Crime Writer Makes a Killing With 99 Cent E-Books 445
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Joe Konrath has an interesting interview with independent writer John Locke who currently holds the coveted #1 spot in the Amazon Top 100 and has sold just over 350,000 downloads on Kindle of his 99 cent books since January 1st of this year, which, with a royalty rate of 35%, is an annual income well over $500k. Locke says that 99 cents is the magic number and adds that when he lowered the price of his book The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, he started selling 20 times as many copies — about 800 a day, turning his loss lead into his biggest earner. 'These days the buying public looks at a $9.95 eBook and pauses. It's not an automatic sale,' says Locke. 'And the reason it's not is because the buyer knows when an eBook is priced ten times higher than it has to be. And so the buyer pauses. And it is in this pause—this golden, sweet-scented pause—that we independent authors gain the advantage, because we offer incredible value.' Kevin Kelly predicts that within 5 years all digital books will cost 99 cents. 'I don't think publishers are ready for how low book prices will go,' writes Kelly. 'It seems insane, dangerous, life threatening, but inevitable.'"
and so society dies out (Score:1, Interesting)
The race has already reached the bottom. Capitalism has reached its pathological limit: selling low priced crap to as many people as possible.
The way out is socialism. Readers will disagree because they're still on the winning end of having shafted their fellow man. But there's only so much people will take.
Re:Math fail? (Score:4, Interesting)
>>> has sold just over 350,000 downloads on Kindle of his 99 cent books since January 1st of this year, which, with a royalty rate of 35%, is an annual income well over $500k
Erm.... That doesn't seem right
Part of that is the old printed way of selling books would mean:
99 cents retail
33 cents to retailer
33 cents (roughly half of wholesale price) cost of printing
33 cents to publisher
Of the 33 cents to the publisher, on a good day an exceptional author might get a bit over 10% royalties. More likely we'll round down to 3 cents per copy.
So at 35% royalty at Amazon to make 1/2 mil he had to sell about 1.4 million copies total.
Given that he made about half a mill selling at Amazon, how much would he have made from a conventional publisher? Well. 1.4 million times 3 cents each, eh about 43 grand.
Hmm 500 grand at amazon vs 43 grand at a conventional publisher (if paperback books could somehow be sold in that business model at 99 cents a piece) Thats the part that probably doesn't seem right to you.
Re:$500k? (Score:-1, Interesting)
I've read about this guy in the Economist.
Basically he started selling his book at $2.99, dropped it to 99 cents when it started sliding to the bottom of the Best selling chart, raised it to $2.99 when it peaked, dropped it to 99 when it moved to the bottom, and repeat.
So his total earnings are a combination of 0.99 and 2.99 mixed together, as he played with the price to maximize his profits. He's a very good businessman.
Re:and so society dies out (Score:3, Interesting)
Well.. consider for a moment what is 'more social':
Situation A: A single person - the author - becomes a semi-millionaire.
Situation B: A multitude of people - the author, the people working at the publisher, the people working at the printing press, the people working in distribution, and so forth and so on - receive a reasonable, but not stellar, income.
The pricing in itself is not the mechanism, of course - but it is the catalyst.
As the author points out, soon every book will be about $1. That's great, but are people going to buy 10 times as many books as a result? There's still limited time to actually read those books, which is generally the real barrier (do I think this book will be rewarding enough in the time that I need to read it?) the price is secondary to that, but obviously if there's two reasonably comparable products, the cheaper one would win. So let's say optimistically that 5 times as many books would be sold. A mediocre writer (of which there are plenty) that could still make a living on $10/book is now forced to compete with great authors (of which there are few) that are selling at $1/book. If people can have a great book for $1, then why purchase a mediocre one at $10? But even if the mediocre author lowered his price to $1, why buy a mediocre book for $1 when you can have a great one for $1?
Although I don't think it'll be quite such a killer to the industry as far as non-stellar authors goes (plenty of people still read novellas as it is), there's certainly a potential for consequence that will separate the wheat from the chaff - but what do we, as a society, do with that chaff?
The common answer is "Not my problem". But isn't it?