Seven years of ebook pricing data

Last October, Dean Wesley Smith wrote an interesting blog post on the subject of pricing. As an indie writer (or really, as a small business owner in general), pricing is one of those things that’s constantly on my mind. Pricing too high can be fatal for any business, but pricing too low can be a terrible mistake as well.

Dean Wesley Smith’s pricing strategy basically went like this:

Novels

$3.99 to $6.99
Price according to genre, not length
Romance on the lower end
Mystery on the higher end
SF&F in the middle

Short Stories

$1.99 to $3.99
Price according to length, not genre
$1.99 for under 3k words
$2.99 for 3k to 10k words
$3.99 for 10k to 20k words
Over 20k words price as a novel

From November until now, I’ve basically followed this strategy, with a few tweaks for short stories. Under 1k words, I’ve priced at $.99, and between 3k and 20k words, I’ve priced at $2.99. It’s only at 30k words that I’ve priced my books as novels.

This isn’t my first time experimenting with prices. I’ve been publishing since 2011, and have all of the sales reports and other data in one form or another. So last week, I decided to crunch that data and compare it with the last four months.

Genesis Earth is my first novel, and the book on which I have the most data. It’s a 70k word YA science fiction novel.

Crunching the data, I found that on average, the book performed best when priced at $3.99, with a few outliers at $2.99. However, most of those outliers are from 2011, before Kindle Unlimited or KDP Select, and before the book had fallen off of the 90 day cliff. Excluding the first two quarters of 2011, those outliers fall away.

Bringing Stella Home is the first book in the Gaia Nova series, and the book for which I have the most data that is also part of a series. It is a 110k word space opera novel.

Interestingly, the book appears to perform differently as a standalone than it does as part of a series. As a standalone, it appears to perform best at $4.99, but the series as a whole performs best when it’s priced at $3.99.

By the way, I tend to price all the Gaia Nova books at the same price point, so except for $.99 and $1.49, it’s fair to assume that all the books share the same price as Bringing Stella Home for any given datapoint.

Interestingly, the data tend to confirm the results of an ebook pricing survey I sent out to my email list about a year ago. The results are pictured above. More than half of respondents said that they were only willing to pay $3.99 or less for an ebook from an author they trust, and more than 80% weren’t willing to pay more than $2.99 for an unknown author.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough pricing data for my novellas and short novels (under 50k words) to draw conclusions for any other price points besides $.99 and $2.99. Obviously, the $2.99 price point performs vastly better than $.99. There’s a little more nuance than that when it comes to series pricing, but I’m keeping that data close to the chest.

I have yet to crunch the data for my short stories. When I do, that will probably be the subject of another blog post.

From these results, it appears that $3.99 is the sweet spot, both for series and for standalone novels. The data from the last three months are not included in the graphs, but from what I’ve managed to gather my books do not perform as well when I use Dean Wesley Smith’s pricing strategy. It was worth trying out as an experiment, but four months during the prime bookselling time of the year is enough to conclude that it doesn’t work, at least for my books and my readership.

Here’s the pricing strategy I’ll be using from now on:

Novels (over 50k words)

$4.99 to $5.99 for frontlist and new releases
$3.99 for backlist
99¢ and free for promotions

Novellas and Short Novels (10k to 50k words)

$2.99 for frontlist and backlist
99¢ and free for promotions

Short stories (under 10k words)

I have no idea. Still need to figure that out.

Early January Update

The holidays are over. Blergh.

I don’t generally do well when my routine gets broken up by outside forces, which is why this blog has fallen by the wayside for the last week or so. I’m also not very good at creating structure in my life where none exists, so during times like the holidays I don’t tend to do very well. This is definitely a skill that I need to work on.

In any case, the holidays are over, which means it’s time to get back to work. Thank goodness!

I am about 10,000 words from finishing my current WIP, An Empire in Disarray. With the work on my friends’ basement finished and my roommate starting school in Salt Lake today, there shouldn’t be any more interruptions between now and the end of next week. This bodes well.

When that’s done, I’ll jump right into work on Victors in Liberty. I’ve got to admit, there are other projects I’d really like to work on right now, but finishing Sons of the Starfarers takes priority.

