How much can you realistically make e-publishing?

Following up on BayView's reply, have also read that price is not a factor in rankings. The sale of a $0.99 has the same impact on rankings as the sale of a $5.99 ebook.

 

That used to be the case, but I'm 99% sure that Amazon changed things a few years ago so higher-priced books were pushed up further in the rankings.

It makes sense for them, because they make more money from selling a more expensive book. And it's harder for writers and publishers to game by paying people to buy their books.

 

Hi Bay,

It's been years since I last looked this stuff up. However I found this site which seems to answer your questions.

http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2016/04/mythbusting-the-amazon-algorithm-reviews-and-ranking-for-authors/

Cheers, Greg.

 

That's got a lot of neat stuff about the search rankings but I can't find anything in there about sales rankings - am I missing something?

 

Yeah, there still seems to be vagueness in that article (a bit ironic considering the theme of the article seems to be "silly self-publishers, this is all totally clear").

Like, bolding mine: "So if your book is 99 cents, but another book is selling at $2.99 but not as many as you, it’s likely Amazon will recognize the $2.99 book higher in rank because it makes Amazon more money."

It's likely? Well, will they or won't they? And by how much?

And maybe there's some confusion about sales ranks and ranking on the search pages, because, for example, "If you have a high amount of clicks from the Amazon search list generated to your book page, this counts towards ranking" makes very little sense for sales rank if the clickers don't actually BUY the book after clicking it.

In response to what seemed to be justified criticisms in the comments, the author got snarky (how rare!) but also produced a Part II article at http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2016/05/mythbusting-the-amazon-algorithm-part-ii-amazon-lists-products-and-sales/ . But she's still, to my taste, a bit vague/muddled about how the sales rank is determined:

1. Best Seller Rank – Sales but considers ranking factors also for driving sales
   Rank is a straightforward sales result, but also takes into consideration all the factors I shared in the last post, because newsflash, Amazon wants to sell good products. So you can and will be dropped if your product does not meet quality or content guidelines – see below. Historically how you sold also counts towards keeping ranked, as does review recency and volume of reviews. *This is not “bestseller” as in books, but the best seller in the category, i.e. the seller/item that does best, and is used in all categories across Amazon, not just books.

I don't know what the "you can and will be dropped if your product does not meet quality...guidelines" has to do with sales rank? But she seems to be including a lot of things in this paragraph that don't have much to do with sales...


To be clear, I don't think it really matters what your sales rank is in terms of selling your book - like, I think it's a mistake to think that having a high sales rank is more important than having high sales. But if people are using the sales rank as a way to estimate what the actual sales are, I think it's important that we understand as much as we can about how the sales rank is determined. And I really don't think there's enough clarity in that area.

 

I self-published an e-book novella, and I have made around 1 dollar, which I am rather happy about I did do a lot of advertising - not a full-blown professional campaign but as much as a limited budget and Amazon would allow. I'v sold around thirty copies bust most of them were free. But from what I've heard, that's actually fairly good. Many people only sell between 1-10 if self-published.

However, whether self-published or not, I don't think you can ever really estimate how much you'll make as an author before you've worked for awhile. Someone could find a self-published story, love it, share it, and you could end up making a fair living from it, and you could publish a book conventionally but only sell ten copies.

I hope the latter doesn't happen to anyone but I just don't think that you can ever realistically have any idea what you will earn from a story before you have sold it.

Good luck!

 

It matters to the extent that you appear on best-seller lists or Amazon recommendations (but who knows how they decide what to show there). That's about it. Having a #50 sales rank is a big deal, because it means you'll be shown in the top 100 list for the store, and probably the top 10 in your genre categories. But there won't be much difference between a #100,000 and #1,000,000 sales rank, because they're unlikely to be on any best-seller lists unless they're for some small and obscure sub-genre.

 

Some of my short stories are in the 10-or-less sales category. Most have sold 10-100. One sold about 1,000. I haven't really been keeping track of novel sales, but they're somewhere in the 10-1,000 range. Latest one seems to be bumbling along selling a copy or two a day, but it's only been out a couple of weeks. It is on a bunch of 'Also Bought' lists for similar books, which is probably helping with that. Most of those books have been out for a similar amount of time at a similar rank and are probably helping sell each other.

I still get random sales for books that haven't sold a copy in a year or more, and have no idea how people found them. Their rankings are usually #1,000,000+, and a long way from any bestseller lists.

 

IDK, depends on how well you can market it.

For me about $5 so far, but hey I am not good at marketing and don't have
a truck load of friends that will get the word out.
So it varies, unless you get really lucky.

 

For information on the various the price of books affecting ranking on Amazon, possibly refer to this podcast, about 27 minutes in is where the content is addressed (29:15 deals with price): Authorcast Episode 132- Algorithm Voodoo

 

Don't you think paying 6$+ for a digital book is a bit much?

Unless it is a damn good book, it makes more sense to get
a paperback to have the physical copy. So who pays for an ebook
that is in the 6$+ price range?

 

When you buy a book, are you buying the story and the words or the paper?

If I want to read a certain book, I buy it. I prefer e-books to paperbacks (less to store, etc.) and I guess there'd be a price at which I'd rebel, but... $6 isn't it.

$6 is too much for a trial book by an unknown author. But if I know I want to read the book, I'll pay it.

 

That wasn't the point I was trying to make.
That said, I get the notion of ebooks vs. paper, and the cost of production influencing the cost of the product. But ebooks are quite varying in price.

