Reno Charlton's Blog - Posts Tagged "kindle"
Kindle Books: Does Low Price Mean Low Quality?
As a writer, I spend a lot of time reading through and participating in forums on various sites, not just to connect with other writers but also to keep up with readers who are, of course, the backbone of a writer’s career.
I was somewhat disturbed recently when I was reading through a readers’ forum on Amazon’s KDP to find that someone had written something along the lines of ‘if a Kindle book is priced at 0.99 cents then the chances are it’s going to be really bad’. The reader went on to state that she would rather pay more money and increase the chances of getting a higher quality book than pay 0.99 cents and get a badly written book by someone who has no real interest or skill when it comes to writing.
The reason I was concerned about this is because, as an indie author, I have priced some of my Kindle books at 99 cents, not because they are of low quality but because I am a relatively unknown author and pricing low is my way of giving readers the opportunity to read my books and get to know my writing without having to shell out loads of money.
As an avid reader myself, I would expect to have to pay a fair amount of money for books by an established author. However, if I was considering trying out a new author, I wouldn’t want to pay out significant money to start off with. This is precisely why I price my books at 99 cents to $3.99 – I want readers to be able to afford to try out my books and test the waters with a new author.
Also, let’s not forget that Amazon offers readers the chance to ‘Look Inside’, which means that readers can easily look at the first few chapters of a book to assess the quality for themselves. Many of my readers have been very pleasantly surprised to find that after paying between $0.99 cents and $3.99 for a book, they have been able to enjoy well written stories that they have enjoyed and many have gone on to purchase more of my books. The reviews, some of which come from Amazon Top 50 Reviewers, also speak for themselves. Yet, I still don't feel the need to slap a higher price tag on because my aim is to gain fans and readers rather than to reap in as much cash as I can as quickly as I can. The maximum I would be comfortable charging for one of my books, as a newer author, would be $3.99 but this is to ensure a fair price for my readers not because I feel that my books aren't worth any more than that.
My point is that nobody should ever assume that just because a book is priced low that it will be of low quality, as this simply isn’t the case, particularly amongst self published authors who are more interested in building a readership than they are in trying to make a fast buck. Of course, there will be some low priced books that will be of questionable quality – there will also be some high priced books that are equally as questionable. Likewise, there are many low priced books that are of as high a quality as some of their higher priced counterparts.
They say you should never judge a book by its cover – it is also important to never judge a book by its price. As a reader, I embrace the opportunity to discover new writing talent at a really low price and I have no problem paying a dollar, two dollars, even three or four dollars to try out a new author. One thing that I would never do as a reader is pass up books based solely on the low price, particularly given that I can get a good idea of the quality of writing from looking at the book description and the sample chapters. As a writer, I welcome the chance to build a readership by being able to offer my books at low prices and would hate to feel pressured into increasing my prices just in case readers assumed that the lower price meant lower quality.
I was somewhat disturbed recently when I was reading through a readers’ forum on Amazon’s KDP to find that someone had written something along the lines of ‘if a Kindle book is priced at 0.99 cents then the chances are it’s going to be really bad’. The reader went on to state that she would rather pay more money and increase the chances of getting a higher quality book than pay 0.99 cents and get a badly written book by someone who has no real interest or skill when it comes to writing.
The reason I was concerned about this is because, as an indie author, I have priced some of my Kindle books at 99 cents, not because they are of low quality but because I am a relatively unknown author and pricing low is my way of giving readers the opportunity to read my books and get to know my writing without having to shell out loads of money.
As an avid reader myself, I would expect to have to pay a fair amount of money for books by an established author. However, if I was considering trying out a new author, I wouldn’t want to pay out significant money to start off with. This is precisely why I price my books at 99 cents to $3.99 – I want readers to be able to afford to try out my books and test the waters with a new author.
Also, let’s not forget that Amazon offers readers the chance to ‘Look Inside’, which means that readers can easily look at the first few chapters of a book to assess the quality for themselves. Many of my readers have been very pleasantly surprised to find that after paying between $0.99 cents and $3.99 for a book, they have been able to enjoy well written stories that they have enjoyed and many have gone on to purchase more of my books. The reviews, some of which come from Amazon Top 50 Reviewers, also speak for themselves. Yet, I still don't feel the need to slap a higher price tag on because my aim is to gain fans and readers rather than to reap in as much cash as I can as quickly as I can. The maximum I would be comfortable charging for one of my books, as a newer author, would be $3.99 but this is to ensure a fair price for my readers not because I feel that my books aren't worth any more than that.
