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Old 12-18-2010, 10:05 AM   #61
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I'd venture a guess that this thread and the heightened awareness of the book's very existence will increase her sales five fold.

Thus, there will be a faulty analogy that it was entirely the pricing.
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Old 12-18-2010, 11:24 AM   #62
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Hey Crowl, that's a really good point. The first book in the series is (in my mind, too, at least) something of a loss leader. It introduces the characters and hopefully interests readers enough that when the second one comes out, they're excited to find out what's next. But it's almost like they're afraid of being too business-minded. They hate the thought of valuing one book more or less than another. On the one hand, good for them. On the other, come on - of course this is business!

Thanks for your weigh-in/support.
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Old 12-18-2010, 11:27 AM   #63
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Originally Posted by dougf4 View Post
I'd venture a guess that this thread and the heightened awareness of the book's very existence will increase her sales five fold.

Thus, there will be a faulty analogy that it was entirely the pricing.
Umm... the nature and basis of the experiment have been discussed earlier in this thread and in the other thread that Robin Spano started about this before she realised that this one existed:

What's A Fair Price For a New Release Ebook?

She's aware of the issue and, in addition to the more detailed discussion in the other thread, already said earlier in this thread:

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Originally Posted by Robin Spano View Post
But there are a lot of smart people here, too. From this post, and from the one I started before I knew about this one, comments here have helped me a lot with the next step of this experiment.

Thanks to suggestions here, I'm going to ask my publisher if they'll try a longer experiment. My original request was for him to lower the ebook's permanent price to $4.99, and this experiment was his way of saying no, and we'll show you that more books won't sell even at $1.99. (Which is why I've been on blogs promoting it - it was important to me that more books sold this week - so I have a leg to stand on for future discussions.)

So since the results are something real, I think my next step is to ask him for a more comprehensive experiment - a few months at the price I like - $4.99.
As far as increase in sales, she also posted earlier in this thread:

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Originally Posted by Robin Spano View Post
If anyone's curious about the results, I only have unofficial info from Kindle at the moment - my publisher is still waiting to hear back from Apple and Kobo. Seems bizarre that electronic sales information isn't instant, but that's life in a bizarre industry. Anyway, these preliminary results have the book selling approx 30x the normal amount in a given week.
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Old 12-18-2010, 06:05 PM   #64
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Darn. Its $8 on Amazon now. Wish I checked out this thread earlier, I easily would have bought it for $2. At such a low price Im willing to take the chance of whether or not I like it. Too bad this wasnt a month long experiment.

What I dont understand is why so many authors want to drop their books for $10 nowadays. I personally know a few and they arent even well known but find it necessary to charge $10 for a book they just put out. Why? No one knows who you are! If youre Stephen King you might be able to pull that off but I see many people arent even willing to pay that for well known authors, why do these new ones want to come out and charge so much for their books? I understand that yes, there are bills to be paid, so on, so forth, but this is your venture, your own dream. Honestly Id be willing to sell my book at a low price and take a loss for the first one if only to drum up interest for my next ones then to go for paying it all off on the first book. Maybe Im just looking at everything the wrong way but when I look at the post earlier about how selling the book at $2 as opposed to $10 means you need to sell 5x as much, I figure what does it matter. Seriously, I doubt people are bringing in a ton of sales on $10 books. All I see is people arguing, boycotting, that kind of thing. They may get a few here and there but more than likely they get a lot more selling it cheaper. The people I know are self published so that may be a huge factor here, Im not sure.

Robin, Id love to buy your book but seriously, $5 is too much for an ebook IMHO. I stick with $1 to $2 ones. I dont trust Amazon ratings when theyre so low. Im not saying your book is bad, I cant say. Id love to check it out to be honest. But I have bills to pay, $5 is a meal around here. $2 isnt so badly missed. Not to mention Ive heard that some people rig their reviews. When theyre that low, it could be you, your best friend, your sister, brother, mother, cousin, all saying its great just so you can get great reviews. Im not accusing you at all. I should hope that youre above that and you let the reviews speak for themselves even if people say bad things, Im just not really trusting of such a low amount of reviews.

