As something of a corollary to yesterday’s post, I’d love to pose a question that I simply can’t really find an answer to: how low is too low when it comes to eBooks?
As eBooks—even self-published eBooks—become more and more ‘mainstream’, appearing on bestseller lists for USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc., the issue of what a bestseller will eventually need redefinition. Already, authors who have self-published their books through KDP or PubIt! are discovering that even if their books sold well—even if they reached #1 on retailer lists–if they aren’t sold at a particular price point, a publisher won’t buy it.
For authors who are content to self-publish electronically, and only self-publish electronically, that obviously doesn’t matter. But many authors—especially those with agents—are self-publishing in the hopes of establishing themselves and growing their platforms, catching the attention of editors and securing a traditional deal. If this sounds like the author looking to you for pricing advice—or a book you’re electronically distributing on behalf of the author, remember that even being able to call a book a ‘bestseller’ may not be enough if it didn’t earn the title near a price point a publisher would be willing to sell a book. But as we all know, lower price points can be crucial to high sales in the eBook world–and so the question I’d love to be able to answer is: what exactly is that price point for a self-published book?
Anecdotally, I’ve heard that $3.99 is the breaking point; that if a book can sell a solid number of copies or become a bestseller while priced at $3.99 or higher, mainstream publishers become interested. Below that point, they don’t care too much. The idea seems to be that people will buy just about anything at $.99; with one-click Kindle purchasing, instant iBookstore downloading, etc., the barrier to buying something that’s less than a dollar is basically nothing (and yet these books may still appear on bestseller lists, at least with the Wall Street Journal). In fact, many of these low-priced books may not even get read. Books priced higher, though, which require at least a bit more of a decision process before buying, are more likely to be read—and those readers are more likely to follow the author and buy a higher-priced print book should they secure a traditional deal. At least, that’s the theory. If it makes sense, if that’s really the deciding price point, what that price point will be a year from now—all of that is still uncertain.