Self-published? Wondering how to set your pricing?
Smashwords recently conducted a survey. They found that cheaper is NOT always better.
Books that sold for $3.99 faired best. They outpaced similar books available for $2.99.
Why? It’s likely about perception. A book that costs a little more signals that it is worth a little more…and possibly a lot more.
But don’t go crazy. HIgher price points than $3.99 did not fair as well.
Nowadays, authors know they have to hone their manuscripts as near to perfection as possible to enhance their chances of being picked up by a publisher…or if they’re self-publishing, to enhance their appeal to readers.
Writer’s Resource was founded on the idea that authors should help authors. Part of that is helping with the financial investment. Occasionally the market is surveyed to ensure that costs are at the lower to middle range for comperable levels of experience and services.
This year, the Freelance Editor’s Association found that standard costs across the market are $45-65/hour based on the experience of the editor. A 70,000-word manuscript could take 56 hours for developmental editing. The result is a fee between $2,520 and $18,200. Copy editing, a much lighter form of editing, averaged $25-50/hour for a fee range between $840 and $7,000.
That’s quite an investment.After twenty years in business, this shop maintains price structures that are on the lower and middle ends of the ranges quoted above. The higher level of editing used by the association is also divided into separate services called developmental assistance, consulting, rewriting and line editing.
Breaking things down ensures that each client is able to select only those items they truly feel will help…and the different options help them keep to a budget!
Standard copy editing ranges from $2.50 per page to $3.95 per page. Line editing ranges from $4.00 per page to $7.50 per page. Line editing includes everything offered under copy editing, of course.
Developmental work and rewriting fees are set based on each individual manuscript’s needs; generally, they are higher than the highest level of line editing.
Consulting is performed on an hourly basis.
Whether you’re aiming for a publisher’s attention, self-publishing or tackling both options at once, call or email for your editorial and developmental needs.
BookStats reports that e-book sales in fiction rose 42% in 2012 to a total value of $1.8 billion.
Nonfiction e-book sales grew 22% to $484.2 million.
E-book sales in children’s and YA categories increased a whopping 117% to $469.2 million.
E-books now account for 20% of publishers’ revenues.
Net revenues for publishers are also up slightly. The industry is recovering. If you have a manuscript that’s been lying in a drawer somewhere collecting dust, it’s time to pull it out and start pitching!
The work I offer through Writer’s Resource covers a range of age groups and genres including juvenile works. Juvenile is defined as anything from children’s picture books through young adult (YA).
Authors are often surprized to learn two things…that they should have a submissions packet for their juvenile works, and that agents will represent fiction and nonfiction targeting younger readers.
Fifteen years ago, the landscape was much different. It was much more difficult to locate agents who represented works for young readers outside the academic market. Today, things have changed so much that juvenile works are well respected…and agents want to represent the works whether they’re for the academic market, the mainstream reader, or both.
It used to be that when a client asked me to put together a list of agents for their juvenile works, the research turned up only a handful of agents. Nowadays, it is common for those lists to include dozens of names…often a hundred or more.
If your project has a wide target, consider adding an agent to the team of individuals you work with to help you along your publishing journey.
Before the collapse of printed newspapers, owners could expect a 30% profit margin from their businesses. Then came the e-revolution.
Times change, and even the revolution can generate good things. After flailing around a bit to try new things like e-publishing, newspapers have returned to print.
Shocking, I know. But it’s working. Now owners can expect about a 10% margin…still very, very good in terms of a business model. Many of the bigger papers that had gone out of print or to e-models are returning to print version.
This is great news for writers. Because hand-in-hand with the rebirth of newspapers is the idea that papers, above all other news forms, are reliable, consistent, and provide quality.
Check around your local area to see what opportunities might have sprung up out of the ashes. And good luck!
Here’s a question I get all the time: How do I know if I’ve written an autobiography or a memoir?
The answer is simple: An autobiography covers pretty much your entire life. A memoir covers a specific aspect of your life (like a lifelong battle with lukemia) or a specific time period (a marriage that fell apart and the triumph built out of the life post-divorce).
Most people nowadays are writing memoirs. A few who have led spectacular lives (yes, ordinary people can live spectacular lives) are writing autobiographies.
Be sure to categorize your work correctly when you approach agents and publishers. You’ll also want readers to know exactly what they’re getting if you self-publish. The answer is simple yet applying the knowledge is important for your pitch and your marketing efforts.
Here are a few figures from the success of World Book Night, which was April 23.
130 million people reached through their marketing efforts, up from 35 million for the first year.
607,000 visitors to WBN’s Facebook page during the week of April 22.
Celebrate reading! It is alive and well!
Check out this link to advice from famous writers.
Here’s a link to a visual montage about the power of books.
Agent David Haviland of the Andrew Lownie Lit Agency seeks all genres of fiction, particularly crime, thrillers, and historical fiction.
