I'm writing a quiz book - or, at least, I've been writing some quizzes that I'd put in it. Everyone else seems to be doing it and I understand that there are a few sites that do self-publishing options, such as Amazon and Lulu. Not sure if I'd have to pay to do so.
I've devised some rough question categories that are likely to change as my level of indecision increases. They are: Art & Culture; Literature; Music; Film, TV & Radio; History; Geography; Sport & Leisure; Science, Astronomy & Nature; Lifestyle. Each category will have a number of different quizzes - ten-question ones, then I'll probably add all the blog quizzes I've written here at the end, with some longer ones to add value.
I'd hope it'd attract a few buyers - would anyone be interested in buying a copy when it's complete - probably eBook will be the main format - or would it not be worth spending money for my questions?
I'll certainly be keen to purchase it if priced reasonably. :)
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
I'd probably give it a look, the questions you put up here are of a good standard, so why not :)
ReplyDeleteIt'd probably be around £5. I hope that'd be reasonable. Not sure how many questions yet but hopefully a few thousand.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
Hi Jack,
ReplyDeleteI've written over 20 quiz books for the kindle, so I do have a little experience in this area.
I have actually written a book called Writing a Kindle Quiz Book For Profit - which goes into all of this in detail, still, in a nutshell: -
People won't be put off just because you've written it.
However, and I hate to be negative, I don't think you'll sell many at £5 a pop. Even with, let's say 5000 questions in it. You are up against people who are shoving 5000 - 10,000 of any old crap down into their books, and flogging them for a few quid.You could do a lot worse than going to the kindle store and seeing just how much people are charging for their own self-published quiz books, to give you an idea of a competitive price.
When you publish your ebook through Amazon you get the choice of what Royalty rate you want. It's all set based on your dollar price. If you set a dollar price of $2.99 or more, then you can opt for either 70% royalty, or 30%. If you want to set the price lower, then you have to take a 30% royalty.
My advice - ignore it by all means if you wish - is you take the 70% royalty and shove the price right down to $2.99. I know it doesn't sound like a lot - you'll get about £1.25 for each book you sell, as opposed to £3.50 for each one you sell at £5. But you'll probably sell over 5 times as many books at the lower price. Here's another piece of advice too. Once you get past a certain amount of questions, it really doesn't matter how many you have, So instead of making one book of 5000 questions, make two books of 2500 each.
If you get things right, even at the low price a general knowledge quiz book can make you a nice little sum of money for a good 18 months before its sales begin to drop off.
Thanks a lot for the advice. I'd probably price it a bit lower then. You know far more about this area than I do, so I do appreciate what you say. How many sales would you say the average Amazon quiz book makes?
DeleteHi Jack
ReplyDeleteWell, without wanting to get too vulgar about it, none of my books have been bestsellers in the quiz/trivia section for a good 18 months. Still, when my best seller - The Pub Quiz Master Quiz Book - was first published it managed between 20 and 30 a month which usually put it in the top 10 selling kindle quiz books. If you get good word of mouth, and maybe a couple of decent reviews as well, then this can carry on for more than a year. You'll understand that we're not talking early retirement money here, but it's nice considering that this is something you love doing anyway.
Oh, yeah, I wouldn't expecting a living wage or anything, but it's a nice earner for something you do anyway. Thanks for your advice.
DeleteA couple more thoughts about this as well. I don't know Lulu, so I can't comment on them. Amazon make it very easy for you to publish with them, and no, you don't have to pay. They get their money from the 30% or 70% left of the royalties once you've had your cut.
ReplyDeleteWhat you will find after a while is that other sites elsewhere on the net will be selling your books, and you won't get a penny from them. Well, I haven't had any. Whether this is totally illegal, as it sounds, I just don't know, but there is little or nothing you can do about this. Each time it has happened I have sent a stiff email saying that I have not been consulted and do not give permission for them to sell my book, but hey, what good does it do? It's bloody annoying, but it's just one of those things.
My first book has done a lot better than I imagined and after almost 18 months on sale still makes it into the Top 10 of quiz books for sale on Kindle now and then. Its a tidy sum and I sell for 79p because as David said, as soon as you start hitting over that £1 mark you are running the risk of putting people off!
ReplyDeleteWithout meaning to sound harsh, £5 will deter a lot of people. Some established authors major works sell on Kindle Store are a mere £3 so you have to consider what people will pay.
I would certainly be keen to add any book you write to my collection but be wary of overpricing.
Yeah, I was probably a bit unrealistic with the £5 pricing, to be honest. I'll put it on for around £1 when I do publish it, I think.
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