Jeremy C Kester

Yes. You heard correctly. I am changing the prices on my books. They are going up. I am pricing all my books along with the current general market pricing. For some, it means a big jump; for others, not so much.

If you are interested in a long-winded blathering about the whole thing, read on. Otherwise, you have a few days from my posting to grab the books at their current price.

The long-winded blathering:

It is not inflation, though one might consider it one of many contributions as to the wider pricing of books. There really is only one good reason to change the pricing of my books: being competitive.

As it stands right now, many of my books sit well below the market in terms of ebook and paperback pricing. One might think it is a great way to be competitive, but in reality, I am learning that it isn’t quite right.

Books and reading are a strange market. Books sit on the nexus between entertainment, education, and a whole lot of other things. They are both a luxury and a bargain simultaneously, where someone can effectively get the same exact book at two disparate price points. Besides bargain books and mass market paperbacks, books aren’t… well, cheap.

People can purchase a book or get it from a library to read. I’ve done both and it would be silly for any reader to not do so as well. It’s not quite like any other market.

There isn’t any benefit for pricing books outside of market pricing. As far as I am concerned, the reality is there is little difference between traditionally published and independently published books. When done correctly, I would argue independent fiction far exceeds the quality of story and reader appeal than most of the traditional market does. This is because the work produced by independent writers has the highest chance of being closer to the intent of the artist.

This, however, is all based on personal preference.

Pricing books below market value (ignoring sales) will place them in the bargain category — or in other words: cheap. The bargain category exists for the books no one wanted and the business is now keen to rid themselves of.

In any normal product market, undercutting the pricing of competitors is an easy way to edge in. Book publishing is different now. When the indie market exploded through Amazon and the like, this worked. The market was being disrupted and many saw the mismatch of traditional and independent publishing as a negative on the traditional side. Now, it matters little more outside of a few remaining genres (such as romance where I saw a large number of books published far below usual prices, particularly for the indie section).

Most writers are readers. (One can wax poetic on why I say “most”.) Readers go into a bookstore not looking for the best deal, but looking for something to read. Either they are looking for a specific book by writer X, a book on topic Y, or they are planning on browsing until they find something that catches their eye. Price only matters to those with a gift card.

Now… this is very much a long-winded way of saying that a writer pricing themselves below the market is a way of communicating to the readers of the world that the story is cheap. Wait… what?! Yes. Yes, that is what is being communicated whether we want to accept this or not. Books priced below the market are seen as not worth the read. Mine are priced well below. Too far below. And what does it communicate? That I don’t take myself seriously.

One might think: “sure, Jeremy, you’re just after the money.” To that… well, 0 x 1,000 is still 0. I can price the books whatever I want, but unless I sell some, the price matters about as much as what perfume one wears when taking a shit. Colorful, yes, but to that is my point.

If I want to sell my books, being seen as cheap will harm my brand as much if not more than being overpriced. Other factors certainly play into this all, but price is a big one. I MUST AT LEAST be on par with who I think are my peers. Thus, my books need to be priced higher.

Going forward, I will be changing the prices on all my print and ebook stories. A number of factors influence the actual price, from book size to genre. Either way, this is another step toward the life of a professional writer.