The series was supposed to be finished way back in 2015. But I underestimated the volume of work I’d taken on—and that was before I got a girlfriend. I fell behind on my writing as the relationship got really serious, and then we broke up, which didn’t help with productivity either.

Long story short, I did a lot of things wrong back in 2014. But I learned from my mistakes, and I think my books are better because of it. So instead of finishing up Sons of the Starfarers in 2015, I’m finishing it now in 2018. And then I’m moving on to other projects.

Edenfall is at the top of that list. It’s been years since I started the Genesis Earth trilogy, which is another ball that I’ve dropped. Genesis Earth does stand alone, but I’ve been promising to finish the trilogy since I published it in 2011, and judging from the reviews (as well as the slow but remarkably steady trickle of sales), this is a WIP that deserves to get priority.

One thing I’m really trying to do this year is to get better at structuring things: my writing, my publishing and marketing efforts, my daily routine, etc. Towards that end, I’ve put together a publishing schedule for 2018. Here it is as it stands at the beginning of the new year:

JANUARY — Patriots in Retreat (Sons of the Starfarers, Book 6)
FEBRUARY — The Janus Anomaly: A Short Story
MARCH — A Queen in Hiding (Sons of the Starfarers, Book 7)
APRIL — Time and Space in Amish Country: A Short Story
MAY — An Empire in Disarray (Sons of the Starfarers, Book 8)
JUNE — Lizzie-99XT: A Short Story
JULY — Victors in Liberty (Sons of the Starfarers, Book 9)
AUGUST — Edenfall (Genesis Earth Trilogy, Book 2)
SEPTEMBER — Sholpan
OCTOBER — The Sword Bearer (The Twelfth Sword Trilogy, Book 2)
NOVEMBER — In the Beginning: A Short Story
DECEMBER — Gunslinger to the Galaxy (Gunslingers Trilogy, Book 2)

Lots of book 2s and finishing series. I suppose you could say this is the year where I start to finish what I’ve started.

And while the schedule may seem a bit daunting, the first four books are already ready to go, with Patriots in Retreat and A Queen in Hiding already up for preorder. Of the ones that are left, half are already written. So even though it seems ambitious, it’s actually quite doable, even if something crazy happens and I end up eloping to Mongolia before the end of the summer.

So that’s what I’m up to. I’ll get back to blogging as I can, but my first priority is writing, followed closely by publishing. Lots of behind the scenes stuff happening which I don’t have time to get into right now.

Take care, and thanks for reading!

Joe

Late November Update

Is it time for another update? Why yes, I suppose it is.

Sons of the Starfarers is coming along quite well. Book 6, Patriots in Retreat, is up for preorder right now with a release date of January 19th. My editor just got back with the edits for book 7, A Queen in Hiding. Haven’t had a chance to look through those yet, but I will in the near future. Come January, that book will be up for preorder as well, with a release date of March 16th.

Right now, I’m writing book 8, An Empire in Disarray, with a hard deadline of 22 December (just before Christmas). Normally, I’d be panicking right now, but I’m trying out a new outlining method that seems to be working quite well. If everything works out the way I hope, I’ll finish up book 9 sometime in February and move on to other projects.

Looking back, it was a mistake to set out to write a nine-book series before knowing how the first one would do. If I could go back to 2009 and do it all over again, I’d stick to trilogies, where the first book stands well enough alone that I can abandon the other two books if it doesn’t gain much traction. That’s going to be my modus operandi from here on out.

So here are the trilogies I need to finish:

Genesis Earth Trilogy

This one has been outstanding for a long time. The first book did much better than I was expecting, and while its popularity has fallen off in recent years, it still gets very good reviews. For a first novel, I’m honestly surprised that this book has done as well as it has.

The second book, Edenfall, is still on the back burner for now. Partially written, partially outlined, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of months to get it done when I finally sit down to finish it.

As for book three, The Stars of Redemption, I have no idea because I haven’t even outlined it yet. Perhaps that’s what I need to get the ball rolling: outline the last book, so I know what has to happen in the second book. In any case.

