This blog is my laboratory. I experiment with selling eBooks for the Kindle. Why do people buy what they buy and for what reason?
I love to write novellas. They have a minimum of 17500 words. I plan them so there are three chapters - a beginning , a middle and an end. A very simple format. I use creative techniques similar to my visual art creation process; a combination of stream of consciousness with deliberate and controlled choices to induce the unexpected. Possibly the most important element for me is that the plot must grow organically from the moral choices of the characters. These eBooks are my product, unique because can be created only by me, bearing the mark of my personality.
I experiment with marketing these unique ebooks. When I say unique, every eBook is unique because their creator is unique. An author that writes from the heart is selling his vision to another, inviting that reader to enter the author's mind and explore. As authors we are inviting people into our minds.
Why would anyone even want to enter that author's mind, much less pay for the experience? There must be something the reader desires to experience and they believe their choice of authors can provide satisfaction for that desire.
Your ebook must scratch a reader's itch. It must do it so well that the reader will part with their hard earned money to enter into the author's mind and get their itch scratched. How much is that worth? A buck? A thousand bucks? Even Stephen King or Dean Koontz can't sell a reader one of their books for a thousand bucks. It isn't worth it. It simply isn't worth it.
So, what is your baby worth? What is the child of your imagination worth? Are you so wrapped up and enamored by your own mind you overprice your creation? On the opposite end of things, are you undervaluing your ebook, you're confidence shaken by lack of sales?
First, create an eBook worthy of your personal vision. Ask yourself, what would you pay to enter an author's mind to satifsy a desire? That decision depends on how much expendable money you have versus the value you place on that experience plus how much trust you have in the author to deliver that experience.
If I didn't know me - and I hardly do anyway - what would I give to enter my own mind? Two cents? A buck? Would I avoid that experience at all cost? Would I gladly pay millions for the experience to enter the heavenly halls of Stephen Beam's glorious imagination of revelatory constructions? My answer is in the price of my eBooks. Two dollars and ninety nine cents. Cheap at twice the price.
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