Book Pricing

It’s come to my attention that the paper versions of Shadow City and Blood Winter have now become much more expensive. As in, around $22 dollars. I feel like I need to address this. First, you should know that I don’t have any say in pricing. I never had and doubt I ever will, unless I self-publish. It’s all up to the publisher. You might be wondering why, if the books originally priced at $7.99, why are they suddenly now almost three times that? To be honest, I’m not entirely certain. They will be available using Print on Demand (or POD) technology. I’m not sure what the costs involved in that are compared to the mass market price. It does seem strangely high to me, but again, I don’t know the ins and outs. I am just sorry that readers will be asked to pay such a high price. The price of ebooks remains quite reasonable, so that’s a positive. Unfortunately, the cost is higher to you, and also to me, insomuch as I can’t imagine a lot of these pricey books will sell.

Trade paper is obviously more expensive. These will be of a trade paper size, I believe.

I’m told that this is happening to a lot of books across the board, so a lot of writers are stuck with this pricing, though it’s the first time it’s happened to me. It also means that in time it could happen to more of my books. Anyhow, I wanted all of you to be aware of this, and also that authors have absolutely no say whatsoever in the matter. It’s entirely the publisher’s choice.

I thank each and every one of you who spend your precious money and time on my books. I endeavor to the best job I now how to do so that it’s worth it.

One Comment

  • Julianna

    Hi Diana, I literally did back of the envelope estimates when I was trying to figure out the POD price of my first indy-pubbed trade paperback. I don’t recall the exact numbers (and found an editor so still don’t have that book out :)) but I basically had to figure out not only the base POD price per book printed (which was roughly $4.80 or so for my 100K fantasy – the POD sites will tell you exactly what it’ll cost per book once you know size, number of pages, type of paper you want to use, margins, etc). Then I have to tack on what I hope to make on sales at 100% face value (let’s say 5.20 to keep the math easy), so that’s 10. Then I have to add the 30% cut Amazon will take at 100% face value, so that’s roughly 14 (at 14, I make 5 even on the book). OK – not too bad a price. But THEN I realized Amazon usually sells books at between 20-40% off full face value. So to prevent myself from literally having to pay Amazon for the privilege of selling my books if they discounted them at 40% at any point, I figured out I’d have to charge at least 15 in order to make 1.50 per book if they were selling it at 40% discount. If I actually want to make 4.00 at them selling it at 40% ,I have to make it 21.00, which is really steep (especially for an indy author). So I go back to the 15 price, figuring I make 5.70 for any copies I sell at 100% of face value, 3.60 for 20% discount, and at least make 1.50 for those selling at 40% discount.

    Given Amazon almost never sells big-5 pubbed books at less than 20% discount of face value, plus apparently is charging the big publishers for stuff like the pre-pay button, and assuming Amazon is getting a discount of roughly 30% for each copy they buy from the publisher (to keep the comparison to my indy pub simple), I can see why they rapidly come up with a 20+ dollar figure. 😐

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