Gunslingers Trilogy

Gunslinger to the Stars hasn’t done as well as I would have liked, but I enjoy this universe so much that I’m going to finish the trilogy if for no other reason than the fun of it. I’ve already written the first four or five chapters of Gunslinger to the Galaxy, and it’s coming along swimmingly. In fact, I’ll probably go right back to it after finishing up Sons of the Starfarers and call it a vacation. Expect to see more Jane Carter soon!

The Twelfth Sword Trilogy

I am super super excited to finish this trilogy—which is good, because the way the first book ends, it’s definitely not a standalone. Definitely not. Haven’t formally outlined it yet, but there’s a ton of stuff I’m going to throw into the second book, The Sword Bearer. Mercenaries, sorcerors, death mages, winged cataphracts, desert ruins, and mountain strongholds—it’s going to be great fun!

The Outworlds Trilogy

For a while now, I’ve been playing around with the idea of condensing all of Star Wanderers into a novel and then turning it into a trilogy. The first book will basically be made up of bits and pieces from all of the Star Wanderers novellas, spliced together to make a coherent novel. In particular, I’d like to expand on Noemi’s viewpoint and trim out some (or a lot) of the extraneous stuff that made the series drag on. Basically, turn it into less of a sci-fi romance and more of a classic space opera.

I’ve already started the sequel, Children of the Starry Sea, though I haven’t gotten past the first chapter. Where Star Wanderers is a series of novellas, though, Children of the Starry Sea is definitely a proper novel, and it would probably work a lot better to frame it as a trilogy than anything else.

I suppose it’s a bit like how Orson Scott Card turned a bunch of his early short stories into The Worthing Saga, which in my opinion is his very best book. I won’t unpublish any of the old Star Wanderers stuff, but I may just let it fade into obscurity as I push the other stuff.

These are the books that are on my mind. I’ve got to be honest: Sons of the Starfarers feels a bit like a ball and chain, but I’ve committed to finishing it and I’ll do my best to finish it well.

On the publishing front, there’s so much stuff I want to do that I’m having trouble keeping up with it all. My main goal is to get to 10k subscribers on my email list. Currently, I’m just shy of 4k. InstaFreebie has been hugely useful for that, but I’ve got to try other strategies as well. One of those strategies involves a new signup incentive, so if you’re already signed up for my email list, I’ve got a surprise for you soon.

So much stuff going on. I swear, this is the best depiction of what it’s like to be an indie author:

Beginning of September Update

It’s September, my favorite month of the year! Maybe I’ll revisit that post in a blast from the past or something. So many reasons why September is awesome.

Things are going well on the writing front. I’ve switched up my daily routine to make more writing time, and it’s working well so far. My alarm goes off at 5:45 am (just after oh-dark-thirty) and I write for about an hour before heading off to my part time job. I’ve found that I tend to write a lot more when I start first thing in the day, so the earlier I can start, the better.

I won’t bore you with the rest of my routine, unless you want me to write a post about it. There’s a bunch of interesting lifestyle tweaks I’ve been trying out, like reading a couple chapters from one of the books I’m reading as soon as I get back from work in the afternoon, in order to refill the creative well and not get caught in a Youtube / general internet trap. Stuff like that.

My current WIP is A Queen in Hiding (Sons of the Starfarers, Book 7) which is proving to be a surprisingly difficult book. It’s definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve ever written, and that’s saying a lot. In Captives in Obscurity, Reva and Isaac get assimilated into a hive mind, and things only get crazier from there.

Sometimes, stories come really easy, almost like they spring fully formed from the mind. Other times, I’ve found I have to throw out almost the entire first draft before I discover the story.

The weird thing is that it has nothing to do with actual book length. Stars of Blood and Glory and Outworlder are totally different lengths, but they both came out almost perfect in the first draft. However, almost all of the Star Wanderers novellas took multiple drafts filled with stuff that had to be cut. Heart of the Nebula took years to finish, and I had to throw out multiple characters and subplots. I struggled for a long time with Genesis Earth, until I decided to throw the whole thing out and start with a blank page. The book was finished less than four weeks later.

The holy grail, of course, is to write a perfect book in four to six weeks (or less!) every time I set off to start a new one. But as awesome as it would be to barf rainbows and poop gold, all of those things sadly remain out of reach.

