Rankin Publishers

It was utterly captivating this last week, watching Ian Rankin as he first sat down to plan and then write 2012's best selling detective novel. Not least for the deadline that closed around him from the moment he started writing it, or for the fact he writes with everyone expecting the result to be a bestseller. I was very pleased to see he operated on a get it down before getting it right basis, although I suspect any author would easily find a motivating correlation in his method. Across several interviews he first stated he'd never watched any of the Rebus TV dramas adapted from his books, for fear it might alter his perception of the characters, but was very happy for the advertising the TV serialisation offered his books. And so say we all.

I for one rushed to Amazon to buy the newly published book: Standing in Another Man's Grave, written by Rankin during the five months covered by the documentary. For reasons I have documented at length here, mostly to do with practicalities and only a little to do with my much put upon back, I rarely buy hardbacks or paperbacks any more, mostly they simply don't fit with my read any time, any where philosophy. A philosophy that's difficult to maintain if you've left your book on the bedside table or by the front door, or in the kitchen, work desk, train etc. My rush to buy Ian's book sadly came to a grinding halt when I saw the Kindle version was priced at £9.99 - more expensive than the hardback and double the price of any Kindle or paperback in his back catalog.

I don't know about you but there is very little I'm prepared to pay twice the price for, just so I can have it NOW! This has always been the case, most notably waiting on the price to drop on videos back in the day, through DVD and Blu-Ray more recently. I have of course paid for many hardbacks, for their material quality beyond the reading, as I've paid less for a paperback's singular purpose of delivering the read. A Kindle book is another evolution, the pure read without the tangible token at the end, a library you don't need to find or make sure you pack because it follows you. I'd like to pay less for the Kindle privilege, I'm certainly not going to pay more than the paperback. Definitely not twice the price.

So I didn't buy Ian Rankin's: Standing In Another Man's Grave. The hardback was never in the frame and the Kindle was priced out of the equation. Nor did I buy any of his Kindle back catalog out of principle. I made a mental note to check on the Kindle price in February but I'll probably forget. So that's a sale lost, a potential fan wilfully told we don't value or want you. All that publicity gone to waste, at least on me. It's not Ian Rankin's fault of course, but what do his publisher think they're doing? I can't believe they make much from dwindling hardback sales and there's only so many he can sign. Are there legions of Kindle owners willing to pay twice the price just to read a book at launch? I did that once with Lee Child and decided it wasn't worth it, even for a Jack Reacher! If your main product is redundant (hardback) and your alternative is priced not to sell, you don't have a viable basis for long term business, do you? I can't believe publishers are naive enough to try and wait out the digital book boom. Digital publishing is the obvious step forward just as the printing press was from hand writing books.

Any ideas?

Losing that bestseller appeal

Not the original

Every April through 1999 to 2010, I either found myself in a book store or waiting on an Amazon parcel, eager to get my hands on that year's Lee Child novel. I always bought the hardback because that was the only option. The books were consumed within 48 hours with a review posted to Amazon shortly after. Followed by weeks at least of the verbal 'have you read the latest...' buzz that accompanies the rise of any bestseller.

Save for these annual two day reading indulgences at the hand of Lee Child I'm seldom plugged into just one book at a time. I can barely recall a time these last two decades when I've not been humping two or three books around in some obscenely heavy slung over the shoulder bag. Although I admit half the contributing weight will have been a laptop and associated gadgetry. This weighty state of affairs was endured because there was no alternative, it was the only way to meet my insatiable need for reading and technology.

Reviewing my account history at Amazon I can see I ordered my first Kindle in August 2010. It was the 3rd generation Kindle and the first to be sold in the UK. It arrived in September and my reading perspective forever altered. The revelation was that reading no longer required hefting a stack of books with me during my lengthy daily commute, or keeping tabs on the books so I remembered to take them with me. I simply made sure I had a Kindle device at all times. As that increasingly encompassed my Smartphone, iPad, MacBook and work PC, I was never going to be without the book I wanted to read.