Word count: what an issue. You’ve spent months or years working on a book and now all the agent wants to know is, “How many words?”
There are important reasons why you should pay attention to word count.
First, each category and genre has an average length. This goes far beyond novels vs. novellas. It’s about how long is too long for a romance novel, how short is too short for a spy thriller, what’s the average for a young adult novel, how much leeway does a work of literary fiction have? The answers are specific to each category. Writer’s Resource can help you determine if your book is appropriately long.
Second, first-time authors (authors who have not been traditionally published) are held to different standards than other authors. Generally, a first-time author should never go above 100,000 words. Certain genres like some subcategories of thrillers, historic novels, and certain types of other fiction and nonfiction books can run 110,000 to 115,000…but anything above that is pushing the boundary too far.
Why? Because print costs rise exponentially above 100,000 words. Publishers will sink money into marketing you and your books with the hopes that it will build an audience. Your second or your third book will be much less restricted by length if your first one is successful. But until you have that proven fan base, publishers want to cut their risks.
Cut your risk of rejection by knowing what’s expected of your manuscript…first-time author or not!
Chuck Sambuchino, who writes for Writer’s Digest, offers three primary reasons why manuscripts are rejected by agents:
First…the story they’re reading is in a genre or category outside of what they handle. Form rejection. The second reason they say no is because of poor writing skills: grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. Form rejection. The third and most common reason that good writers get rejected is that their story just plain isn’t ready yet. In other words, it’s good—but simply being good doesn’t cut it. A piece of fiction has to be great to catch an agent’s eye.
Each of these issues has a solution.
First, research the agent before submitting. There are a host of resources out there, including the annual guides to agents and book publishers. Always go to the agent’s website to look up information about that agent. While you’re there, check out their fellow agents to see if someone else is actually a better fit. And be sure you know your manuscript’s category! Know not just the primary category but the subcategory. If it’s a true crossover (and not just a thriller with a love story embedded in the plot, for example), know which categories it targets. If you state the category in the query and it doesn’t match the sample pages, you’re going to be rejected.
The second issue is easy to fix. Work with an editor to clean up the manuscript or to do the deeper line editing some manuscripts require. Do not rely on your next door neighbor who is a college professor…professors live inside academia, and the world of academia is insular and separated from standard publishing by a thick brick wall. Do not ask your high school English teacher or a journalist to edit your memoir, business book or novel…they will utilize a more formal style that turns off agents, publishers and readers. Do work with a professional–a fellow novelist, memoir author or business book writer, a freelance editor, or someone you trust from your writer’s group.
The third challenge might require more work from you. Get feedback from authors in a writer’s group or a reader you trust. Ask for conceptual ideas. Don’t let someone get bogged down in editing your spelling errors. Ask for the good stuff: Is the plot exciting? Which milestones don’t track well? Does the suspense constantly rise? Are the characters developed well enough? Writer’s Resource offers written analyses at several price points that can help you with this step.
Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency recently told Writer’s Digest magazine that
About 60% of my list comes from unsolicited queries.”
Sixty percent is a strong number. Since so many agents these days want only the query letter or a query letter plus a book proposal (the two items authors use to pitch fiction and nonfiction), be sure to hone both those items.
Yes, a query and a book proposal can be the toughest things you’ll ever write…especially if you don’t have a background in publishing, marketing, or the entertainment industry. So take a class. Get feedback from other writers. Do whatever is necessary to make your initial (and possibly your only) contact with an agent stand out from the rest.
Traditionally bookstores get 40% of the list price of a book. They have overhead to pay from that money in addition to earning a profit. Remember that they rent or own the storefront, they have employees to pay, and they have utility bills that arrive every month.
Don’t be surprised if a store asks for 45% so they can run special promotions.
Be flexible. Consider whether sales can help your brand by getting your name out there even if the store discount means you make very little profit yourself.
Recently e-books have been getting a lot of attention. Big publishers who were slow to enter the game now have as much as 27% of their profits coming from e-books. The market increased 129% over the last 18 months, and it shows no signs of shrinking. So, how do you take advantage of this as an author?
Consider the top and bottom parts of the range first. Some sites allow you to charge up to $199 for a single e-book. That’s great if you have specialized information but for most books, that’s really out of bounds.
Ten bucks is considered the magical touchstone…as in, don’t price an e-book more than that.
Free…well, that’s not really the bottom. It’s zero, so we’re going to bypass that as an option.
$0.99 is the true bottom. Reserve this lowest price point for special promotions that you advertise heavily and that run only for a short timeline, say, a single day.
$1.99 is a nice price point for longer term sales or sales that you don’t market as heavily.
That leaves you with a nice everyday price range between $2.99 and $9.99.
Writer's Resource/Sunspot Lit 