My goal at this point is to publish the last four Sons of the Starfarers books in 2018, two months apart from each other. Ideally, I’d like to have the next one up for preorder in time for the previous one’s release. It’s going to take some coordination, but I already have all the covers, which leaves just the writing and editing (metadata and formatting doesn’t take more than a day).

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen unless I can get A Queen in Hiding ready to go by December. So that’s what I’m trying to do.

Gunslinger to the Galaxy is on hold for now, though so far it’s coming along very nicely. I should be able to pick it up and finish without too much trouble. Edenfall is also on hold, for how much longer I really don’t know. Before the end of 2018, I’d like to publish either the one or the other, but publishing them both is probably a bit of a stretch.

Also, I haven’t even started The Sword Bearer yet (second book in the Twelfth Sword Trilogy), though I have lots of great ideas for it. Since The Sword Keeper is coming out in just a couple weeks, I should probably get on that.

On the publishing side, I dropped the ball a bit in August. It took so much energy to get The Sword Keeper ready for publication that I totally spaced publishing anything. I do have a bunch of shorts that are nearing the end of the submissions gauntlet, and some bundles that can go up too.

I don’t sell many print books, but I want to get print versions of all of my books up, including short stories. That’s going to be an ongoing project for a while. I also want to put up audiobook versions eventually, but it’s going to take some time to get that ball rolling. However, it has moved up the priority list.

That’s pretty much it. So much stuff I want to do, so little time to do it. Time, money, or youth: you can only pick two (and one of them isn’t your choice).

Take care, and thanks for reading!

All of my books and stories, in series order

A friend of mine recently asked me to give him a list of all my books in series order. That was just the kick in the pants I needed to put this page together. For your convenience, I’m putting it up as a blog post too. The links to all the book pages will appear on the series page as soon as I can get around to it.

Joe Vasicek

Gaia Nova

The Gaia Nova books are all mid-sized novels (75k to 110k words). It is a far-future space opera series that takes place in a galactic empire long after Earth has been lost to legend. They can be read in any order, but they take place in the same universe with recurring characters. They are listed in the order in which they were published. Heart of the Nebula is a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home.

Bringing Stella Home
Desert Stars
Stars of Blood and Glory
Heart of the Nebula
Mercenary Savior (forthcoming)
Empress of the Last Free Stars (forthcoming)

Star Wanderers

The Star Wanderers books are novellas (15k to 35k). They take place in the same universe as Gaia Nova one thousand years earlier. The first four books are linear, while the last four books are parallaxes of the first four, from the point of view of the side characters.

Outworlder
Fidelity
Sacrifice
Homeworld
Dreamweaver
Benefactor
Reproach
Deliverance

The Jeremiah Chronicles (Omnibus 1-4)
Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus 5-6)

Sons of the Starfarers

The Sons of the Starfarer books are short novels (35k to 45k words) that take place in the same universe as Star Wanderers, with a few recurring minor characters from those books. It is a linear series.

Brother in Exile
Comrades in Hope
Strangers in Flight
Friends in Command
Captives in Obscurity
Patriots in Retreat (forthcoming)
A Queen in Hiding (forthcoming)
An Empire in Disarray (forthcoming)
Victors in Liberty (forthcoming)

Sons of the Starfarers (Omnibus 1-3)

Gunslinger Trilogy

These books are all short to mid-sized novels (50k to 90k words). They take place about 40 years in the future, after Earth makes contact with the galactics.

Gunslinger to the Stars
Gunslinger to the Galaxy (forthcoming)
Gunslinger to Earth (forthcoming)

The Twelfth Sword Trilogy

These epic fantasy books are all mid-sized to long novels (85k words and up).

The Sword Keeper (forthcoming)
The Sword Bearer (forthcoming)
The Sword Mistress (forthcoming)

Genesis Earth Trilogy

These are all mid-sized novels (about 70k words) that take place in the near to mid-future.

Genesis Earth
Edenfall (forthcoming)
The Stars of Redemption (forthcoming)

Short Stories and Novelettes

Below are all of my short stories and novelettes, in the order in which they were published. If they first appeared in a magazine or anthology, I’ve included that in parentheses.