In 2011 it was Autumn that saw the release of Lee Child's latest book and I paid a few pence less than the cost of the hardback for the privilege of downloading it on the Kindle. It was on my device at midnight the day of launch and I was still reading it at 3AM. The review was written and posted the following day. I was more than a little put out the Kindle version was SO expensive - more than twice the price of a normal Lee Child Kindle edition. And through the subsequent year I missed being able to swing around in my chair and see the hardback amid my dedicated Reacher shelf. All of which contributed this year (2012) to me swapping back to the hardback, though this was mostly because it was CHEAPER than the Kindle edition. I deliberated this in my Crafty Bastards post back in June - it seemed Lee Child's publisher's were going out of their way to make me buy the hardback. I decided to see whether their desire for me to do this correlated with my reading needs as a fan and avid reader. 'A Wanted Man' hardback arrived at work and I managed to squeeze it into my narrower and less voluminous bag before heading home. I pulled it out and sat in my study and started reading that night.

The next morning I dropped my MacBook and iPad into my bag, checked the Kindle was in there and had the hardback in my hand before realising just how heavy it was in contrast to the other devices. It now seemed an excess akin to packing a mantel clock to check the time through the day. With barely a thought I left the book on the hallway table to read that night instead, a thought I repeated each morning for the rest of the week, always with a mind I'd catch-up with it that night. It was the weekend before Lee Child's latest Reacher got picked up again, spending the Saturday morning reading in the conservatory, where it stayed through several weeks as chance and the weather didn't bring me back. I looked for the hardback through the house but like many things outside of my main focus its whereabouts remained elusive. I later found it efficiently stacked in a pile of magazines and newspapers and at some point it got transported back to the hallway because I saw it there amid a different stack of letters and magazines. I have so far not finished it, not even picked it up to read since that Saturday morning. It's not that I don't want to read it, I really do, but my reading world is no longer focused around a single book. My perspective is all about a few devices that give me access to my whole library, whenever and wherever I am. My books effectively follow me, not the other way round. I will probably finish the Reacher novel the next time I'm at home for any length of time, which will probably be Christmas.

For me part of the fun of being a fan is reading a book on launch. I don't mind paying a premium to do this but paying twice the price isn't going to happen, not even for a Lee Child. If the publisher continues to do this it means there will be one less fan eagerly awaiting Lee Child's future book launches.

John Potter is the author of Chasing Innocence, a 3x award winning and bestselling Crime Thriller. UK US

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Crafty Bastards

It has been a long time since I bought a paperback or hardback book. I'm pretty sure I'm still buying at least as many books as I always have, probably more. As a regular commuter and someone that always has several books on the go, I'm grateful my rucksack isn't close to being as heavy as it was the last two decades. Likewise, holidays don't require checking-in a suitcase containing shorts, flip-flops, t-shirts and 28 kilos of books.

Don't get me wrong. I love the page to page physical interaction with paper books. Equally I don't find reading from a screen detrimental to the reading experience. Typically I'll read on the iPad when I'm indoors or commuting and on my Kindle device if I'm outside or on holiday - simply because the Kindle is smaller and the screen doesn't reflect light. My immersion in digital reading is all about practicalities.

As a writer and publisher of both paperback and digital books I have mixed feelings. There is absolutely nothing like holding a book you have written in your hands. It is a feeling I admit I don't get from holding a Kindle with my book on it. That's not to say it isn't a great feeling. Just nothing like holding the real thing. The trouble is I sell one hundred digital books for every one paperback. Selling digital books and how to price them has been the subject of much conversation in the press and within the publishing industry. Both among commercial and independent publishers like me. The commercial publishing industry seems desperate to retain the pricing paper based books give them, or at least to find some leverage to make money in the digital age.

