Dear O'Abby: Should I discount my books

 Dear O'Abby,

Lots of people have told me that the reason I'm not selling more books is because I don't discount them, but it seems counter-intuitive to discount something when you want to make money from them.  As it is, I'm selling my novels at $3.99, which seems incredibly cheap to me.  Do I really need to discount them further to sell more?

Best wishes,

Discountless

Dear Discountless,

I understand that when you're selling books at an already low rate, the idea of discounting further is kind of appalling.  But there are reasons to do it.  

Given the price-point you've mentioned, I'm assuming you're referring to e-books here, not print, so I'll focus on e-book discounts in this newsletter. If you're interested in print discounts, let me know in the comments and I'll cover that in a future post.  I'm also assuming from your email that you have more than one book published.

When you have a new book out, especially if it's the second, third or subsequent book in a series, it is often a good idea to discount the earlier books just ahead of publication to encourage people to start reading the series.  If it's compelling enough, they'll be gagging for the next installment and more than willing to pay full price for the new one just to find out what happens next.

If you don't write series, offering a discount on your new title can help sell that new book and generate reviews which are so, so valuable in getting your work discovered by readers.  None of these discounts need to be long-term - you can discount for a period, then bump the price back up to normal.

It can also be great for sales to offer a discount when you're doing a campaign.  If people see your ads, but don't know you as an author, they are more likely to take a punt on a book if it's .99c than $3.99.  Then, if they like it, they're likely not to balk at the full price for other books in your catalogue. 

Other times it might be worth offering a discounted price is if you have a book that takes place during a particular time - say, Christmas.  Offering a discount over that period can help generate sales.  Or if your book is set against the high octane world behind the scenes of an election campaign, it is probably worth offering a discount over the election period to capitalise on the current event.  I would be cautious about this when it comes to some topics though...  Be sensitive.  Just because a school shooting or horrific natural disaster is in the news, doesn't mean it's the time to try and sell your book about that subject.  You could look ghoulish or risk traumatising people.

On the whole, discounting is just one of the many tools you have to sell books, and it might take time to figure out exactly when works best of you to use it to its best advantage.  Don't be afraid to experiment.  even if discounting only results in a handful more sales, if those readers love our work, they're likely to become loyal to you and may tell others about your books.  It all helps...

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: Is self-publishing becoming more acceptable?

Dear O'Abby,

I've been writing a long time now - well over 20 years - and when I started, self-publishing had a real stigma about it.  It was like people thought you only self-published as a last resort, if you'd been rejected by agents and traditional publishers time and time again.  So it's not something I've ever thought very seriously about.

Now it seems like self-publishing is a very legitimate way to publish, and self-pubbed books can have as much success as traditionally published books or even more.  

Is this actually true?  I've been publishing with a small press for several years, but they put very little into marketing or even properly editing my stuff for the 45% of sales they take, so I'm wondering if I'd be better of self-pubbing.  I just want to make sure my books won't become second-class citizens, so to speak, as a result.

Kind regards,

Uncertain

Dear Uncertain,

There are lots of things to consider when thinking about self-publishing, but you're correct in your assessment that it has become much more acceptable in recent years. I mean, the Pulitzer Prize is now open to self-published authors and there isn't much that's more prestigious than that!  

And self-published books are selling well too.  Around 30-35% of ebooks sold are self-published and there is an increasing number of self-pubbed authors earning over $100K a year.

On the downside, with this surge in popularity, the number of self-puubed books out there is growing year on year, meaning there is an increasing number to compete with in the market.  While the number of authors earning a good living from their books is growing, on average 90% of sell-pubbed books sell 100 copies or less.  So it's important to keep your expectations realistic.

The self-pubbed authors who do the best are writers who can write and publish quickly.  Once an author's work is popular, readers want more and unless the writer can provide more on a regular basis, they're quickly going to fall out of favour.  The most successful self-pubbed authors have at least 10 books for sale, usually series.

And genre is important too.  The majority of successful self-pubbed books are fantasy, romance or crime thrillers.  If you're writing outside these genres, it may be harder to break through as a self-pubbed author.

Of course, the other thing about self-publishing is that everything is on you, from sourcing cover art, to editing, to formatting the actual book to marketing and publicity.  And all of that stuff takes time (and money if you're going to do it professionally).  You need to have that time and money available to you to make a success out of self-pubbing and that often means taking time away from writing.  Which in turn, means you may not be able to publish new books as frequently as you might like to.

