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snipenekkid · 03-10-2011, 05:00 PM

now here is one thing not mentioned so far. The simple transaction overhead of a single $0.99 sale. Call it a 3% discount rate plus $0.35/transaction. That's roughly 38% of the sale to the credit card company, Paypal or whoever. Even if the seller has a good merchant account and about a 1.5% discount rate that is still ~36% of the cover price. Right there if the author is not getting enough multiple purchases the overhead all but kills off the direct to author sale of the $0.99 book. It's a ton of overhead, still it's money in the bank either way.

I guess many authors will likely opt to sell via some venue rather than direct anyway so it might not matter across the board for authors but for new writers it could be what might scare them off the $0.99 price. Maybe? Is the trade off for the direct vs. venue fees a wash? I just dunno enough about the economics from the author perspective.

03-10-2011, 05:00 PM	#31
snipenekkid Banned Posts: 760 Karma: 51034 Join Date: Feb 2009	now here is one thing not mentioned so far. The simple transaction overhead of a single $0.99 sale. Call it a 3% discount rate plus $0.35/transaction. That's roughly 38% of the sale to the credit card company, Paypal or whoever. Even if the seller has a good merchant account and about a 1.5% discount rate that is still ~36% of the cover price. Right there if the author is not getting enough multiple purchases the overhead all but kills off the direct to author sale of the $0.99 book. It's a ton of overhead, still it's money in the bank either way. I guess many authors will likely opt to sell via some venue rather than direct anyway so it might not matter across the board for authors but for new writers it could be what might scare them off the $0.99 price. Maybe? Is the trade off for the direct vs. venue fees a wash? I just dunno enough about the economics from the author perspective.