My point is that nobody should ever assume that just because a book is priced low that it will be of low quality, as this simply isn’t the case, particularly amongst self published authors who are more interested in building a readership than they are in trying to make a fast buck. Of course, there will be some low priced books that will be of questionable quality – there will also be some high priced books that are equally as questionable. Likewise, there are many low priced books that are of as high a quality as some of their higher priced counterparts.
They say you should never judge a book by its cover – it is also important to never judge a book by its price. As a reader, I embrace the opportunity to discover new writing talent at a really low price and I have no problem paying a dollar, two dollars, even three or four dollars to try out a new author. One thing that I would never do as a reader is pass up books based solely on the low price, particularly given that I can get a good idea of the quality of writing from looking at the book description and the sample chapters. As a writer, I welcome the chance to build a readership by being able to offer my books at low prices and would hate to feel pressured into increasing my prices just in case readers assumed that the lower price meant lower quality.
Authors: Promoting Your Free Book Promo
As most indie authors already know, one of the hardest things to do when it comes to getting your book and career off the ground is to get people to notice your work. Writing is not the difficult part for most indie authors – after all, their writing passion and skill is what makes them decide to be authors. The difficult part for the majority of indie authors is actually marketing the book and getting it in front of audiences.
Whilst the big publishing houses have all the resources they need to publicise the authors they have on their books, indie authors have to do all this by themselves, drawing on various tools and resources to help them along the way. No matter how good an author believes his or her book might be, it will never get anywhere if potential audiences don't know about it.
One of the ways in which some authors have been able to overcome this problem is by offering their work for free periodically through KDP Select. With the free book promotion, those who are selling their eBooks through Amazon and are enrolled in the select programme are able to offer their work to customers for free, with up to five free days to use in every ninety day enrolment period. Giving away work free of charge may seem like a bizarre idea, and not all authors agree with it, but for many indie authors this has enabled them to gain a readership and get subsequent sales on their work once the free promotion is over.
However, it seems that offering free books is not enough to get things moving – you also have to promote your free promo! Okay, so promoting a promotion may seem a little long winded but using the right tools – and sometimes getting lucky – can prove hugely helpful in terms of how many free downloads you get on your free days. The higher your number of free downloads, the higher you will be in the free rankings and the more exposure your book gets. Although this does not affect your paid rankings once the free day is over, you can also benefit by your book appearing in the 'customers who bought this also bought...' listings on Amazon. The more customers who download it when it is free, the more of these lists it will appear on, so although you may be giving away a shed load of free books you will also be getting far more exposure than you might otherwise have had.
The most obvious ways that people will think of in terms of promotion is to use social networking sites, which means Facebook and Twitter. Whilst it is always worth posting something on these, it is unlikely that they are going to net you many downloads – in fact, you may not even get any downloads from these. Still, it only takes a second to post so why not?
What can prove hugely helpful, I found, is finding a site that has thousands of opt in customers who are going to be looking for the sort of thing you are offering – free books! There are a number of sites that you can choose from, some of which will actually highlight your free book free of charge. One of the sites that I tried recently made a huge difference to my free download levels, and this was a site called Ereader News Today (ENT).
Ereader News Today (http://ereadernewstoday.com/) is the site that I used for the promotion of a short story on Saturday 14th April. I have to say, I could not have been more pleased with my experience. When it comes to sponsored advertising by authors (which I understand is very reasonably priced) this site is booked up for the rest of the year – if my experience is anything to go by, it is little wonder!
I submitted a form to have my eBook placed on their site five days before my promotion. Now, the site cannot guarantee that your book will go on but since you don't pay them anything that's fine. Hopefully you will get lucky and the book will go on. If not, you are not out of pocket so nothing lost. The day of my free promotion my free book had scraped around 25 downloads for the day. However, as the evening approached in the UK (which would, of course, be afternoon in the USA) everything went crazy. At one point I popped to make a cup of coffee and when I got back another 140 people had downloaded the book! The numbers were suddenly going up so fast and furiously that I checked the ENT website – and there was my short story!
