E-book on Sale!

[chris_gerrib]

Lulu's latest pricing fiasco had several negative impacts. First, my hard-copy book is now $12.93 everywhere, including Lulu (was $10.94). Second, the e-book went to $4.66. Much though I'd like to pocket the additional cash (almost $4 of that goes to me) I can't justify charging almost $5 for a PDF.

Therefore, I've created a second project on Lulu, which is just the e-book, formatted for 8.5 x 11 paper. It's available here, and will only set you back $2.50.

Also, you can vote on the first chapter of my new novel at Gather.com by clicking here.

Comments

[jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com]

Things like this are one reason I haven't yet bought a distribution package for either of the books I currently have on Lulu. (The second Carl and Jerry book will go up on or about March 1.)

It never occurred to me that you could buy a Lulu ebook through Amazon. (I haven't tried posting an ebook yet.)

It sounds like Amazon and Lulu had a little dust-up, and Lulu lost. This is called "channel conflict" and it was an everyday concern when we were running Coriolis Group Books in Scottsdale. (1990-2002.) We sold books direct, and caught all sorts of hell for it from the major retailers. Publishers were in a strong enough position then so that we could continue selling direct, saying we had promised our authors that we would (and we did, and they made more on each copy we sold) but today the retailers rule and I doubt we could get away with it, at least not on the scale that we did it back in the 90s.

'Nother issue: I understand Lulu well enough to know how your prices are so "odd" but I always think that prices like $10.94 look like a mistake somewhere. All my books will be $XX.95, because the public expects that and won't think something's wrong when they order. $XX.95 and $XX.99 are "real" book prices; anything else is not. Once when we tried to be a little different and charge $17.76 for something, our sales force screamed bloody murder, fearing that distributors would "fix" the "error" and record the book's price as $17.95, causing all sorts of paperwork and hassle in the accounting system.

Publishing is a weird business, as you may be beginning to understand.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Yeah, channel conflict is not unique to publishing. I used to be a network consultant and part of our job was reselling Compaq computers. There was many a sharp elbow tossed when Dell and Gateway started selling comparable product direct.

I don't think I can sell a Lulu ebook via Amazon, and since I'm not moving many ebooks I'm not trying to. Regarding the price, I was trying to get $12.95, but the damn calculator wouldn't let me. Back then (maybe three releases ago) you couldn't set a retail price and work backwards to revenue.

Like I've said in other posts, this self-publish business is more of a hobby. I'd much rather get somebody else to publish me, so in the meantime I'm not going to sweat it overmuch.