Early Results from Creating an Ebook Omnibus–Good Choice or Not?

A lot of authors who read this blog (at least two out of three of them!) are publishing, often self-publishing, their first books. That’s a noble endeavor, but what if you’ve been writing for a while, and you have several books already published? What if they’re all related (i.e. stories in a series)? Maybe it’s time to look into putting together an omnibus.

That’s what I did a couple of weeks ago, publishing The Emperor’s Edge Collection on Amazon. It includes the first three novels in my fantasy series, and I decided on $7.99 for a price tag, so it’s a good deal for readers. So far, I’ve sold 50 copies, so it’s sales are low compared to my other novels, novellas, and short stories (though it is outselling my poor children’s story collection — it’s so hard to find 10-year-old readers with Kindles and the ability to buy from Amazon!). That said, 50 sales at $7.99 (putting a little over $5 in my pocket for each book) isn’t too shabby, especially considering I didn’t write anything new for the collection, meaning I didn’t need to pay for editing. Also the cover art and formatting costs were minimal (I got deals on both since we were just re-purposing existing covers/files), and I’ve already recouped those costs.

“Ah, but wait,” you say, “aren’t you cannibalizing your own sales with an omnibus? Aren’t the people who bought those books folks who would have purchased them individually?”

This is a valid point. My first ebook is free right now, so no loss there, but I sell EE2 and EE3 for $4.95 each (although, last I checked, Amazon had price-matched one of those down to $3.99 based on some slow-to-update store out there). Essentially, instead of making $5-something on the omnibus, I could make $6+ if people bought EE2 and EE3 separately.

I have no way to know for certain, but I suspect I am losing money on this deal, at least with the omnibus priced at $7.99 (I may raise the price down the line, especially if I ever “un-free” the first book). Based on earlier sales months, I know that a high percentage of the people who buy Book 2 go on to purchase the following books.

So, why do it?

Well, it’s a way to give the readers a deal, perhaps encouraging those who are on the fence about getting into the series, and it’s still a pretty good deal for me. Also, it gets people to buy the set today rather than the books one at a time tomorrow (if your situation is different than mine, and you don’t have a high percentage of people returning for the remaining books in the series, this may be a particularly good idea for you).

When does the omnibus really shine?

As you can see, with my EE books, creating an omnibus was more of a convenience for the readers than a big earner for me. But, there are instances, especially with e-publishing, where it can be super smart to create an omnibus.

The next one I’m going to put together is a three-story collection of my Flash Gold novellas. Because those are shorter than my novels, I sell them at 99 cents (although the first is free right now), $1.79, and $2.99. The last one, which is the longest at 43,000 words, is the only one that earns the 70% royalty rate at Amazon. I earn $2 on a sale of that one, but I only earn 35 and 60 cents respectively on the first two adventures, because ebooks priced under $2.99 receive a 35% royalty rate.

When I release the novella omnibus, I’ll likely sell it at $3.99 or $4.95 (we’ll see if the first one is still free then). Again, this will be a deal for the reader, who will be getting the word-count equivalent of a full-length novel, but then I’ll be earning the 70% royalty on the whole collection of stories.

The best possible scenario is when all three of your stories (or however many you want to combine) are selling individually for less than $2.99, thus forcing you into the 35% royalty rate. Combine them to get into the 70% rate, and you’ll be making significantly more on your omnibus.

A sneakier tactic to sell more omnibus editions?

As I mentioned, I didn’t write anything new for my omnibus. I didn’t want readers who had already purchased the books individually to feel compelled to buy the collection as well to get new material.

However, that is precisely the strategy many publishers pursue, no doubt to great effect. I know I’ve purchased omnibus editions of books by favorite authors because of new essays or stories tucked into the collection. If you don’t want to worry about an omnibus cannibalizing your other book sales, this may be a tactic to try, as you might get people who already purchased the books individually coming to grab the collection. Granted, you’d need a fan base built up, one that’s into your world/characters to the extent that they’d pay to get their hands on extras, even if it meant double-purchasing some stories.

It’s up to you to decide if that’s something you want to try.

Is a multistory edition good for anthologies and non-series collections too?

What if you don’t have the first three books in a series, but you have a collection of short stories that you’re selling at 99 cents a piece? Can you still take advantage of the higher royalty rate by combining them into one ebook anthology or collection?

The answer, of course, is yes, though you may have mixed results when it comes to sales. With a series, it’s more of an obvious buy for folks who like the sample and see that reviews are good for the rest of the books. With short story collections, the more unrelated they are, the less they’re likely to appeal as a collection.

You can always give it a try, though, and see how it goes. If you format your own ebooks and can splice together existing covers to make a new one, you needn’t pay anybody anything to put together works that have already been edited. Even if you only end up selling 10 or 20 copies a month at $2.99+, that might end up earning you more than selling individual tales for 99 cents.

~

 

So, readers and authors, what are your thoughts on the ebook anthology/omnibus? A good deal for all or do you prefer working with individual titles?

 

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30 Responses to Early Results from Creating an Ebook Omnibus–Good Choice or Not?

  1. Margaret Y. says:

    I’m currently reading an omnibus by an author who combined 5 novellas into one edition. I’m glad I bought the whole thing in one go. At $6.99 it was worth it because I’m really enjoying the story, and I also love not having to pause to buy the next installment. Also? I’m not sure I would have liked buying each novella individually. Even if the price is the same, it somehow *feels* less because money is only leaving my pocket one time. Weird, huh?