In total that evening I managed to get a whopping 3000 downloads, sending my book soaring to the top of many of the categories and within the top 100 in the free kindle store. I was so impressed with the free service from ENT that I made a donation via the site to help ensure that the site keeps going and other authors as well as readers can benefit from it (a small price to pay given the difference that it made, and something that I hope other authors will do if they do try this site for their promotions).
There is one more site that I am eager to try, although I have not managed to get my book on with them as yet for a free promo promotion. Pixel of Ink has some great reviews and is a site that I will be continuing to try and get one of my free promos featured on so that I can compare results.
Whilst the big publishing houses have all the resources they need to publicise the authors they have on their books, indie authors have to do all this by themselves, drawing on various tools and resources to help them along the way. No matter how good an author believes his or her book might be, it will never get anywhere if potential audiences don't know about it.
One of the ways in which some authors have been able to overcome this problem is by offering their work for free periodically through KDP Select. With the free book promotion, those who are selling their eBooks through Amazon and are enrolled in the select programme are able to offer their work to customers for free, with up to five free days to use in every ninety day enrolment period. Giving away work free of charge may seem like a bizarre idea, and not all authors agree with it, but for many indie authors this has enabled them to gain a readership and get subsequent sales on their work once the free promotion is over.
However, it seems that offering free books is not enough to get things moving – you also have to promote your free promo! Okay, so promoting a promotion may seem a little long winded but using the right tools – and sometimes getting lucky – can prove hugely helpful in terms of how many free downloads you get on your free days. The higher your number of free downloads, the higher you will be in the free rankings and the more exposure your book gets. Although this does not affect your paid rankings once the free day is over, you can also benefit by your book appearing in the 'customers who bought this also bought...' listings on Amazon. The more customers who download it when it is free, the more of these lists it will appear on, so although you may be giving away a shed load of free books you will also be getting far more exposure than you might otherwise have had.
The most obvious ways that people will think of in terms of promotion is to use social networking sites, which means Facebook and Twitter. Whilst it is always worth posting something on these, it is unlikely that they are going to net you many downloads – in fact, you may not even get any downloads from these. Still, it only takes a second to post so why not?
What can prove hugely helpful, I found, is finding a site that has thousands of opt in customers who are going to be looking for the sort of thing you are offering – free books! There are a number of sites that you can choose from, some of which will actually highlight your free book free of charge. One of the sites that I tried recently made a huge difference to my free download levels, and this was a site called Ereader News Today (ENT).
Ereader News Today (http://ereadernewstoday.com/) is the site that I used for the promotion of a short story on Saturday 14th April. I have to say, I could not have been more pleased with my experience. When it comes to sponsored advertising by authors (which I understand is very reasonably priced) this site is booked up for the rest of the year – if my experience is anything to go by, it is little wonder!
I submitted a form to have my eBook placed on their site five days before my promotion. Now, the site cannot guarantee that your book will go on but since you don't pay them anything that's fine. Hopefully you will get lucky and the book will go on. If not, you are not out of pocket so nothing lost. The day of my free promotion my free book had scraped around 25 downloads for the day. However, as the evening approached in the UK (which would, of course, be afternoon in the USA) everything went crazy. At one point I popped to make a cup of coffee and when I got back another 140 people had downloaded the book! The numbers were suddenly going up so fast and furiously that I checked the ENT website – and there was my short story!
In total that evening I managed to get a whopping 3000 downloads, sending my book soaring to the top of many of the categories and within the top 100 in the free kindle store. I was so impressed with the free service from ENT that I made a donation via the site to help ensure that the site keeps going and other authors as well as readers can benefit from it (a small price to pay given the difference that it made, and something that I hope other authors will do if they do try this site for their promotions).
There is one more site that I am eager to try, although I have not managed to get my book on with them as yet for a free promo promotion. Pixel of Ink has some great reviews and is a site that I will be continuing to try and get one of my free promos featured on so that I can compare results.