Neil Gaiman's newest novel, Norse Mythology is (on Amazon/ranked in their categories):
Hardcover: $29.95 (discounted now for $15.57), current ranking is #7
Ebook: $12.99, current ranking is #73
AudioCD: $29.99 (discounted now for $20.24), current ranking is #10,814
Audio Digital Download: $20.99 (Audible member discounted now $14.69), current ranking is #1

While Mr. Gaiman is an outlyer (sp), it demonstrates that many readers have no problem spending a lot of $ for a digital book. But, Cave Troll, price is a factor with pretty much every product. It does influence who/how many will pay for it.

 

Are you talking just self-pubbed? Because my publisher is selling my ebook for $6.99 on Amazon and about a 3rd of my sales are from there.

 

@BayView So you would pay $18 for a digital copy of one of your favorite authors books? Why?
Though I agree I would not shell out for an unknown author in a higher price range either.

@TWErvin2 I was simply asking a question, not questioning a point. So much much for being
curious I guess. Better not ask any more questions, cause I am clearly an idiot for asking.

@Laurin Kelly I was speaking in general when it comes down to it. Of course you get less per
sale after both amazon and your publisher get their cut of the sales. I would not be surprised
to find a paperback for just about the same price. Though you are known and have the honor
that most of us will never even get to see.


Ultimately, I feel there is no way to justify having a digital copy in the same price range as
a paperback, considering there are no physical materials to add into the cost. That is where
I was going with what I originally said. But lets just make me feel like the bad guy for having
a thought and asking a question. I really should stop having those things, seeing as they get
me into trouble for no reason.

Thanks, I won't that mistake again...

 

Settle down. Nobody said you were a bad guy. We just disagreed.

But let's just make us feel like the bad guys for disagreeing with something and explaining why. We really should stop thinking for ourselves, since our thoughts just get us into trouble for no reason. etc...

Or...

If I really wanted to read the book and it cost $18? I'd buy it. As I said, I prefer digital copies, so if there's a book that would cost me $18 for digital, for hardback, or for paperback, I'd be most likely to spend the $18 on the digital version.

It's not about justifying the physical materials, for me; it's about the words. The story. That's what I think I'm paying for when I buy a book. The paper is incidental.

 

@BayView

I know. (Though it wasn't you that got me ruffled.)

I was only trying to figure out the why behind the differences in cost behind digital vs. physical books.
One takes more labor and material, and the other an intelligent monkey could do. That is where my
thoughts lye on the matter. Not that I find it wrong or even bad when it comes down to it pricing wise,
just wondering about the value difference between the two. (Though you can make your own physical
copy of an ebook, if you happen to have a decent printer and can convert the file to a .doc.)

 

But an intelligent monkey can't write the book, right? Can't edit it, can't design the cover, etc.

Most of the labour costs are the same for print vs. digital. It's just the materials and storage that cost more for print.

 

@BayView

The intelligent monkey is a stand in for any person capable of e-publishing because it is so simple.
Publishers don't write books, they edit/market them.

I will disagree with the labor difference.
The book has to be fabricated.
Packaged for shipment.
It has to be loaded/unloaded.
Shipped to a retail store, or direct to customer.

It takes about 5 minutes to fill out a few things, and your book is on the market.
Customer waits 30 seconds for the download.
So no the labor exchange is not even close in terms of costs between the two.

E-publishing is way cheaper than press/store/customer.

 

Well, the paperback copy of Under the Knife retails for $18.99, so $6.99 for the ebook is kind of a steal. Those have been the prices since day one when I was completely unknown, it just reflects the standard pricing for Less Than Three's paperback and ebook novels (they do not publish hardcovers).

I'm not sure what Amazon's cut is specifically, but I get a flat 45% of all sales from my publisher's marketplace and 40% of all sales from 3rd party retailers like Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords, Kobo, etc. for ebooks.

 

@Laurin Kelly
Must be a book of bigger dimensions from the standard paperback to fetch such a price.
Typically they run about 10 (or a little less) for a standard size paperback.
Either that or the mark up is just absurdly high from that particular publisher.
Only reason I make note of that is that I have bought new paperbacks from well known
modern authors at the 10 buck level, so why would a 'newbie' (no offense, just don't have
a better term) get a higher price? That does strike me as odd.

Overall yes that is a steal in a sense, it stills comes off as a bit high. Though I am sure it is
doing a million fold better than my own (granted I will never be so fortunate). The maximum
return to the seller on amazon in 70% of listed price, which is not all that much when it shows
you the figures based on where you set it. I do not know about the others though.

Come to think of it, to fetch such high figures the publisher must be damn near impossible
to impress. Or they are extremely prestigious. IDK on that end.

Again I will more than likely never know what it is like to have somebody do all that legwork
for me, because I am not the best at this whole writing thing in general.

Well I am off to go and sulk in my independent loserdom, but thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

Trade paperback, I presume. As I understand it, the mass-market paperback is in steep decline, in part because the cheap paper won't feed through print-on-demand machines.

Either a mass-market paperback, or heavily discounted.

 

Either a mass-market paperback, or heavily discounted.

Maybe to the mass-market one.

Though they usually are about that price range. Hardbacks are normally 18-20,
but that is just for a bigger book and heavy cardboard cover.

 

You're incorrect on several counts. Material costs are just a few pence and the rest is the same whatever format the book is published in; several rounds of editing, the cover, the marketing, the author's advance. You're paying for a professional product, not something someone chucked on Amazon in five minutes.

You might disagree but these are facts.