Any thoughts on pricing a book?
hoefer:
Thanks for the links, I've already read through many of the Forge ones, but thought it might be appropriate to rehash this as (as you've pointed out by dating them) I think the last two years or so have presented a different climate for RPGs (especially Indie RPGs).
Also, I am really wanting some anecdotal situations to help confirm or disillusion my own thoughts. You know, the sort of thing where people say- this is what I was thinking before pricing my book, this is what I did when pricing my book, this was the result in sales at that price of my book, and this is my analysis of the whole experience. I wanted to get peoples gut reactions to my price as well ($37 for a perfectbound -are you f'n' nutz? -etc.) So far, very useful stuff every which way.
Louis Hoefer
www.wholesumentertainment.com
Lance D. Allen:
I have not priced a book. Hopefully my input has value, regardless.
$37 for a $436-page perfect-bound (hard-cover?) book seems about fair, assuming the pages are full of content, rather than fluff.
It seems fair. That doesn't mean anything close to me being willing to buy it.
As was tossed around in some of those threads, you've pushed your book well out of impulse buy territory. There's no way I'm going to pick this book up, thumb through it, shrug and say "why not?" That it about equally true at $30. So there needs to be something, whether it be a rockin' demo or full games, to make me decide I want it.
I bought Fae Noir at GenCon '08 based on a single session in Games on Demand (about 3.5 hours with basic rules explanation and some character customization). I think the price point was similar. Doing so meant I did NOT pick up several other games I would have liked to have.
Seth M. Drebitko:
$30 seems good I mean it is more than 18% off (even if only buy a bit) you could even add some extra flair to it get a gold, silver and bronze, and black inked pen and hand sign/ number peoples purchases with the pens. Switch to a "downgraded" ink after every certain number of books . While the later idea might not sell any books for you it might leave your customers walking away going "hey neat!".
MatrixGamer:
Let me be the one to jump in and urge you to resist dropping your price. $37 sounds like a fair price for the amount of material you're selling. I think you will find that the difference in price between 30 and 37 won't influence people's buying behavior much and it puts you out 7 dollars a book for no more sales. While there are some discount hunters at Gen Con I think most people buy at Gen Con what they know they will never be able to buy in their local store (or even on line in some cases).
We have a tendency to under value ourselves and go for discounting. This is our low self esteem talking rather than good business sense. Discounting neither helps us nor the consumer (who presumably wants new product). If we can't pay for our hotel room it reduces the likelyhood of our making more games. So a fair price is reasonable to them to pay so we keep on working.
BTW when it comes to impulse buys it all depends on the market. I was talking with one Central Indiana retailer who said in his store below $20 was the impulse purchase price. In other places it's more - but when you get a deep discount on some items (like the closing out price deals at Titan Games) the low price can actually hurt sales. It makes people think that the game isn't worth full price. When we discount we say the same thing.
My own experience (and battles with low self esteem) with game pricing is that discounting has never worked. The number of games sold had more to do with my presence explaining and selling the game than the price. When I wasn't there there were far fewer sales.
If you want to talk more about this face to face please come by my Gen Con booth (Hamster Press). I'm always interested in figuring more out about this retail thing.
Chris Engle
Lance D. Allen:
brief thing: Consider $35. Round numbers are a goodness. When you're trying to remember what games you want to buy and adding up totals in your head to see how many you can afford on the budget you've set yourself, a nice, round number is more convenient. $40 is equally convenient, but then suddenly people are seeing that 4 in the tens place, so...
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