THE MARS MONOPOLY (an original Ace Double) by Star Trek master Jerry Sohl

[andrewburt]

One of the famous Ace Doubles, with the wonderful original cover, The Mars Monopoly still stands today as a great, fun story in the classic style.

ReAnimus Press Store: http://ReAnimus.com/store?item=1222
Amazon: http://Amazon.com/dp/B008IJW7UG


A guy's gotta earn a living someplace—and if it isn't on Earth, it might as well be on Mars. That is if the Syndicate would let you live on the red planet. Bert Schaun found himself washed-up as a round-the-world rocket racer, blacklisted by Thornton McAllister. He tried to make a new life for himself prospecting for uranium in the lonesome vastness of the asteroids.

But McAllister's fury hunted him even to Mars; the issue became a struggle to stay alive against the dangers imposed by McAllister's interplanetary power. And then Bert met Emma, and found that he was not only fighting for his own survival and his sweetheart's, but for the survival, too, of a whole race of Martian outcasts.

Singlehandedly, he had to combat genocide on Mars!

Jerry Sohl is the author of over two dozen books, as well as many scripts for Star Trek, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and numerous other TV shows and feature films.

[JSWolf]

$9.99 for this is just a silly price.

[HarryT]

If you think it's silly, Jon, you have the free choice not to buy it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you think it's silly, Jon, you have the free choice not to buy it.

Backlist books should not be costing nearly $10.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Backlist books should not be costing nearly $10.

I have no problem with paying £6 for a backlist book. Indeed I numerous backlist books at such prices. As I say, if your personal view is that it's too expensive, vote with your wallet and don't buy it. That's how the free market works.

[andrewburt]

We put a lot of thought into pricing, and I apologize that we can't please everyone. Price elasticity of demand is a tricky thing. Out of curiousity, what do you think the best price would be? And, an even more intriguing question, what is the definition of "best" that you think we should be using? (Bearing in mind that the less we earn the fewer books we can afford to take risks on.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by andrewburt

We put a lot of thought into pricing, and I apologize that we can't please everyone. Price elasticity of demand is a tricky thing. Out of curiousity, what do you think the best price would be? And, an even more intriguing question, what is the definition of "best" that you think we should be using? (Bearing in mind that the less we earn the fewer books we can afford to take risks on.)

I think £3.99 (about $6) is a fair price for a backlist book. I wouldn't give a second thought to buying one which appealed to me at that price.

[JSWolf]

For a backlist eBook, $5 is reasonable. If it was $5, I'd consider buying it. But for $9.99, no way. That is more expensive then a lot of new eBooks. I'm not the only one who will feel that $9.99 is too high a price for a backlist eBook. So to be honest, this eBook will make more money at $5 then $9.99.

[piperclassique]

I'd go for 5 euros max. Remember a lot of new releases by established authors sell for 5 or 6 dollars, so backlist shouldn't be more than that.

[andrewburt]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For a backlist eBook, $5 is reasonable. If it was $5, I'd consider buying it. But for $9.99, no way. That is more expensive then a lot of new eBooks. I'm not the only one who will feel that $9.99 is too high a price for a backlist eBook. So to be honest, this eBook will make more money at $5 then $9.99.

That's an interesting assertion, though I'm not convinced it's true... As I said, the question of what is the "best" price depends on the definition of "best." (And hence the invitation to define "best.") In most cases (and this one here) the goal is to maximize revenue, not, for example, to maximize the number of readers (which might make sense if one had a philosophical piece one wanted as many people to read as possible; in which case free or less than free might be optimal; or one might use one book as a loss leader hoping to drive sales of one's other books). Since this particular book doesn't appear likely to drive massive sales of other titles, I'd venture that "best" for this title is to maximize revenue for one book.

Then the question is whether $4.99 or $9.99 does that. Would it sell more than twice as many copies at half the price?

My experiences so far seem to indicate that the sales of a book are more inherent in the book's content than in its price. I.e., an uninteresting book won't sell hugely more copies at a low price, nor will a great book sell vastly fewer copies at a higher price. So my hunch is that $9.99 is the better price for this book. I could be wrong, however... and I'd like to know, empirically, if I am!

But, we can do an experiment on the price/demand... So I've posted a new and in many ways similar book to this and lowered the price to what we're talking about (I won't mention the title since this thread isn't about it), and we can all watch the sales. My hunch is that THE MARS MONOPOLY will net more revenue even though it's priced higher, but we'll see. I'm curious to find out, and to hear your thoughts.

[andrewburt]

So, the status of the pricing experiment I mentioned in the last post...

THE MARS MONOPOLY is selling at the same pace as the other title priced half as much.

Unfortunately, that shows the opposite of the assertion that if the price of THE MARS MONOPOLY were $5-ish it would outperform a $9.99 price. So far it's earning about twice as much as the $5 variant.

This is still consistent with my personal theory, that the price of a book is significantly less relevant to sales than the story itself, i.e. the content inside it (and, quite possibly, the cover, reviews, and other kinds of non-price-related aspects).

It's only one data point, though in line with what we've found before. What do you all think about this?

[sabredog]

I think you need to sample far longer and with far more range before coming to any conclusion really. Conclusions drawn from narrow band statistical data is not generally accurate.

[JSWolf]

Also, it could be that the other title just doesn't have as many people interested in it. I know I'm more interested The Mars Monopoly. But I'm not paying $9.99 for it.

And as was said before, your data is too narrow to be valid. Why not put The Mars Monopoly on sale for $4.99 and see how well it sell compared to how it has sold up to now? At $4.99, I would buy a copy.

[OddCosine]

Originally Posted by andrewburt

It's only one data point, though in line with what we've found before. What do you all think about this?

I'm just one more data point, but the problem for me is that $5 and $10 are both above my impulse point, so there's effectively no difference in price. I won't buy either (no matter how cool the covers are).

For short, fun sounding books like these I'd probably start paying attention somewhere around $3. My backlog of books is just too big to justify paying more.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by OddCosine

For short, fun sounding books like these I'd probably start paying attention somewhere around $3. My backlog of books is just too big to justify paying more.

It's completely unrealistic to expect people to produce high-quality eBooks at that price; it's just not economically viable. Do you really place such a low value on reading?