Genre Surveys Part 2: Science Fiction and Fantasy Ebook Bestsellers Examined.
The publishing world is changing and I’m pretty sure that everyone involved in it–even on the fringes–is aware of it.
As a result we see opinions bandied about here and there and we have a tendency to think the opinions we agree with are more reliable than the ones we don’t.
What we’re missing is data. Data is why Amazon is king and Borders is pushing up daisies. Amazon has data on the buying patterns of millions of people and they exploit that to their advantage.
And now Kevin McLaughlin is bringing a little bit of data to independent authors.
One would think that science fiction and fantasy are more or less the same in terms of demographics, pricing, and whatnot. You’d be wrong.
It looks like fantasy readers are more willing to pay more than science fiction readers. I suspect the doorstopper fantasies are the ultimate cause but that doesn’t really matter. While the science fiction titles had a relatively even spread of prices for traditionally published works and a clump near the bottom for independently published books the fantasy graph shows only two traditionally published books priced lower than 7.99 with the lowest at 4.99 and only one independently published book priced higher than any traditionally published book. That one, if I am looking at the same list, is a compilation of three novels in one.
I think this means that the folks who are pricing their books at 2.99 and 3.99 would be well served by experimenting with 4.99 and 5.99 price points. I, of course, don’t have any full length works for sale at the moment but I shall be following the information Kevin provides for when I do.
