• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Honest opinions on my price?

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Actually, you can get some *really* good cover art these days for $25-100. Nice, polished, very crisp designs, etc.

You can also pay thousands of dollars for cover art. And the art that you pay a thousand bucks for will be better than the $100 art. But here's the thing: people are going to be viewing your cover art mostly at postage stamp size. That's the size it needs to sell them at. Which means the designs need to be a lot different from the elaborate paintings we once saw dominate cover art. They need to be crisp, clean design with lettering that stands out in very clear fonts. Simple designs work better than complex ones.

The design still ought to evoke the story, however, and the fonts used should look professional, and be properly placed. All that takes some art and design skill. But your hundred dollar cover might be 98% as effective as the thousand dollar one. So the indie writer makes a decision: is that other 2% worth $900? Usually not.

Any links to where I can get $25-50 cover art? I had been planning on forgoing it for my novelette, but, if I can get it for that cheap, it's worth it.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Zero, you want a cover crit? I've done professional design before, and could probably give you some pointers. Either here or PM, if you'd like. Don't want to embarrass you, but some of the points made are really common ones that others might find valuable as well.

From a PM, I know that Zero is already in the process of having a new cover designed.

However, I'd love to hear some of your tips.

BTW, if anyone has the time, Zero really needs some reviews. He asked some of his friends to do them for him, and he now has (4) 5-star reviews that read as if he's the best author in the history of the world from people who've only done the one review.

I'll be doing one.
 
I think the biggest problem with your cover is that it says:
By Richard "Zero Angel" Richardson
Professional authors don't use "By" & they don't combine naming.

Secondarily, your cover art screams self-pubbed. As Michael was saying before, if you wish to be taken seriously, you need to look like the big boys. Decent cover art can range between $300 - $10k plus. Yes, that can be a lot of money depending on your finances. I'm not saying you have to do anything. Just consider attracting more business and readers by going to a site like deviant art.... Lots of talented artists needing to make a name for themselves as well.

Thanks for the points T. Allen Smith. I do have a few books with the "by" and combined naming also, but I do understand that the trend nowadays is to market the author's name as much (or more) than the title and many are forgoing it. I'm not opposed to taking out the "by" part, but I'm fine with the penname as is. I've had some people question it, but it seems to cause people to give it a second look, which isn't a bad thing.

As far as the cover itself, I am fond of the design, although there are elements of it I wish were done more professionally. In my "ideal" leather-bound version of the book, I would have a cover with the solune (the eight-pointed half-eclipsed sun on the cover) ith nothing else, but I have succumbed to the evil that is marketing and as BWFoster pointed out below, am in negotiations with a few people to see what can be done--hopefully getting a nice map or two along the way.

Zero, you want a cover crit? I've done professional design before, and could probably give you some pointers. Either here or PM, if you'd like. Don't want to embarrass you, but some of the points made are really common ones that others might find valuable as well.
Hello Kevin, thank you for the offer. If you would like to, then I will accept it via PM--if you want to do a cover recommendation thread separately, then I think it is worthwhile but I am reluctant to offer myself up as the sacrificial pig of "what not to do".

BTW, if anyone has the time, Zero really needs some reviews. He asked some of his friends to do them for him, and he now has (4) 5-star reviews that read as if he's the best author in the history of the world from people who've only done the one review.
Thanks Brian. I don't believe all the reviews up there are from friends, but the ones from my friends are bad. They have not taken the hint that I would prefer them to either have a substantive review or possibly not compare me to Tolkien; I think some of the reviewers were comparing my books to the LotR movies(!!!) and not the books, but it isn't clear from their reviews. It's a mess though and it is embarrassing. I've pushed to the point that they were offended and left it at that. My goal now is to get enough substantive reviews so that the good-natured reviews that do not say much are overtaken.

Book blogger Pauline M Ross just reviewed my book on her blog and Goodreads and will be posting it to Amazon in the next few days she said. Here is the relevant page: Pauline's Fantasy Reviews: Fantasy Review: 'The Throne of Ao' by Robert Richardson

As she even makes the point in there, I tend to skip the fluff to get to the action (although she meant this as a criticism, it is deliberate--not saying I achieved the perfect balance of fluff-skipping or anything like that, but well, that stuff generally bores me when I read (hence, the even more vehemently disagreeing with Tolkien comparisons)).

I am hoping for more reviews in the future and am open to review copies for bloggers or top reviewers, etc.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Thanks for the points T. Allen Smith. I do have a few books with the "by" and combined naming also, but I do understand that the trend nowadays is to market the author's name as much (or more) than the title and many are forgoing it. I'm not opposed to taking out the "by" part, but I'm fine with the penname as is. I've had some people question it, but it seems to cause people to give it a second look, which isn't a bad thing.

As far as the cover itself, I am fond of the design, although there are elements of it I wish were done more professionally. In my "ideal" leather-bound version of the book, I would have a cover with the solune (the eight-pointed half-eclipsed sun on the cover) ith nothing else, but I have succumbed to the evil that is marketing and as BWFoster pointed out below, am in negotiations with a few people to see what can be done--hopefully getting a nice map or two along the way.

Just to be clear, I like the design of the image. It just needs a more professional image.

In the end, you're the author. Do what you like with your work. The points I addressed are merely things that stand apart from what traditional publishers put out. Maybe you don't want to look like them. In my opinion though, your more likely to sell successfully if your book doesn't appear any different than what the big publishers are doing.
 
In my opinion though, your more likely to sell successfully if your book doesn't appear any different than what the big publishers are doing.