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Old 12-19-2010, 01:30 PM   #65
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LOL NVash, thanks for the honesty! And Donna - thanks so much for the clarity on those points that kept getting brought up!! Very cool of you.

Yeah, with Amazon reviews, of course it can be family etc. In my case, these reviews are mostly from blog reviewers - I knew one of them from high school, but she's a reviewer now and I think she was sincere with her 4 stars. If you're ever in doubt, you can check out the reviewer and see how many books they review. If it's, like, that book and 2 more, you're probably right - it's friend or family or a lone fan that was moved by that book for some reason particular to them. If they have a link to a book review website, though, or if they review lots of books on Amazon, it's more likely to be a stranger whose only agenda is to share their bookish opinion. You can also always check out a book on Goodreads. On Amazon, people are more likely to share a positive review but keep a negative one to themselves. On Goodreads, no such luck for writers (which is probably better help for book-buyers!) - readers there review and comment whether they like a book or not!

And yeah - totally agree - since I'm unknown AND writing a series, a low price would be my preference because it gets the character known. But the good news - it's available in tons of libraries across North America. So if it does sound interesting, check it out for free that way. (Am I wrong in thinking libraries are starting to lend ebooks, too?)
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Old 12-19-2010, 02:28 PM   #66
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I was disgusted when I found out the prices of books.
Does that include the high price that you paid for a book of an unknown author?

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Originally Posted by iq3 View Post
On a totally separate note, I found and read the first book of a little known author, and I really liked it a lot. So when I heard about the experiment, I figured that I could contribute original information to this forum, created the account, started the thread. Looking back on this, my enthusiasm certainly does make it look staged, but I assure you the author had nothing to do with me posting this, unless you count starting the experiment.
It's not the enthusiasm exactly. It is because you were so happy about the fact that a book that you spent $10.99 on will be 5 times less. And if you spent any time on the forum you would have noticed the reaction to one-post wonders.

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As for why I haven't continued to post, I must have misconfigured my account somehow, I just received a notification today that anyone had posted on this thread at all. I checked my settings, I'm supposed to receive daily notifications, so I'm not sure what's going on. I would blame my spam filter, but I'm not sure why I got the notification at all...
So... You never actually look at the news page? How do you read the forum without looking at pages?

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Anyway sorry for the confusion, and sorry to the conspiracy theorists who think that I'm actually the author or the publisher, or maybe an alien from outer space Now that I have my account I may be more active.
Or her friend, her mother, her agent. Us conspiracy theorists do get ideas. Good luck with posting more than once every 10 days!

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Hey, iq3 - thanks for starting this discussion! (And for coming back.)
Wow, you posted only 15 minutes after Ashley. How lucky. I guess that the same way that she read the Deadly Letters blog immediately after it went online, you also read her post immediately after she wrote it. You two must be psychic.

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Originally Posted by dougf4 View Post
I'd venture a guess that this thread and the heightened awareness of the book's very existence will increase her sales five fold.
And this is the problem. If this is real and not just a publicity stunt, the publisher can always say that the reason why the sales increased is because the author was more active in marketing the book. Therefore the result is pointless.
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Old 12-19-2010, 06:15 PM   #67
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The weekly MobileRead email is sent on Thursday nights so it's very credible that iq3 didn't know there was an update to this thread until Friday.
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Old 12-19-2010, 08:17 PM   #68
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The weekly MobileRead email is sent on Thursday nights so it's very credible that iq3 didn't know there was an update to this thread until Friday.
But she claims to have read the forum before. If she was actually on the news page, she couldn't have missed the fact that there were replies to her post. If she doesn't read posts that way, and chooses to only read posts on threads that she subscribes to, them she would have known about this.

