Quote:
Originally Posted by Quiss
But, in my mind, offering your book (and we all know how much work goes into that) for a buck ninety-nine is telling the world that's what you think your work is worth.
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That is *one* theory.
Another theory is that the author would rather have, say, ten thousand readers paying him $2.99 than five thousand paying him $5.99. And that having the story read matters at least as much as making a buck, to that particular author.
There's this economic principle called price elasticity that says that sales increase with declining price and that increasing prices reduces unit sales.
When it comes to books there are some who think this principle doesn't apply and that raising prices will not significantly affect unit sales.
Smashwords' Mark Coker had quite a bit to say about this just last month:
http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/07/h...ould-harm.html
Quote:
One surprise, however, was that we found $2.99 books, on average, netted the authors more earnings (profit per unit, multiplied by units sold) than books priced at $6.99 and above. When we look at the $2.99 price point compared to $9.99, $2.99 earns the author slightly more, yet gains the author about four times as many readers. $2.99 ebooks earned the authors six times as many readers than books priced over $10.
If an author can earn the same or greater income selling lower cost books, yet reach significantly more readers, then, drum roll please, it means the authors who are selling higher priced books through traditional publishers are at an extreme disadvantage to indie authors in terms of long term platform building. The lower-priced books are building author brand faster. Never mind that an indie author earns more per $2.99 unit sold ($1.80-$2.10) than a traditionally published author earns at $9.99 ($1.25-$1.75).
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There was a whole thread discussing the concept round these parts.
Some of us found it an interesting topic for debate.