I agree...especially if you are pricing your book along the same lines as the New York releases then your quality in cover, blurb, and the writing must mirror that as well.
 
Thanks for your comment, Caged Maiden. That's interesting. I have to say that happened to me. I priced my book at $2.99 for the first month, then some articles and fb people and gurus said, "Oh, no. That's too high for a newbie. Drop it to $.99 quick!" I couldn't stomach that low a price for a full novel, so, against all my peeps advice dropped it to $1.99. You know what happened? Less sales than at $2.99. *scratches head* Yes, I made more sales at the higher price than at the lower price. Seems pretty darned counter intuitive to me, but there it is. Kinda makes me wish I'd never dropped it, given Amazon's lower royalty rate. But I gotta say $6.99 or higher for an ebook seems... well, I've seen small indie publishing houses do it, and I've seen those same writers complain about selling very little. Plus I think some people look at them and think "$7.99 for an ethereal computer file? Nah." So, I'd take that into account and maybe price your paperback at $7.99. ;) Just a thought.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your comment, Caged Maiden. That's interesting. I have to say that happened to me. I priced my book at $2.99 for the first month, then some articles and fb people and gurus said, "Oh, no. That's too high for a newbie. Drop it to $.99 quick!" I couldn't stomach that low a price for a full novel, so, against all my peeps advice dropped it to $1.99. You know what happened? Less sales than at $2.99. *scratches head* Yes, I made more sales at the higher price than at the lower price. Seems pretty darned counter intuitive to me, but there it is. Kinda makes me wish I'd never dropped it, given Amazon's lower royalty rate. But I gotta say $6.99 or higher for an ebook seems... well, I've seen small indie publishing houses do it, and I've seen those same writers complain about selling very little. Plus I think some people look at them and think "$7.99 for an ethereal computer file? Nah." So, I'd take that into account and maybe price your paperback at $7.99. ;) Just a thought.

As far as paperbacks go, if you are not going with an offset printing or a traditional publisher, good luck getting it to the $7.99 level. You're generally looking at a cost of $3-6 for a moderate sized fantasy, plus required discounts of 40-60% at least for stores/distributors. If you write Brandon Sanderson-sized tomes, then expect a significantly higher list price. That said, I encourage discounts for people going to book fairs/sales/etc. As long as you're making a positive profit, then exposure is the primary goal until you are more successful.
 
As far as paperbacks go, if you are not going with an offset printing or a traditional publisher, good luck getting it to the $7.99 level. You're generally looking at a cost of $3-6 for a moderate sized fantasy, plus required discounts of 40-60% at least for stores/distributors. If you write Brandon Sanderson-sized tomes, then expect a significantly higher list price. That said, I encourage discounts for people going to book fairs/sales/etc. As long as you're making a positive profit, then exposure is the primary goal until you are more successful.

Depends on the size of the book. ;) A 150 page book will cost about $2.25 or so per copy, and I have one of those being printed by Createspace which I sell at $7.99 so I can get into Amazon's "buy three get one free" paperback deal.

Also remember that you can use Lightning Source to "short discount" as low as 20%. I don't do that, right now anyway, for a variety of reasons. But you can, and all the online bookstores will still pick the book up, although it pretty much kills the idea of physical bookstores buying any copies. A 500 page book will cost $6.50 to print through LSI, so $7.99 doesn't quite work (the retailer would get $1.60 at a twenty percent discount, which adds up to more than $7.99). But at $8.99 the retailer would get $1.80, leaving 69 cents for the publisher (still more than most writers will get per paperback sale from a large publisher). And at the still reasonable price (darn cheap price, for a nice trade paperback) of $9.99, the retailer gets $2 and leaves you the publisher with $1.50.

So yeah, you can keep paper prices down with POD. There are a variety of pros and cons to doing so, and they change over time, so it's not as simple a decision as it might sound. But it IS possible. ;)
 
Depends on the size of the book. ;) A 150 page book will cost about $2.25 or so per copy, and I have one of those being printed by Createspace which I sell at $7.99 so I can get into Amazon's "buy three get one free" paperback deal.

Also remember that you can use Lightning Source to "short discount" as low as 20%. I don't do that, right now anyway, for a variety of reasons. But you can, and all the online bookstores will still pick the book up, although it pretty much kills the idea of physical bookstores buying any copies. A 500 page book will cost $6.50 to print through LSI, so $7.99 doesn't quite work (the retailer would get $1.60 at a twenty percent discount, which adds up to more than $7.99). But at $8.99 the retailer would get $1.80, leaving 69 cents for the publisher (still more than most writers will get per paperback sale from a large publisher). And at the still reasonable price (darn cheap price, for a nice trade paperback) of $9.99, the retailer gets $2 and leaves you the publisher with $1.50.

So yeah, you can keep paper prices down with POD. There are a variety of pros and cons to doing so, and they change over time, so it's not as simple a decision as it might sound. But it IS possible. ;)

I was assuming the average fantasy novel to be about 300-400 pages. But yes, if you have a low page count, then this is feasible. Also, I thought traditional generally got about 10% of the price? Or is it just 10% of the profit?
 
I was assuming the average fantasy novel to be about 300-400 pages. But yes, if you have a low page count, then this is feasible. Also, I thought traditional generally got about 10% of the price? Or is it just 10% of the profit?

Royalty rates for traditional is generally:

  • 10% of list - for hardcover
  • 8% of list for mass market paperback
  • 7.5% of list for trade paperback
  • 25% of net (17.5% of list for ebooks)

Some contracts have escalation rates but generally you have to sell a lot of books to get those.
 
Top