Anyone that has spent just a little time reading what I write here, will know I hold Lee Child in very high regard. I'm thankfully now over my 'I want to write like Lee Child' phase - I realised I needed to write like me. Lee Child is one of the most successful commercial authors at this time. His next Reacher book - A Wanted Man, is scheduled for release Aug 30 and is currently (June) in the Amazon top #100 book charts. That's not just in fiction, that's across all book genres including non-fiction.

Every year I pre-order the next Reacher book, usually when it appears on Amazon. The last time I bought a Reacher novel anywhere other than Amazon was about 2007. Before I wrote this post I was looking at the Amazon page for A Wanted Man, and like I did in my post on Kindle pricing, I pondered the £10 price-tag for the Kindle edition. It's only £1.50 cheaper than the hardback. The pricing is unusually high even from a commercial publisher with a popular author. While deliberating the high Kindle price I got to thinking how much I used to love looking at my collection of Reacher hardbacks on my bookshelf. About thirty seconds after that I got to thinking I might as well buy the hardback as I'll read it so quickly it's bulk won't be much of an issue. I'll also be able to swing around in my chair and admire the hardback on the shelf, sometimes maybe even pull it out and flick through the pages - as I'm prone to do if I'm searching for inspiration. I'd probably get the Kindle edition anyway for reference and portability when the pricing comes down to paperback levels. Then I got to thinking how clever that was - that I'd pay top dollar for the hardback and then pay again for the convenience of Kindle. Crafty bastards, I thought.

Pricing your Kindle book

Pricing digital books has been in the press a lot lately. Digital publishing is still an emerging platform and many are still figuring what a good price for a kindle book is. As ever, context is important. Let us take a quick look at the commercially successful Lee Child, who's books are now movies headlined by Tom Cruise. On Aug 30 this year Lee Child's latest book will be released. The Kindle version at launch will be £10.53 ($16.49), slightly less expensive than the Hardcover. The price of last year's The Affair is currently £6.83 ($10.80) on the Kindle and 2010's Worth Dying For is £4.49 ($7.10). The pricing of Lee Child's Kindle books keep pace with the most recent printed version. Each of his back catalogue are priced slightly cheaper than the paperback. Lee Child sells about two books every second of every day.

My one indie published book looks like it might be commercially produced but has nothing other than the cover, Amazon reviews and word of mouth to commend it. The reality is Kindle owners will pay seven bucks for their favourite commercial authors and thankfully, they will pay to try an indie author. They will not pay much though. I can't really say I blame them. I'm one of them. Quality is a big issue (and the topic for a future post).

On releasing Chasing Innocence I knew slightly more than NOTHING about selling Kindle books. I priced the Kindle version at £3.45 and it sold 21 copies that month. I knew every one of the people that bought it. Out of a desire for the book to be read over a desire to make money, I scheduled a two day Amazon Select promotion and suddenly it was on four thousand Kindle devices across the UK and US. During the promotion I'd researched prices for indie books and immediately after the promotion dropped the price to £1.53 ($2.99). I was surprised to see it purchased 800 times over the next month with sales dropping off over that time. If I dropped the price to 99p sales picked up. If I ran a Select promotion I had a spike in sales after the promotion and a slow drop-off. If I kept the price at £1.53 sales ticked-over at about five units a week. If I dropped the price to £1 then sales picked up to 10-30 units per week. If I set the price to £3.45 sales drop to one a week. I discovered people are more likely to leave a review of your book if they downloaded it for free or bought it for a buck or two.

As a reader I love a series character and good story telling over literary concepts, which usually results in me buying more of an author's books. If you want long term success as an indie author you will need more than one book, probably upwards of five. If you're building your writing brand from scratch expect to price your book a lot lower than commercial authors. By pricing low and working Amazon Select you will find an audience, you will spend less time marketing and have more time to write the best selling sequel.

The next indie publishing post is going to be about tagging and categorising your book on Amazon KDP. If you have stories or advice to share or questions on indie publishing you'd like answered, then I'd love to hear from you.