder if I should set the prices separately for each of the Amazons - does anyone else have any experience of doing that? At the moment I just set the US price and then let the system work it out.

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davidwailing Reading Me Again by Keith Cronin

04 Aug 2012, 02:02 PM | Post: #10

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RE: Sold for less than 'price of a cup of tea' - eBooks devalued?

This is always a popular topic! Like all authors, I think my work is worth more purely because of the time, effort and money I put into it. But it's the value that readers place upon it that matters, and this is influenced by lots of things, including the average cost of ebooks generally.

If an average ebook is £1.99 for example, and I cost mine at £6.99 because I worked like a dog on it for years, should I be surprised when it doesn't sell? No, sadly I have to play ball and cost more realistically. That's the market - nobody is bigger than the market.

As Lou says, there is no quality control with ebooks, so readers are taking much more of a gamble when they buy one, especially if the author is relatively unknown. With a cup of tea, you know what you're getting - it's a safe bet. With an unknown author, there are no guarantees. That's why free ebooks are so popular!

Also, remember that cost is just one factor. Readers will also consider the amount of positive reviews a book has, how much the author has produced, whether the book has been recommended by someone they know, if it's similar to what they usually read, the cover, the title, how many vowels in an author's name, whether the wind is blowing from the south, if there are any biscuits left...

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