The changes I mentioned to Raven Noir were the least of a reorganization I’m in the middle of. You can find all our Amazon titles right here.
In fact, I’m in the middle of a reorganization of my whole life. In my day job, I’m performing the same function but moving around within my department. At home, I’m trying to get things organized and packed away, trying to get things in order.
And with Exciting Press, I’m trying to create a bold new strategy that will mean more readers will find great books.
I’m converting a bunch of books from print to digital. Two novels by Nick Earls, another by Kurt Wenzel, several others besides by James Brown. It’s not an easy conversion process; I have the right hardware and software, but scanning a print book doesn’t just give you the words in a neat manuscript; it gives you new pages and sections and some elements drop off, which means I have to go back over everything to ensure it’s correct.
It’s slow going, unfortunately. But it goes nonetheless.
That’ll mean Exciting Press will have at least three new novels this year, plus some other work. New titles.
New prices.
I’d been operating Exciting Press as a start-up, with new-to-everyone authors. I was also looking at it as a reader, first. Whom did I want to read?
How much did I want to pay?
Me, I notice more and more than I’m less likely to simply pick up free and inexpensive ebooks than I used to be. I still get newsletters every day with new Kindle deals, but I might pick up one or two per week; rarely do I buy more. I also thought that $4.99 was the upper limit of how much I’d want to pay for an ebook, but I’m realizing that’s not the case–lately I’ve been going as high as $6.99. That feels like a mass market paperback price to me, and especially when there are complementary titles, I’m happy to explore. Just the other day I picked up two books, one of which was a sequel to the other; the first was 99c, while the second was $5.99. Two books for $3.50-ish each total?
A lot of indie authors go with the $2.99 price point, or even 99c (or free). Some argue it “devalues” writing–I’m not one of those. I’m not sure I believe in inherent value; value isn’t what something’s worth so much as what the market is willing to pay. And I think the market is willing to pay more. I’d based pricing at $4.99 on Apple; the iPad is priced at $499, which clocks it in at just under $500, which is a psychological barrier. I think I was mistaken in doing so, because I don’t think $5 is the psychological barrier $500 is.
We’re also moving away from free promotions as we move away from Kindle exclusivity. There are so many iPads and iPhones out there it makes much more sense to address both platforms.
Here a lot of people cry foul that there are many more platforms, and what about those readers, and here I say, look, I’m a nano-press; I can’t please everyone all the time. I can try my best to offer the best services I can. To readers and authors alike.
Last year, we had set it up so that, every day, Exciting Press offered a free title.
This year, we’re setting a few particular titles to permanently free status for iOS. We’re going to hope Amazon matches that price. They do so at their discretion, so I’m not counting on it, but I think it’s a fair compromise.
We’re also moving away from 99c. From now on, we’re not publishing indivdual stories for 99c. Instead, we’re packing three (or more) stories together and pricing them at $2.99. It just about evens out, and it means we make more per story even while we can still offer some titles completely free.
That, too, I think is a fair compromise.
We’re going to be pricing this year’s new novels at $5.99. Given the time and effort that’s gone into creating them. We’re going to see how that works out, and go along accordingly.
We hope you’re going to continue to find new books and read new authors. It’s been a great ride so far, and it’s only getting more exciting.