Tag: Kindle Direct Publishing

New Book Pricing

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An Architecture of Encounter will be available in the next few days. I’ll make an announcement when it is, but I want to talk about pricing.

Audio: NotebookLM summary podcast of this topic.

Firstly, books cost money to print. This much is obvious. Hardcovers cost more than paperbacks. The ones with dust jackets cost more still. From a financial/economics perspective, one needs to charge more for hardcovers to compensate for the costs.

Secondly, distributors take a cut. They aren’t in business without a profit interest.

Of course, one might offer directly to the customer to cut out the distribution cost and maybe pocket all or some of the difference, which might be 40-odd per cent of the sale price – 8 from a book priced at 20, where the printer already takes, say, 8. This leaves 4 for the author.

If I were to cut out the middleman to take all of the 8 in this example, I’d likely lose most of it in shipping and handling. (I know because I’ve done this before). Of course, I could pass this expense to the buyer, but this jacks up the price from 20 to 28.

Some sellers offer free shipping, whether by exceeding some minimum order amount or through a programme such as Amazon Prime.

If I am going to eat the 8, I might as well give it to Amazon and let them handle the logistics. Business 101. Barnes and Noble has an even less favourable model as far as publishing is concerned, but they provide different offerings, so I still use them via IngramSpark.

For the record, I’ve used and considered other printers and distribution methods, but they are all more expensive to me from a total cost perspective. Part of this is simply the incremental pricing facility. I don’t want to purchase and manage inventory for 1,000 books at a time. In this case, I’d be out 8K up front. Perhaps I could get a deal and print the books at 6K for committing to a print run, but I’d still have to manage the inventory and logistics, which then takes away from my writing time. I’ve outsourced this before, but I had to pay for warehousing and a handling fee to someone to package the book – and pay for shipping (pass-through or otherwise). Amazon (KDP) is just easier, so it’s my go-to.

As for pricing, I’ve decided that my default prices will be 20 USD for paperback and 30 for hardcover. This is in contrast to a x.99 pricing scheme. I usually set my ex-US prices lower, but honestly, it depends. I try to set prices in each market with no fractional units. If the price had been ÂŁ14.97, I’ll up it to ÂŁ15, Sorry. In most cases, it will drop from ÂŁ15.23 to an even ÂŁ15. In most markets, I’ll lose margin to provide a clean-looking sales price.

As an economist, I could see that one might arbitrage (in a manner of speaking) and order from Belgium instead of France or vice versa, but I don’t expect the shekels saved would be worth the added effort.

As for bookstores, they can still purchase my titles wholesale from whatever distributor (even Amazon), so you can still support your local bookstore if that’s your ethos.

Anyway, I know I’m just wittering on, but I felt that transparency into the process might be appreciated.

NotebookLM Infographic on this topic. (Ignore the pie chart. lol)

Kindle and other eBook formats

One might think that offering a digital version would be simple, but it’s not as easy as uploading a PDF. A lot of formatting is required to fit the format. An ordinary EPUB is easier than Kindle, which relies on old technology to support its legacy devices. It doesn’t always handle images, charts, and tables nicely, and doesn’t support all fonts, so that creates more work.

Because of this, ebooks are a low priority for me, though I admit they do sell well. It’s up in the air as to whether the increased sales justify the cannibalisation of the physical media.

Audiobooks

I’ve made available a few audiobook versions. I’ve heard that these are a decent portion of many independent authors’ revenue sources, but I haven’t found this to be true. Because of this, offering them is a low priority for me. I’m not anti-digital so much as anti-negative-cost-benefit.

I mentioned recently that I create audio versions for me to review, but these are not necessarily ready for the public. Additional time must be invested in correcting pronunciation, prosody, and odd digital glitches.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Cheers.

The Indexing Abyss: A Cautionary Tale in Eight Chapters

Posted in art, fiction, philosophy, podcastTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

There, I said it.

I’m almost finished with A Language Insufficiency Hypothesis, the book I’ve been labouring over for what feels like the gestation period of a particularly reluctant elephant. To be clear: the manuscript is done. Written. Edited. Blessed. But there remains one final circle of publishing hell—the index.

Now, if you’re wondering how motivated I am to return to indexing, consider this: I’m writing this blog post instead. If that doesn’t scream avoidance with an airhorn, nothing will.

Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.

I began indexing over a month ago. I made it through two chapters of eight, then promptly wandered off to write a couple of novellas. As you do. One started as a short story—famous last words—and evolved into a novella. The muse struck again. Another “short story” appeared, and like an unattended sourdough starter, it fermented into a 15,000-word novelette. Apparently, I write short stories the way Americans pour wine: unintentionally generous.

Apparently, I write short stories the way Americans pour wine: unintentionally generous.

With several unpublished manuscripts loitering on my hard drive like unemployed theatre majors, I figured it was time to release one into the wild. So I did. I published the novelette to Kindle, and just today, the paperback proof landed in my postbox like a smug little trophy.

And then, because I’m an unrepentant completionist (or a masochist—jury’s out), I thought: why not release the novella too? I’ve been told novellas and novelettes are unpopular due to “perceived value.” Apparently, people would rather buy a pound of gristle than 200 grams of sirloin. And yet, in the same breath, they claim no one has time for long books anymore. Perhaps these are different tribes of illiterates. I suppose we’ll find out.

Let’s talk logistics. Writing a book is only the beginning—and frankly, it’s the easy part. Fingers to keyboard, ideas to page. Done. I use Word, like most tragically conventional authors. Planning? Minimal. These were short stories, remember? That was the plan.

Next comes layout. Enter Adobe InDesign—because once you’ve seen what Word does to complex layouts, you never go back. Export to PDF, pray to the typographic gods, and move on.

Then there’s the cover. I lean on Illustrator and Photoshop. Photoshop is familiar, like a worn-in shoe; Illustrator is the smug cousin who turns up late but saves the day with scalable vectors. This time, I used Illustrator for the cover—lesson learnt from past pixelation traumas. Hardback to paperback conversion? A breeze when your artwork isn’t made of crayon scribbles and hope.

Covers, in case you’ve never assembled one, are ridiculous. Front. Back. Spine. Optional dust jacket if you’re feeling fancy (I wasn’t). You need titles, subtitles, your name in a legible font, and let’s not forget the barcode, which you will place correctly on the first attempt exactly never.

Unlike my first novel, where I enlisted someone with a proper design eye to handle the cover text, this time I went full minimalist. Think Scandinavian furniture catalogue meets existential despair. Classy.

Think Scandinavian furniture catalogue meets existential despair.

Once the cover and interior are done, it’s time to wrestle with the publishing platforms. Everything is automated these days—provided you follow their arcane formatting commandments, avoid forbidden fonts, and offer up your soul. Submitting each book takes about an hour, not including the time lost choosing a price that balances “undervalued labour” and “won’t scare away cheapskates.”

Want a Kindle version? That’s another workflow entirely, full of tortured formatting, broken line breaks, and wondering why your chapter headings are now in Wingdings. Audiobooks? That’s a whole other circus, with its own animals and ringmasters. Honestly, it’s no wonder authors hire publishers. Or develop drinking problems.

But I’m stubborn. Which brings us full circle.

I’ve now got two books heading for daylight, a few more waiting in the wings, and one bloody non-fiction beast that won’t see release until I finish the damn index. No pseudonym this time. No hiding. Just me, owning my sins and hoping the final product lands somewhere between “insightful” and “mercifully short.”

So yes, life may well be a journey. But indexing is the bit where the satnav breaks, the road floods, and the boot falls off the car. Give me the destination any day. The journey can fuck right off.