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Old 12-16-2010, 05:20 PM   #1
andrewburt
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What's the best price for an ebook? -- Survey

Hi all, I'm conducting a little survey that should be of interest to all us ebook authors.

It's critical for authors who sell ebooks directly to know what's the best price to put on an ebook to maximize our income. If you double the price and sell more than 1/2 as many copies, you come out ahead; if you sell less than half you might lose money. Finding out which is best is clearly in our best interest.

Thus I'm conducting a survey at

http://critique.org/edsurv

to collect data on how ebook prices relate to unit sales, called the "Elasticity of Demand." (Even if your goal is to build a reader base rather than maximize income, you'll still want to know how pricing relates to sales. Perhaps pricing something too low is actually harmful... the only way to find out is to analyze the data.) There's also the question of pricing vs. length for those who sell articles / short stories vs. books. This information doesn't seem to be available online - at least, I haven't seen it, so please point me to it if you have - thus I decided to collect it for our mutual information.

So please enter your last 6 months sales data. (Or shorter or longer if that's easier for you. The more data the better, but things have been changing so fast that data going back more than a year may not be relevant, so I want to cap it at a year, maximum.) What's important is that you report data from all your titles for the same period of time, even if they sold 0 copies.

Your data are entered anonymously and only include #copies/price/length, so there's nothing personally sensitive.

Thanks for your input!

Last edited by andrewburt; 12-16-2010 at 11:04 PM.
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Old 12-16-2010, 06:24 PM   #2
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Note that the survey is for authors not for consumers.
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Old 12-16-2010, 06:25 PM   #3
John Carroll
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I've only had mine for sale for 3 weeks so I believe it would skew the results. I will refrain from entering the data for that reason only. I am extremely curious to see how it turns out though.
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Old 12-16-2010, 11:07 PM   #4
andrewburt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Carroll View Post
I've only had mine for sale for 3 weeks so I believe it would skew the results. I will refrain from entering the data for that reason only. I am extremely curious to see how it turns out though.
Actually, go ahead and enter it, since the interesting results will come from the aggregate data, which will show relationships between pricing, length, and sales. The more data the better the statistical analysis will be. So if you sold some that's data for the mill; it doesn't matter how recent the sales were (so long as they are within, say, the last year).
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Old 12-17-2010, 11:36 AM   #5
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You should have included the month-year of release for the book. Then you could have separated out new books from books that have been out a year and so on. With no date information, the data you collect is less useful.

For December, BTW, my paperbacks are outselling my ebooks. Might be an artifact of Xmas gift giving. Dunno. But I have less than 3 full months of data, so I don't think I have enough data to draw any conclusions.

-David
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Old 12-17-2010, 01:50 PM   #6
andrewburt
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andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidRM View Post
You should have included the month-year of release for the book. Then you could have separated out new books from books that have been out a year and so on. With no date information, the data you collect is less useful.
Your wish is my command. I've added a release date field for data going forward.

My hunch is that ebooks are all relatively new right now to most buyers (since demand is increasing exponentially, this suggests that many buyers are completely new to ebooks), thus almost all the self-published ebooks are unknown to them, thus sales will be relatively unaffected by age. But I'll be glad to analyze that.

Anyway, I'll repeat my call for data -- please everyone, submit your info. (No matter how small or recent.)


Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidRM View Post
For December, BTW, my paperbacks are outselling my ebooks. Might be an artifact of Xmas gift giving. Dunno. But I have less than 3 full months of data, so I don't think I have enough data to draw any conclusions.

-David
Possibly related to the general difficulties of giving ebboks as gifts. (Does the recipient read ebooks? .Mobi or .Epub? How to do the licensing, etc.) That will get easier in time but I think it's tricky this Xmas.
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Old 12-17-2010, 01:53 PM   #7
andrewburt
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andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.
 
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Just wanted to add that I've released the first dribbles of raw data. Not enough yet to analyze statistically but to whet your appetite to help out.

So hie ye over to

http://critique.org/edsurv

and please share your (anonymous) sales info for the common good. Thanks!
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Old 12-17-2010, 02:34 PM   #8
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Do you want free books added? Also, I noted the date released said YYMM, so if I released it Nov 2010, it would be 1011, yes?
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Old 12-17-2010, 04:04 PM   #9
andrewburt
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andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.andrewburt can talk all four legs off a donkey... then persuade it to go for a walk.
 
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Quote:
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Do you want free books added? Also, I noted the date released said YYMM, so if I released it Nov 2010, it would be 1011, yes?
Sure, yeah, enter info on free books; it would be interesting to see how many takers they get vs. paid ones. And right, "1011" for Nov.2010. Thanks!
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