Welcome back to the pricing series where I look at various publishers (e-pubs) and do an in-depth analysis on the cost we readers/consumers are paying for our prized fiction. Being a lover of fiction I’m pretty much going to pay whatever a group charges but hearing grumbling, I’m attempting to show for good or bad if the pricing is reliable, consistent, and ultimately worth your money. The last is obviously something only you can decide.
 

Now I’ve looked at 3 publishers so far and found:
Dreamspinner Press (DSP) to be consistent but somewhat pricey
Torquere Press (TQ) to be inconsistent but somewhat inexpensive — depending on the line
loveyoudivine Press (LYD) to be inconsistent and expensive

 

So what about Samhain?

Well I found them to be both consistent and inexpensive! Hey, I’m as shocked as you so let’s break it down.

Usually associated with reader comments of excellent editing and a strong stable of authors, many have often lamented the m/m selection is too small. Now sticking with pricing, the website states the following:

 

Our pricing philosophy

Samhain believes the price of an ebook should be less than a print book; after all, it doesn’t need to be printed, stored or shipped! Why should it equal the cost of a print book? Samhain is dedicated to delivering excellent books at reasonable prices.

Short Stories:	$2.50	12,000 to 18,000 words
Novellas:	$3.50	18,001 to 35,000 words
Category:	$4.50	35,001 to 60,000 words
Novel:	$5.50	60,001 to 100,000 words
Plus Novel:	$6.50	over 100,000 words

 

Thanks Samhain! Like other publishers, this makes it pretty easy for readers. Now, as with other publishers I can’t just take their word for it. After all, sneakiness is rampant so let’s see what Samhain has to say for their books themselves.

Unfortunately Samhain doesn’t list word counts so I can only go by what I’ve found either on my own conversion or on FW, however I will clarify which is which. There is still some discrepancy with FW counts and I’m working on a solution.

But to continue on in the discussion of Samhain, they use a site called “MyBookstore and More” for their e-book sales when buying directly from the publisher. This works like Fictionwise or ARe as an e-tailer with several publishers. Unfortunately I found this site somewhat clunky and difficult to maneuver around with the print books mixed in with e-books and there is no way to separate genre within the subset of publisher. This site also doesn’t list word counts but there are quite a few discounts I found right off the bat that may be interesting. So like other publishers, you need to be aware and price shop to find the best price.

[Not sure when this turned into basement e-book shopping but it is annoying to pay more for the same product so let’s go with that.]

Checking word counts over at Fictionwise for range, it appears as though Samhain is generally right in their listings. I couldn’t find any listing for a book shorter than 14,000 words and all my personally bought books come over 20k words at least on conversion. The 20,000 to 22,000 range and 35,000 to 40,000 range seems to be a bit in flux as there are several back and forth at $2.50/$3.50 and $4.50/$5.50.

 

For example:

20,235 for $3.50 FW / My count is 20,250 /MbM lists as $3.50 Novella

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b89824/Monster-/Joely-Skye/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/monster

 

20,637 for $2.50 FW / My count is 20,603 /MbM lists as $2.50 Short Story 

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b90528/Sleight-of-Hand/Katrina-Strauss/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/sleight-of-hand

 

20,716 for $2.50 FW / No count from me  /MbM lists as $2.50 Short Story

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b90258/Not-in-Kansas/R-G-Alexander/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/not-in-kansas

 

21,641 for $3.50 FW / My count is 21,701 /MbM lists as $3.50 Novella

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b83091/Object-of-His-Desire/Ava-March/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/object-of-his-desire

 

37,231 for $3.50 FW / My count is 36,942 /MbM lists as $3.50 Novella 

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b94032/His-Convenient-Husband/J-L-Langley/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/his-convenient-husband

 

37,131 for $4.50 FW / No count from me /MbM lists as $4.50 Category 

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b95450/72-Hours/Shannon-Stacey/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/72-hours

 

39,547 for $3.50 FW / No count from me /MbM lists as $3.50 Novella

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b90604/Miss-Firecracker-/Lorelei-James/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/miss-firecracker

 

39,310 for $4.50 FW / No count from me /MbM lists as $4.50 Category

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b90510/Riptide-Love-/Melissa-Lopez/?si=0

http://new.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/riptide-love

 

Now is this because Samhain is inconsistent – which really is the key, consistency in publisher pricing – or is it as previously pointed out to me, a conversion mistake?

So far Samhain seems pretty good on pricing unless you get into the ambiguous ranges of 20k to 22k or 35k to 40k. You could be paying $1 more for your story for less words if we can believe the counts. But, can we? My own counts (taking a PDF and doing the word count in MS Word brings the counts very similar to what FW lists) say that these areas are gray and consumers may be overcharged or undercharged leading to quite a bit of inconsistency. You may not be getting your money’s worth in these areas. 

 

How does Samhain break down in pricing?

Well their shorter stories are pretty expensive (20k for $2.50 or $3.50) but they gradually cost less as the word count increases. The following is based on their internal pricing structure listed on the website.

 

 

Now when averaging the word count and cost, I had to go by FW numbers and it’s been shown FW sometimes counts differently than what the publisher would. So keep this in mind. But doing an internal comparison of FW numbers (my only source) you can at least see the averages of those books for the FW listed cost/count. 

 

Novels – AVG 78,040 words for $5.50

Category – AVG 52,600 words for $4.50

Novella – AVG 32,700 words for $3.50

Short Stories – AVG 18,800 words for $2.50

 

Now, how does that compare to other publishers?

As I have with other pricing comparisons, I use an internal standard of Fictionwise counts. So if they are all off, they should all be off by the same amount and thus the comparison still stands.

 

 

Since Samhain doesn’t produce shorter stories like the other publishers, they come late into the game count wise, let’s focus tighter on that. According to the data, it seems Samhain is actually your best cost wise.  

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:

It seems Samhain is the best cost wise for books when comparing among the publishers (so far). They also have pretty good consistency which I personally find key to the whole process. No matter what the individual reader may feel is worth their money, it’s important to feel confident in your choices.

There does seem to be some variation in Samhain pricing to word count but for the most part this actually seems to play in the consumer’s favor in offering higher (by FW) word counts for a lower cost. On the flip side there are several up and down examples of paying the same cost or more for a lower word count book.* I’m going to say this is provisional since it lands in that mystery area that may be a conversion issue.

Either way the trend with the publisher is pretty much clear. Somewhat surprising since I really thought Samhain would come out as one of the more expensive and readers may pass this off due to the usually good covers and reputed great editing. In my own experience Samhain works vary from very clean to somewhat clean and a total wreck. They do tend to be more clean than not, from an average readers’ perspective.  

So from this perspective, you’re getting the most for your dollar at Samhain so far.

Is it worth it though?

Well only you can decide that.

As always.. your thoughts?