Thinking of Publishing Your Own $0.99 Kindle Book?

An anonymous reader writes "There's been a lot of talk recently about $0.99 Kindle eBooks, after publishers were accused of spamming the market with low-quality titles. Author Keir Thomas published two $0.99 computing books in March and has some figures for those who might want to have a go, as part of his Adventures in Publishing series of blog postings. Thomas says he loves the democratic nature of the Kindle Direct Publishing system, and points out one of his self-published books tops Amazon's Linux charts, besting titles by all the major publishers."

Comments

I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[sirwired]

It's all well and good that Amazon charges a listing fee of $0, but this is, as recent articles have pointed out, producing quite a bit of crap spam. It's not the least bit "democratic" to enable anyone to post books for free if genuine creative books are drowned out by spammed crap, keeping anybody from ever actually seeing the content.

I don't see a $10 listing fee as being that much of a deterrent for someone that has actually produced a real book (think of the value of the number of hours that go into even a short book), and a big deterrent to those that produce worthless spam.

Re:I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[Lunix Nutcase]

Sure if you ignore the fact that these spammers also game the system so their content rises above everyone else.

Re:I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[raving griff]

And how are books with worthy content noticed within the sea of crap? Barring advertising (which in this case comes directly out of the author's pocket), the only way I can see a book standing out based entirely on its contents merit is in a niche field, like the Ubuntu books in the example, where there are few enough books that ones of high quality rise to the top quickly as there is little competition.

However, in any more general areas / genres (for example, literary fiction), the sea of crap is so large that worthy content takes much longer to recognize. A lower initial momentum means lower ratings and a much lower chance to succeed in the market as a whole.

The only way to guarantee worthy work to rise above the crap is to guarantee each book a test audience--allowing it to launch with several Amazon reviews and be seeded according to an aggregate measure of quality. Otherwise, whether or not worthy content is noticed is pure luck made less likely the more crowded the market becomes.

Re:I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[webdog314]

Bullshit. There are people "publishing" 50-100 "books" a day that are utter garbage. And I don't mean that it's bad writing, I mean that it's rip off recycled crap. There's so much junk flooding the market that it makes actual works indistinguishable from everything else. The only way these works get found out is if someone actually pays for it and reads it, and then bothers to comment. Even a $1 entry fee would do wonders to limit this. The WHOLE POINT of Amazon is it's ability to find products and see reviews before you buy. If you can no longer do that, then why not take your legitimate work and use the rest of the free web for self advertizing, serve the file yourself, and keep 100% of the profits?

Content doesn't rise to the top because it's "worthy", it rises to the top because it has positive reviews. Whether those reviews came from adoring fans or solid marketing is almost irrelevant.

Re:I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[retchdog]

a homeless man could scrounge together an extra $10 in a day or two. if $10 is a problem for you, here's a hint: it's not the marketplace screwing you. you're just an idiot.

i can't imagine any book i'd care to read where a $10 listing fee broke its publication. it's an almost-perfect filter, actually: "i only want to see books in which the author has invested so much time that $X is irrelevant to him."

X=10 is on the very permissive side... hell, it's recouped within 15 sales. :-/

Re:I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[webdog314]

Amazon does not simply "promote" and market goods and services. They get PAID to promote and market goods and services... and paid quite well. The fact that you don't understand this shows a complete ignorance of the industry. User reviews may push you up in a list of similar products, but you still have to be seen first. How many click through's do you think you would get on the 50th result page from Google?

Re:I don't agree with his argument about $0 entry

[kalirion]

So instead of a $10 barrier to entry, you would prefer a $100,000 minimum marketing campaign?

A Ten Dollar Barrier to Entry?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Did he just criticize the idea of a ten dollar listing fee as a barrier to entry for reducing spam?

No way. Maybe for a booklet you'd want it to be less, but if you put one *thousandth* of the amount of time and effort into a book that any decent author does, five or ten bucks for the book listing is much less than that. A listing fee is not, realistically, a barrier to entry.

