Name Your Own Price--does it work???

BearMountainBooks · 02-12-2010, 12:05 PM

I'm not sure this article defines whether "name your own price" models work for books, but the stats are very interesting:

http://blog.smashwords.com/2010/02/w...customers.html

I don't think I was surprised to find that 85 percent chose not to pay. And if you are the author, I guess "success" depends upon your goal when you chose this payment method.

GntlmnBndt · 02-12-2010, 04:12 PM

There is an innate flaw in the way Smashwords counts these "purchases," however. I have read several books with the Name Your Price option. First I download it, which counts as a purchase, then after reading it I come back to review and pay what I think the book was worth. In order to pay, I have to make a second "purchase," which inflates the number of purchases relative to paying readers.

Of course, not everyone does it this way (paying after the fact), but I expect I am not the only one who does. Speaking for myself, I can say that I paid between $4 and $7.50 for the books I read, though one was bad enough that I dropped it less than a quarter of the way through and did not pay anything.

The Bandit

dsvick · 02-12-2010, 04:39 PM

This is already being discussed - join the fun over here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73509

02-12-2010, 12:05 PM	#1
BearMountainBooks Maria Schneider Posts: 3,746 Karma: 26439330 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Near Austin, Texas Device: 3g Kindle Keyboard	Name Your Own Price--does it work??? I'm not sure this article defines whether "name your own price" models work for books, but the stats are very interesting: http://blog.smashwords.com/2010/02/w...customers.html I don't think I was surprised to find that 85 percent chose not to pay. And if you are the author, I guess "success" depends upon your goal when you chose this payment method.

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02-12-2010, 04:12 PM	#2
GntlmnBndt Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 142 Join Date: Jul 2008 Device: iPod Touch, iPad	There is an innate flaw in the way Smashwords counts these "purchases," however. I have read several books with the Name Your Price option. First I download it, which counts as a purchase, then after reading it I come back to review and pay what I think the book was worth. In order to pay, I have to make a second "purchase," which inflates the number of purchases relative to paying readers. Of course, not everyone does it this way (paying after the fact), but I expect I am not the only one who does. Speaking for myself, I can say that I paid between $4 and $7.50 for the books I read, though one was bad enough that I dropped it less than a quarter of the way through and did not pay anything. The Bandit

02-12-2010, 04:39 PM	#3
dsvick Wizard Posts: 2,737 Karma: 635747 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Northeast Ohio, USA Device: PRS-900	This is already being discussed - join the fun over here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73509

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