Plus, you are missing an explanation for the Thursday 9th. How exactly is it that she didn't see the posts until the 17th?
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Old 12-20-2010, 01:43 AM   #69
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So iq3 maybe muddled her explanation. So what?

iq3 took the time to apologise, and Robin's taken the time to come and post here, which she needn't have bothered doing. I've seen nothing that warrants the suspicion and hostility in posts like those from Sil_liS.

Quote:
So... You never actually look at the news page? How do you read the forum without looking at pages?
...
Good luck with posting more than once every 10 days!
Not everyone reads these forums religiously every day - she thought she'd set it to immediate email notification of replies but that glitched - again, so what? She's human, and stuff happens. I wasn't aware there was a forum requirement that your posts will only be regarded as legitimate if you read the forums every day and post more than once every 10 days!!!

How to make people feel thoroughly unwelcome.
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:12 AM   #70
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So iq3 maybe muddled her explanation. So what?

iq3 took the time to apologise, and Robin's taken the time to come and post here, which she needn't have bothered doing. I've seen nothing that warrants the suspicion and hostility in posts like those from Sil_liS.



Not everyone reads these forums religiously every day - she thought she'd set it to immediate email notification of replies but that glitched - again, so what? She's human, and stuff happens. I wasn't aware there was a forum requirement that your posts will only be regarded as legitimate if you read the forums every day and post more than once every 10 days!!!

How to make people feel thoroughly unwelcome.
Outstanding post & right on the money. I NEVER look at the news page. my link to here is directly to the forums not the news page.

There is absolutely no need for your hostility directed at these 2 posters Sil_lis, they have done nothing to warrant it other than your suspicious nature.

Why don't you just bow out of this thread if you dislike it so much. If they start spamming her book all over the forum then your hostility will be justified. Until then you should just back off.
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Old 12-20-2010, 08:03 AM   #71
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Back on topic... I thought Robin might be interested to know that her ebook does not appear to be available at all in Australia (either from local or international sellers), and the paperback is retailing for $29.95! Even $10.99 would be a fairly attractive price here given the high price of books generally, but the bigger problem is the geo-restrictions which prevent all access. Otherwise, I'd have loved to try out Dead Politician Society...sorry I can't help.
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Old 12-20-2010, 08:37 AM   #72
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Yes - the publisher has only released the ebook in US and Canada I'm afraid.
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Old 12-20-2010, 12:28 PM   #73
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Thanks for the message of support, eolith. Yeah, I don't understand why the Internet isn't like the international waters of book territory. I think it should be, but one battle at a time, right?

DMS & CFrizz, thanks for helping bring the mood back from Haterland :-)
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Old 02-08-2011, 01:18 AM   #74
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Hey, it's taken some time to get the results, but they're finally in, and I've summarized the experiment here: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show...bin_Spano/blog

Thanks to everyone who got behind this and participated in the discussions.
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Old 02-08-2011, 02:44 AM   #75
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Hey, it's taken some time to get the results, but they're finally in, and I've summarized the experiment here: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show...bin_Spano/blog

Thanks to everyone who got behind this and participated in the discussions.
I didn't buy your book, because the subject matter doesn't quite grab me, but i followed your pricing story with interest.

One point: A price below $7 IS DEFINITELY sustainable! I haven't looked up ECW, but your description makes them sound like a relatively small publisher. In the SF field, Baen Books has sold ebooks for $6.00 for individual copies, and significantly less than that if you buy the whole month's publishing output in webscriptions. And they've been doing it for MORE than TEN YEARS!

Yes, Baen is a print publisher, and so ebooks can share fixed costs of editing, etc. But still, 10 years, for an average 4 to 5 books per month.

On the side of your publisher, these are not prices down to 99 cents, or even 2.99, but they are significantly lower than the print price (and lower than the mmpb price even when the hardback has just been published and the mmpb won't be out for another year.)
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