We’re all still trying to figure out this whole “online publishing” stuff. Originally I was selling (DRM-free) PDF copies of both of my books (Commodork and Invading Spaces) for $4.99 each. Seems high. I was also selling copies of Commodork on the Kindle for .99. Seems low.
Amazon advertises that authors keep 70% of the proceeds from each eBook sale, but that only applies to books priced at $2.99 and above. For us 99-cent bottom feeders, it’s 35%. That means for each $0.99 electronic copy of Commodork I sell through Amazon, I only make 34 cents. Combine that with the fact that Paypal charges .35 per transaction, and you can quickly see I’m not exactly rolling in the dough on this endeavor. All I can do is “pray Lord Vader doesn’t alter the deal further.”
So, here’s what I’m going to do:
01. I just raised the price of Commodork on Amazon.com from $0.99 to $2.99. Upping the price to Amazon’s lower limit will allow me to make something (rather than the current “nothing”) through their online sales. Note: I believe this version still contains DRM. Nothing I can do about that.
02. I just lowered the price of Commodork and Invading Spaces on my website from $4.99 to $2.99.. Lowering the price to make them the same only seems logical. Note that these versions are DRM-Free PDF files. Once you buy them, you can copy them and read them on any device you own: your computer, your iPad, your Kindle … whatever. If you have a robotic cat that will read PDFs to you, knock yourself out. The only thing I ask, and it’s little more than a gentlemen’s agreement, is that you don’t share them with other people. It’s less than the price of a cup of Starbucks coffee, folks — have mercy on me.
This brings me to some awkwardness — what to do for people who just paid $4.99 for the PDF?
Option #1: Do nothing. As a consumer, this would piss me off. There’s nothing I hate more than when TigerDirect puts the thing I bought last week on sale this week. That just doesn’t seem fair.
Option #2: Offer everyone who recently bought a PDF copy of Commodork from me a free PDF copy of Invading Spaces from me, and vice versa. I’d be game for that, actually. I’m just not sure the people who are interested in reading Commodork would be interested in reading Invading Spaces. Thoughts?
Option #3: Refund everybody back $2. Hahaha, as if! I already spent the money, fools! You think boxes for robot costumes are free? Okay, the boxes were free, but still … the logistics of this are probably a no-go. I’d have to send a lot of stuff back to ThinkGeek that I don’t have receipts for.
Option #4: Contact all the people that just bought Commodork for $0.99 on Amazon and ask them to Paypal $2 to the people that paid me $4.99 for the book. (I am told that sarcasm and dry humor do not always translate well over the Internet. If it didn’t … I was being completely serious about this option.) ;)
Option #5: … ? I’m open to suggestions.
If you’re miffed about recently overpaying for a digital copy of Commodork and/or Invading Spaces, drop me an e-mail and I’ll hook you up.
EDIT: Invading Spaces is now available via Amazon for the Kindle as well. BUY UP!
How does Paypal work with Kindle purchases? When I buy Kindle books through Amazon, I’m paying with my credit card. Shouldn’t you get the 35 cents then?
Aha! You would think so, but Amazon turns around and pays me with Paypal — that’s when they take the 35 cents out (plus an additional 3.5% — I forgot to mention that).
So if you pay Amazon $2.99 for Commodork using your credit card, (a) Amazon keeps 30% of that, sending me my 70% through Paypal at which point (b) Paypal deducts .35 + 3.5%.
That’s better than before. When I was charging .99, Amazon was keeping 65%, which left me with .34. Fortunately, early on Amazon began paying sellers once per month, so as long as I sold two copies, I was in the black!
Ahh, thanks for clarifying that. (I’ll be bringing out a book on Kindle shortly, so I was curious).