Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
You keep saying that, but it doesn't match my experience. Granted, I haven't done a deep dive and won't claim to know all.
But Joe Konrath (indie) sells his books for about $5 (not counting collections).
Peter Straub (traditional) has his books priced at about $9.
Clive Barker has a mix, indie and traditional. The Hellbound Heart and Weaveworld were published at about the same time. But The Hellbound Heart (a novella of 176 pages, published by Harper) is $6. Weaveworld (a novel of 652 pages, now an indie) is $4.
Lyle Brandt, a not hugely popular western author has a mix of traditional and indie. He has a series called The Lawman. All originally published by Penguin. Some of the books are now indie while others are still put out by Penguin. The Penguin titles (books 1, 9-11) are priced between $7/$8. The indie ones (2-8) are priced at $5. As are his other indie books.
For all my examples, I looked at books new and old. I didn't want you to call me out for using backlist titles. They are as comparable as I could make them in the time I have.
|
I use the books that I buy, which is a mix of traditional publishing and indie. For example, some of the recently released fiction books that I've bought
Blood Heir (comes out in Jan.) $7
Manna From Heaven - $7
War God's Own - $7
Ready Player Two (November) $15
My Name is Legion - $8
Creatures of Light and Darkness - $8
Wild Sign (March) $15
Queen of Attolia - $10
Age of Empyre - $10
In general new Hardback have one price point, new paperbackYou have a different one. Backlist are all over the place.
Indies backlist and Indies who write a lot of books a year tend to have a much lower price point.
Non fiction has very different price points.
You have to sell a lot of books at $1 a book to make a living at it. How many authors do you think actually sell 50K books a year? There are some, but not many.