Decision LZ1527 (Leading Edge Magazine, December 2009)
Memoirs of a Snowflake
A Hill on Which to Die
Starchild
L’enfer, c’est la Solitude (Perehilion SF, March 2016)
The Curse of the Lifewalker (Sci Phi Journal, June 2016)
The Gettysburg Paradox
Utahraptors at Dawn
Welcome to Condescension
Killing Mister Wilson
My Name is For My Friends
Jane Carter of Earth and the Rescue that Never Was
The Open Source Time Machine

J.M. Wight

Short Stories

Worlds Without Number

So! It’s been an eventful month. Hard to believe that June is over already. So much to do, so little time.

On Friday, I finally finished Patriots in Retreat. Needs a quick revision pass before it’s ready to be published, but that shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. For now, it’s on the back burner while I move on to the next book in the series, A Queen in Hiding. Should be a lot of fun.

I want to finish off these Sons of the Starfarers books quickly so I can move on to other projects, like Edenfall and the next Gunslingers book. The important thing right now is to build momentum. I want to be writing at least 2k words a day, which shouldn’t be too difficult to do, provided I guard my writing time from interruption.

There was a lot of life interruptions in the last couple of weeks. My truck’s transmission went the way of all the Earth, and I need to replace the catalytic converter as well. It’s almost worth it to buy a new one, but I already know the problems with this vehicle so it’s probably better to keep it. Definitely stressful, though.

My blogging experiment in June was actually a lot of fun. At the same time, engagement didn’t increase notably, so I think I’ll scale back to three or four posts a week, rather than posting daily.

Lots and lots of work on the publishing side of things. I’ve got a backlog of tasks that need my attention. Fortunately, they’re logged in such a way that I’ve been able to keep up with all the important and urgent stuff. The 4th of July vacation should be an excellent opportunity to catch up with the rest.

The deadline for my next WIP is July 29th. I’m going to need to double my daily output in order to hit it, but that’s a very doable goal. Just in case, I’ve given myself a two week buffer before starting the next one, but I’m going to do all I can to avoid going over it. Any extra time is for short stories, and there’s a bunch of them that I’ve been waiting to write.

That just about does it for now. Onward and upward!

Free & 99¢ books for June!

Hey guys, just a heads up about this month’s free and 99¢ books. If you’re looking for a way to get into my books, this is a great place to start!

Free

Nothing Found

99¢

Genesis Earth

$14.99eBook: free through August 14th!Audiobook: $4.99

Author: Joe Vasicek
Series: Genesis Earth Trilogy
Genres: Action & Adventure, Alien Contact, Alien Contact, FICTION, General, JUVENILE FICTION, Science Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Space Exploration, Space Opera, Time Travel, Time Travel
Tag: 2011 Release

Michael and Terra never thought that they would be the first human beings to set foot on an alien world. What they discover forces them to question their deepest beliefs about what it means to be human.

More info →

$1 off the ebook with coupon code: BUY DIRECT

FREE ebook when you buy the audiobook direct!

FREE ebook when you buy the paperback direct!

Thoughts on Genesis Earth

So I finished rereading Genesis Earth, in preparation for writing the sequel, and I have to say it was not what I expected.

It wasn’t disappointing. There were some annoying ticks that I noticed, like too many said bookisms or turns of phrase that I wouldn’t have written today. Also, the book was a little wordy or slow in parts, compared to my more recent writing. But those were relatively minor issues. The story was quite solid. I’d actually forgotten some of the plot twists, so it was fun to watch them unfold. A bit like reading the book for the first time.

But one thing above all else struck home: the person who wrote Genesis Earth is not the person I am today. I doubt that that person would have been able to write Gunslinger to the Stars. And if I were to go back and write Genesis Earth from scratch, it would be a completely different book in every meaningful way.

It’s bizarre. When you’re caught up in day-to-day life, you never really get a sense that you’re changing. And yet, the truth is that we’re always changing, hopefully for the best, but not always. It’s impossible to experience life and still remain unchanged.

