How much would you pay for a novel on Kindle?

[freshlysharpenedpencils]

Hi everyone, hope you can help. I am selling a novel on Kindle and I am wondering what to price it at. I don't have a kindle myself - It will be my third book - first fiction novel.
So how much do you pay for books on there if you pay at all? Or do you only get books if they are free?

Thanks in advance.

It depends how much I want to read them.

I've paid full price (£7.99 or thereabouts) for books I knew I would like by authors I knew were good.

For 99p I'd be pretty willing to take a risk for a new author, because if it's rubbish I needn't finish it, but I'd want to see a lot of good reviews first if the price was, say, £3.99.

I tend to only pay £5 or under for Kindle books, and only the upper end if I can't borrow from the library. This is mainly because you don't own Kindle books and there have been cases of Amazon removing books from kindles. I'd take a risk on a 99p one (my 'to be read' Kindle section is groaning). I pay up to £18 for a hardback, or £9 for a paperback though, but they tend to be books I know I will want to keep, like favourite authors, or ones that aren't easily available from the library

PS Good luck with your book

BTW OP, you know there's a self-publishing support thread in the Creative Writing topic, if you would like to come and say hello?

Oh I will do! See you on the other side x

I avoid the free books if I can, have tried some real shockers, but will sometimes download a short story for free. Got into Veronica Henry that way.

Usually I won't pay over £5 and I would really have to want it to pay that.

99p for an unknown but up to £7.99 for a new book by a best selling author.

I buy would be happy to pay £2-£3 if it sounded like something I might want to read but was by an unknown author with no reviews. If it was by a known author with reviews then perhaps up to £5 but at about that price or more I would rather have a print copy.

Books that are free might be downloaded but never read. There is a definite feeling that free/cheap can too often = awful.

99p for an unknown, maximum. Might be worth doing a 24hr free promotion too in order to get some reviews on amazon and allow the book to sell it'self

I would pay up to a fiver for a book I particularly wanted to read by a known author, any more than that I'd rather have the physical book for the same reasons a pp mentioned - its not your book, its just leased.

This year I have however wasted chunks of my life on 99p crap and so I'm not doing that any more.

All this complaining about price and named authors, you're all missing out on new works that stir emotions and provoke discussion as I will recommend the rape revenge shocker for abused victims www.amazon.co.uk/Spilling-Blood-Friends-Secrets-Revenge-ebook/dp/B00RC4WVAE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419673978&sr=8-1&keywords=spilling-blood It's a hell of a read for all those bullied in schools. Wow!

Kindle is really bad for filtering the shite self published stuff. I'd love an indicator of which ones are self published. Someone once linked on here to one her mum wrote and it was awful - tbh if I don't recognise the name I try a free sample first.

I have a couple of novels on Kindle. I've found that if I price them at £1.99 then they sell well. If I sell them at £2.49 upwards the sales go right down. I would never give them away (which you can on Kindle) after realising that people can give awful reviews when they haven't even paid for them. I think if you have a lot of good reviews then a couple of pounds is fine, even though you're an unknown writer.

Nerf, if there is only a Kindle price then it's only available on Kindle. Usually there's another price with 'paperback' next to it.

Yes, there is some really awful self-published work. Terrible. The worst I saw had a spelling in the title!

Can I ask whether reviews influence you?

Arrgh sorry! I mean a spelling error in the title. I'm on a volatile phone, here.

I'd get the sample first, then 3-4 if I liked it.

But if it was 99p I'd probably buy it without the sample.

More to the point is how people find it...

Leah, aka righttoreply, you have a spelling error in your opening paragraph.

I'm happy to try out a new author for 99p.

Most of the books I buy range from £3 - £6.

If you sell, it's relatively easy for people to find it, even though you're unknown. If you're in the top 20 or 40 for your genre, sales tend to be good (although I suppose if your genre only attracts a tiny number of readers then you have a problem.) A lot of people seem to search via genre, so once you're on those first couple of pages then it's easy to sell. Also, whenever you sell a copy (even a 'free' copy) then your book is mentioned in 'People who bought X also bought Y." Most of my friends have had emails recommending my books, but I never know whether that's only people who've bought them anyway.

Fugacity, if you saw a novel by an unknown writer that had about 60 reviews, mostly 4/5 star, would you pay £1.99 or would you still only pay 99p? I found I sold more when I charged more.

Thea, you say it might be worth doing a free promotion but you have to remember that someone can download a book they wouldn't usually read for free and them give it a terrible review because it's not the sort of thing they like to read!

Evening ImperialBlether, my mum (Leah) says it's alright to have a dig. Happy readings.

Hi imperial - things that make me buy books ( and I buy loads):

Newspaper reviews
The cover! Mainly to filter stuff out...
Not being something like 'Detective Daisy series'
Free sample
Lots of reviews (ie not the friends of the author)

I thought Leah wrote it when she was 23?

I did think it was an interesting concept for a novel, btw.