Huffington Post: Why 99-Cent e-Books Are a Bad Deal — For Authors
You know when I see topics like this post muddying up the waters. I almost want to stick a huge off topic label on it. The reason being they are using a conversation about what price legitimate traditional publishers should ask for their eBooks and mixing it into a conversation that includes what price Self Published authors should ask for their eBooks.
It’s not the same thing um I think, here let me try and prove this. Most Self Published authors do not pay for graphics artist or editors do they? They do not pay for elaborate websites they simply use the website of someone who did do all that work already like Amazon and they do not have things packaged for sale or provide such things to their customers they get someone else to sell and deliver the eBook for them like Overdrive.
So what they price their Self Published bits and baubles at has nothing to do with what price I would spend on a published paperback or an eBook derived from the type of publisher that would have published a paperback if I was buying that format which I don’t anymore since I buy eBooks and may I add the Self Published author is doing the exact same job without a whole staff of people behind them supposedly creating that super nice and clean eBook. Um errr um…
Anyway the topic is what do I see as a relatively reasonable eBook price which should never be MORE THAN PAPERBACK PRICE. In romance I guess it would be the price I would pay for a Harlequin eBook seems to be a good rule of thumb. That sounds reasonable to me and I bet other readers too until you see the editing errors in the eBooks you are buying and realize there is no added value from all that staffing because eBooks are considered LOW priority to most traditional publishers.
Sorry but two different conversations are going on here in my head and I am getting confused although I am all for legitimizing self publishing and with the current hunks of shit that trade publishers are providing as their ebook products it is all relative to what shows up on the Kindle anyway you idiot pig man so including Self Publishing views once it has been determined what is expected from a successfully self published author and what he needs to provide his customers beyond the one size fits all deal at Lulu is reasonable.
And 99 cent eBooks might work for them since they do not invest so much up front really. They are not running a staff of editors or graphic artist or any other professional people supposedly providing services that will make their eBook products better someday soon yeah really they will you just keep waiting for that to happen piggy. Even if those self published products currently are low quality and not worth even 99 cents.
Jesus there is no reality here is there? The Self Publishers are right and OMG! maybe with current eBooks looking like they do they are worth only 99 cents at most really. I need another break. Yeah piggy run from the facts you fool!
See this is what I get for getting into these conversations with myself more abuse… AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Tags: eBook Commentary
Amber Green wrote,
Many of the .99 books you’re looking at are backlist books that have gone through a normal ephemeral’s life cycle and become the ebook equivalent of the bargains at the used paperback store.
Others are short stories, for which .99 is a fair price.
A few are temporarily priced at .99. They’re on sale, like the apples for .25 apiece you occasionally see as a tool to get people to walk in the door of the store. And some are priced that way pretty much just to get more readers, who will in future recognize the author’s name.
Then there are the ones you’re talking about.
Link | April 18th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
Well you are brave Amber Green very very brave to jump into this discussion but I think you correct. It sort of depends on the content of the eBook but also the work done to make that eBook fit format requirements and be easy to buy and all those thing small ePubs do for us.
I think things would be better for many customers if Amber Quill or Samhain or Liquid Silver were involved though.
Honest products with honest hand made value. Maybe there should be a hand made eBook sign of quality or something for these brands. That addresses what these ePubs are doing for their customers differently and why it is of value to a customer looking for some value for their money.
Link | April 18th, 2011 at 4:08 pm