I also got a sense of this when I finished the 2.0 draft for The Sword Keeper. Perhaps it was just me reliving my own memories from the times when I wrote it, but the first half of the book seemed very different from the second half. I wrote the first half while living abroad in Georgia, and the second half years later here in Utah.

There’s a couple of things I’ve taken away from this experience.

First, it’s not always a good idea to put a WIP on the back burner. By the time you come back to it, you may not be capable of writing it exactly the way you first envisioned it. Better to push through whatever’s blocking you and strike while the iron is hot.

Second, at anything you want to do well, it’s important to always strive to improve. Even when you’re at the top of your game (and I’m certainly not at the top of mine—not yet anyway), if you’re not always trying to do better, to learn and to grow, you’ll fall off really fast.

In reality, there is no “top,” because nothing is ever static. Improvement is a lifelong process, because the moment you stop improving is the moment you start getting worse.

One thing I really need to work on is writing every day. In the past, when I’ve been working on revisions, or prewriting, or getting a book ready for publication, I’ve slacked off on this. But the truth is that writing new words is the best way to sharpen your writing skills, and that writing every day is the best way to always keep them sharp. And there’s always something to write, even if it’s just a short story. If I could write a short story every week for a year…

So yeah, lots to think on. And I’ve got a few ideas for Edenfall as well. But first, before I move to Iowa next week, I need to get Gunslinger to the Stars ready for publication. Harder, better, faster, stronger—our work is never over!

Recovering…

This sinus infection has really been kicking my butt. I’m running at about 70% right now, which is better than last week, but still sub-optimal.

A lot of stuff is happening in the next couple of weeks. First, I got the edits back for Gunslinger to the Stars, which means that it should go up for pre-order sometime early next month. I’m also rereading Genesis Earth in preparation for writing book two, Edenfall. If things go well, that should be out by the end of the year.

At the same time, I’m moving out of my apartment soon, probably within two weeks. My landlady is selling her house, which means that the mother-in-law apartment where I’m currently living is not the best arrangement. Also, I just discovered some major mold issues. If it weren’t for this sinus infection, I’d already be in process of moving, but the illness has delayed things. Need to work out a plan.

Then there’s the half-foot of snow that just got dumped on us here in Utah. Joy.

Point is, it’s probably going to be a while before you hear from me again. I’ll try to keep you guys updated, but no guarantees. I’m still writing, though, and should have some more stuff coming out soon. Next month’s release will probably be another short story, since they’re easy to put out, but my next novel, Gunslinger to the Stars, will be available soon.

Sick, sick, sick

So Thursday morning, I came back from the gym after running 2.5 miles on the treadmill and promptly fell asleep for half an hour. Later that evening, I went for a walk and found myself out of breath after climbing a flight of stairs. For some reason, I was having difficulty getting air into my lungs. No other symptoms, though, so I chalked it up to the inversion and took an alka seltzer to clear things up.

Friday, I woke up with a complete lack of desire to go anywhere or to do anything. The day was mostly a wash, though I did get up to Salt Lake to see my sister who was attending Rootstech 2017. On the way, I started coming down with a mild headache. Also, minor congestion.

Saturday was when the plague finally struck me.

Congestion, massive headache, unbelievable chills—the whole works. I spent most of the day in bed, with a blanket, a quilt, and a down comforter all piled on top of me, and I still didn’t feel warm enough. Drank lots of water and took a bunch of medicine, but I was still in a pretty bad way through most of Sunday.

As things stand right now, I’ve still got a headache and I’m coughing up all kinds of nastiness, but it seems that the worst has passed. Still popping vitamin Cs and drinking piss-tons of water, which isn’t fun, but at least I’m getting better.

No idea how that’s going to impact things this week. Hopefully, I’m back on my feet and writing again relatively soon, but that may or may not be the case.

Either way, there’s still a lot of prewriting to do before I can start my next WIP, Edenfall. I need to reread Genesis Earth and really immerse myself in that universe. I also plan to look over the reviews and spend a day or two picking over tvtropes like a menu. If I can line everything up the way I want to, I should be able to write a really clean first draft and publish it before the end of the year.

No promises, though. I’m still not sure when this sickness is going to go away. Hopefully soon.