Amazon Royalty System

Hi guys,

I don't know how many of you know about Amazon's royalty system, but this is what they offer:

70% for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 (minus transfer fees)

35% for books priced below $2.99 and above $9.99

35%? Nuts, isn't it? 

The College Fun and Gays series has sold surprisingly well. It has sold more copies on All Romance eBooks than Amazon and I'm grateful for that. Right now, my books are priced $1.99 and $0.99. I wanted to keep the prices low so people could more easily afford them. However, I am hardly seeing any royalty from Amazon at these prices. Amazon price-matches, so I can't have it $1.99 in one place and $2.99 on Amazon. It wouldn't be fair to Amazon customers either.  

So, this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to bump up the prices of the books to $2.99 after a couple of days. This still gives you time to buy them at a lower price until then (probably Saturday). In return, I'm going to publish the anthologies before I increase the prices. There are two of them, three stories in each book. The anthologies will be priced at $3.99 each. That's less than a Starbucks Frappuccino (yes, I can already hear you think "I'd rather have the Frappuccino" - bad example. Let's go with a cup of coffee and a blueberry scone - okay now I'm just hungry...). Anthology One contains Hot Hands, which is free, so you're really buying the two other stories for $1.99 each. For Anthology Two, it will be $1.33 per story.

I might also publish another anthology with the whole lot in it and price it at $6.99 (it's 81,500 words, $1.40 per story if I don't count Hot Hands, $1.16 if I do). I don't know when this will be, if I do it.

So, kids, what does this teach us? That Erica is a greedy girl? Nah, I'm just trying to make a living like everyone else. I don't really make that much from my books as is. No, this teaches us that Amazon forces people to increase the prices of ebooks. On the flip side, Amazon is "protecting" those who are selling novel-length books. Those people won't have to price their 300-page volumes at $0.99 to stay competitive. On the other end they're "protecting" customers from having to spend more than $9.99 for an eBook. However, I think Amazon should re-consider their policy based on book length. They should allow people to sell short stories and short novellas for less than $2.99 and still get the 70% royalty (or 60%, or whatever, just not 35%!).

The 3-pack anthologies will also be available in print, but not right away (in August, hopefully) for $6.99.