So while there isn't the same kind of stigma around self-publishing as there was 20 years ago, there are still a number of things you should consider before choosing to go this route.

Hope that helps!

X O'Abby.

Dear O'Abby: How do I get paid for e-books in libraries

 Dear O'Abby,

My local library has recently started lending copies of my e-book (which is cool, I think), but I was wondering about how I get paid for that. Does the library just buy the file and then lend it to people forever?  Or do I get a small amount each time someone borrows the book?

Kind regards,

Librarian

Dear Librarian,

Ebooks have been really popular with libraries, especially since the pandemic.  They are typically cheaper that physical books and obviously don't take up shelf-space, get lost or stolen or get damaged when readers drop them in the bath (something I am all too guilty of).

Generally, a library buys an ebook for their collection and the author gets the royalty for that book. It can be lent to someone for a certain  period, then it will disappear out of their device and another reader can borrow it.  I believe ebooks from larger publishers can be licensed for a certain period that is then renewed after an agreed time - usually one or two years. If a book is likely to be popular, a library might buy multiple licenses/copies so more people can read it at the same time.

As a writer, it's often difficult to ascertain from royalty statements what is a library sale and what isn't.  If you're with a big publisher, it's possible that the price a library pays for an ebook is substantially higher than what a member of the public might pay.  And, as mentioned before, the right to lend it may need to be re-licensed at a later date.  

If you're self-published or with a small press, it's likely the only royalty you'll see from library sales is the initial sale - much the same as if the library buys a physical copy of your book to shelve.

Hope that's helpful!

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: Is it Worth it?

Dear O'Abby,

I'm in a writing group and we're currently doing NaNo which means we get together at a local coffee shop a couple of times a week to write.  After we were done the other night, we started talking about where the books we're currently writing will end up, and we ended up talking about Amazon and the cost of e-books.

Things went dark pretty fast, let me tell you! 

Basically, we ended up breaking down how many e-books you need to sell on Amazon per month to make the minimum wage.  It works out at over 3000.  3315, to be precise, if you're selling your e-book for .99c which I've found to be the best price for my shorter, NaNo-length stories.  And of course, I only get .35c of that cover price.

I guess my question is, is it worth it?  We're all out here kicking our asses to write 50K words in November, but realistically, even if everything falls where we want it to, the chances of making any kind of living out of this is minimal.  Are the seven plus hours a day I'm devoting to this project a waste of my time?

Yours Truly,

Figured

Dear Figured,

The short answer to this is no.  If you're writing because you want to make a fortune, or even a living, the odds of being able to sustain yourself on book sales alone is extraordinarily low.  Which is why there are not a lot of writers who rely solely on writing novels to make a living.  I wrote a bit about it here a few weeks back.

But if you're anything like most of the writers I know, writing isn't something they do to make a living.  It's something they love to do, something they have to do.  Every time I get a royalty statement from my publisher I sigh and wonder why the hell I bother losing sleep every day so I can find time to write, yet somehow I'm still up at 5:30am every day and at my keyboard by 5:32am.  

It's frustrating, I know.  Putting in all those hours of work for so little return.  And then reviews from readers that tell you they tore through your book in a single afternoon.  Great that they enjoyed it and found it so engrossing they couldn't put it down until they'd finished, but that book was one, two, ten years of my life to create.  Couldn't they take the time to savor it?

But back to your question...  The price of e-books isn't something you can really influence.  Readers have decided the value they put on this experience, and as you've discovered, .99c is the price point they are most comfortable at for the kind of book you are producing.  If you price the book higher, you will make more per book purchased, but you may sell a quarter as many units.  I imagine you've experimented with this, if you're an indie author, and this is one of the benefits of being an indie author - you're in control of the price.  Although, you have to price your books at $2.99 or more if you want to be part of Kindle Unlimited.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself why you're writing.  If it's a chore and you don't enjoy the process and it's not making you the kind of money you want to be earning, then you have to wonder why you're doing it.  Waiting tables is probably more lucrative.  But if you love to create and can't imagine living without spilling the stories in your head onto the page, then I'm afraid you're a writer.

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby, how do I keep my book from being pirated?

Dear O’Abby,

I recently did a Google search on my book title and discovered it’s available on several pirate book sites. I issued take-down notices where I could, but I don’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface of this problem. Do you have any advice?

Yours,

Pirated

Dear Pirated,

Unfortunately piracy is rampant in this digital age and it’s almost impossible to stop. Even major operations to take down pirate sites tend to end in failure with the site popping back up weeks or days later with a slightly different name or web address.