Re:A Ten Dollar Barrier to Entry?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

From TFA, it looked like a per-book listing fee--discourage spamming by making there be an incentive not to publish 10,000 similar books, since each one will net less than the $10 in profit, but any work someone actually is remotely serious about they can be expected to pay ten bucks.

Re:Rolaties seem low

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 35% originally, and just recently 70% if you agree to keep prices lower then the physical book.

http://allthingsd.com/20100120/amazon-pushes-royalty-rates-up-and-prices-down-for-do-it-yourself-e-book-publishers/

Maybe Raise the Price?

[swsuehr]

As someone who has written several books (ok, shameless self-promoting link to the latest one) I might suggest that you raise the price. Sound counterintuitive? People may be looking at your book and the price point of $0.99 and thinking "this might be a scam or reprint of some material already on the web." By raising the price to say $9.99 or $14.99 you're still below the traditionally published books but also give the appearance of extra value; the consumer is getting something valuable.

I know nothing of the self-publishing world, though I have considered it at various times. But if I was going to be publishing something for Kindle I'd likely be setting it at a higher price point to give my book separation from the spam.

Oh, typically royalties are in the 8% to 15% range for tech books, depending on the publisher and the deal being offered. The royalties are sometimes higher on the eBook versions. However, realize that the royalties are off of the wholesale price not the list or sale price. So if retail on JavaScript Step by Step is $39.99, Amazon has it for $25, but the publisher sold it to them for $20, I get a percentage of the $20 not of the $39.99.

YMMV.

Steve

The biggest problem with self publishing

[sir_eccles]

Self editing. Applies equally to ebooks and old fashioned paper ones.

Re:The biggest problem with self publishing

[Man Eating Duck]

Self editing. Applies equally to ebooks and old fashioned paper ones.

Bravo. I'm a voracious reader, I prefer reading on E-ink, and I've read quite a few self-published stories for free or very cheap ($4). Some are very good stories, some are weaker, but without exception so far all are marred by poor flow, sentences that not quite work and even grammatical and spelling errors. A good copy-editor could work wonders, an editor who is involved in the shaping of the book is even better. It takes a good author to write a compelling story or a good non-fiction book, but to end up with a good final result you need professionals somewhere down the line.

This doesn't mean that self-publishing is inherently bad, if you write a good story you can rise above the rest by spending something like $1500 to have a professional copy-edit your book. If you're serious about your writing this is not a huge investment, especially if you compare it to the time you put into writing your story. And no, your friend who got an A+ in $language is almost certainly *not* a good substitute.

I love to see a lot of promising fresh writers being able to publish their work without needing a publishing contract, but even an ace racing driver can't win without his team of mechanics and support crew. Something similar goes for writers (-1, car analogy).

Disclaimer: I've worked at an academic publishing company since 1999 and have participated in publishing hundreds of works. I *know* how important a good editor, proof-reader and copy-editor are for getting a good result. A good percentage of our authors don't understand why they need it until they see the finished book :)

Re:The biggest problem with self publishing

[dakameleon]

all are marred by poor flow, sentences that not quite work...

I'm sorry, I couldn't help but laugh here.

(noticing your sig...) that should be "sentences that *don't* quite work.

Re:Rolaties seem low

[Zape]

You can't use the 70% option for a .99 book. The requirement is a price between 2.99 and 9.99 for the 70% option: List Price Requirements

Re:Rolaties seem low

[digitig]

Compare to the usual dead-tree deal, where the author can expect 10%.

Re:value appears to be in the wrong area.

[0123456]

This notion that tradition publishers "keep" the vast majority of proceed is nonsense.

Uh, we're talking about ebooks. On Amazon.

If you're a typical traditionally published author, the publisher will get 70% of the cover price from Amazon for each ebook they sell, and then they'll give 25% of that to you, and then you'll give 15% of that to your agent. So the publisher will get more than three times as much money from each ebook sale as you do.