But don’t despair. It may look like your book is available in a million places, but in actual fact, many of these sites are just a cover for something else. I don’t advise clicking on your book title to find out, but often the book jacket (or movie poster if it’s a film site) is just a portal to a porn site or, even worse, a virus or phishing operation.

If it actually is a book pirating site, it is often difficult to find any contact details to issue a take-down notice. I’ve also come across sites that state they won’t accept take-downs from a gmail address or other common email providers. Given how quickly these sites pop up and down, you can spend a lot of time issuing take-down notices without it doing much at all.

On the one hand, you can look at priacy as being a positive thing – people are reading your book after all. But on the other hand, you’re not receiving royalties from those readers. And if you are with a publisher, and your book isn’t racking up sales, they may be unwilling to publish another one of your books.

You can argue that the kind of people who pirate books are unlikely to pay for it anyway, and eyeballs are eyeballs, but this isn’t actually the case.  Piracy has a devastating effect on many writing careers with authors getting dropped by publishers for poor sales, series not being completed because the second or third book doesn't sell as many copies as the first, and all because people are illegally downloading the books.

Having good security on your book is an obvious move, but unfortunately pirates can strip DRM in seconds if they know how.  You can individually watermark any files you send out pre-release which will at least let you know where there is a breach in security and who you can't trust.  But by then, the book is already out there, and once it's on one site, chances are it will show up on another and another.

I wish I had better news for you, but in a world where people expect to be able to get whatever they want for free with the click of a mouse, other people are willing to give them just that.  Without any thought about how it might affect the actual owner of that IP.  

If you're looking for a bright side, if people are looking for your book on these sites, at least it might bump you up the Google search rankings a little...

Does anyone else have any good advice about avoiding piracy?  If so, drop it in the comments for us.

A little give and take

Take a close look at the above picture. Can you guess what all five DVDs have in common?

Perhaps I should narrow it down a little more. It does NOT have anything to do with the original book demographic. So you can cross that off your list.

It also has nothing to do with the characters.

Figure it out yet?

Maybe you should look one more time. Just to be sure.

Here's the answer. Are you ready? All five of those DVDs offered a free digital copy with purchase. (Did the answer surprise you?)

This might not seem like a big deal, but for many buyers, it is. If you watch movies on any kind of mobile device, the choice between a DVD and a free digital copy with the DVD is pretty much a no-brainer. For me, it's what cinches the deal. Why purchase the plain DVD when, for practically the same price, I can get the DVD to watch at home, and the digital copy to watch, well, everywhere else?

Indie authors have something sort of like this. I'm not sure if it's available in traditional publishing (if so, please direct me to it), but the indie version is called:

Not all books/ebooks are enrolled in KM, and even if they are, not all are set up for free when you purchase the hard copy. But you'd be surprised at just how many books are enrolled and how many of the ebooks are free.

I love Kindle Matchbook (link), because it's good for both the author and the reader. 

Author Benefit #1: Additional books in a reader's hands means a higher likelihood of your book being read.

Reader benefit #1: Additional books in a reader's hands means a higher likelihood of their book being read. 

Author Benefit #2: Additional book in reader's hands = higher likelihood of your book being gifted.

Reader Benefit #2: Additional book in reader's hands = higher likelihood of them sharing one of their copies.

Author Benefit #3: The author is saying, Hey, reader, thanks for purchasing this hard copy! You matter to me! As a thank you, I want to give you another version! Keep them both, or give one to a friend!

Reader Benefit #3: The author has just given me an extra copy! I feel special! Shall I keep it? Or give it away? Squee!

There are many other benefits to this awesome feature, but the point is, whether you're an indie author who publishes through Createspace and KDP, or a reader who loves to purchase books from Amazon, Kindle Matchbook is definitely a feature worth checking into. 

For more information about Kindle Matchbook, or to search for participating titles, click HERE. 

How to Read an eBook if You Don't Have An eReader

(the above picture is of our very own Kristal Shaff's short story on my

laptop via Adobe Digital Editions)

My fellow Entangled author, Laura Kaye, wrote an excellent post on 4 Ways to Read an eBook Without an eReader.

I've heard many people say that they can't read ebooks because they don't have an eReader. But eReaders aren't necessary to enjoy all the amazing ebooks out there. For instance, the ePub and pdf versions of ebooks can be downloaded right to your computer, and Kindle and Nook both offer FREE apps for various devices.

Be sure to head to Laura's blog to check out the full article!