    • Lindsay says:

      I guess three isn’t the magic number after all. 😉 Are the novellas all in a series? Or did you just take a gamble and figure you’d probably like them all?

      • Margaret Y. says:

        I’m reading WOOL by Hugh Howey. It’s really a 5-part story. You need it all. So I’m very very glad I bought it all at once.

        • Lindsay says:

          Wow, #23 sales ranking in the Kindle Store. Who knew SF could be such a hot seller? I’ll have to give it a try!

      • Thaddeus says:

        Sounds like she is reading “Wool” that scifi series that is hot right now. The guy, Hugh…something, wrote the novellas and priced each of them at 99 cents, but if you look at the amazon review numbers he has something like 500+ reviews on the omnibus edition of 5 novellas together….most likely meaning this is his best seller…for him a win all around.

  2. Carradee says:

    I’ve actually been eyeing your omnibus to buy for some friends who I’m pretty sure would like your books, though I’d wait until it’s on Smashwords. My friends don’t have e-readers, and that way they’ll have all the file formats for whatever device they end up getting.

    I’m also eyeing your print editions, so I could play library for my friends. I know that’s resulted in sales for a few authors, when a friend borrows a book from me and likes it enough to want the series for themselves.

    We’ll see what happens. ^_^

    As an author, I do plan to do omnibus editions—once I have enough related titles out to do it. The Chronicles of Marsdenfel, for example, will be 4 books, with the first one being a prequel, and I’ve not yet decided if I’ll release all 4 in one omnibus or the first 3 in one omnibus and leave the 4th on its own. (I’m also considering calling #4 “#0”, because it takes place 20 years before the other 3 books, which are sequential, each one picking up where the previous one left off.)

    I also plan to do bundles for my short stories, but only for ones that have the same narrators. Since those aren’t released yet, no bundles. (I do have 3 short stories planned, though, that will all interconnect about the time of “The Corpse Cat”, same narrator.)

    In any event, I do know readers who avoid buying a series unless they can get them all at once. Bundles seem like a convenient way of doing that. It also seems like a good subtle sales move, along the lines of “Look! Get all 3 now and save money!”, encouraging the casual reader to buy all 3 when they were really just glancing at 1, and they may or may not ever read them.

    • Lindsay says:

      Thanks for eyeing, Carradee! I’m going to put the B&N version up soon. With Smashwords, I keep hoping I’ll log into my dashboard and see news that they’re accepting epub files. I do so hate working with their meatgrinder!

      With your series, you can always see how the individual books are doing before deciding how to combine them. I’ve seen two-book omnibuses as well.

  3. So far I have only bought anthologies of short stories, because more than anything I love reading new material. There are some paperbacks that I’ve read before and have additional editions because they look pretty on my shelves (like 4 different editions of The Bones Collector in two different languages). I’m on the fence when it comes to omnibus editions…

  4. Sara Meehan says:

    You know, I don’t know that I’ll ever buy another omnibus edition again, now that I’m reading primarily e-books.

    What I liked about compilations before was having all the books of a set in one place, so that if I finished one and wanted to keep going, I could do so right away. I have that functionality now on my Kindle.

    I suppose the exception would be a new series. But, then again, I’m not likely to pay for an entire series without having read any of it.

    • Terry Mixon says:

      I would buy one if it was cheaper to get the books together than individually.

    • Maria says:

      Back in the day (say, ’98-2000) I joined the SciFi Book Club and got started on a LOT of series through omnibuses simply because it was such a great deal.
      If one purchase of $10-15 could provide me with the first 3-4 books of a series, I didn’t worry about whether or not I’d read more than the first, since I didn’t feel like I was paying for more than one. And if I liked it, I already had at least 2 more to read while I waited for my next shipment. 🙂

      And since most of their books were massively popular already, I was usually hooked into buying the rest of the books anyway.
      I think it’s a great way to suck in new readers who are looking for a way to save their pennies.

  5. PV Lundqvist says:

    I continue to be impressed by the quality of your covers: especially, the way the this omnibus integrates the colors of the other three.

  6. Jeff N says:

    I like the omnibus idea, but I suspect that an omnibus will take longer to build sales than single novels. I think it will be great as new readers continue to discover you. I just heard of you a month or so ago, through my wife. I liked EE1, and bought EE2 shortly before the omnibus came out, so I’ll buy EE3 singly too. If I was just finding you now, l’d go for the omnibus. (Just did that with Wool today). An omnibus seems like a really long tail item, it will probably be doing very well a couple of years out.

  7. Jenna says:

    I think this might be something I should try out with my Oescienne series (though I think it might suffer from a similar malady as your middle-grade books . . . I have a handful of loyal readers, but it is hard to find younger readers who have ereading devices and who like long books . . .).

    Nevertheless, ever since I pushed myself into editing the books for Smashwords (honestly, what had I been thinking not to do that sooner!) it seems people tend to buy all three books at one time (not making a ton of sales, mind you, but I’m remaining optimistic :)).

    Looks like I’ll have another summer writing/publishing project to add to my long list . . . Oh, and I think I might throw the short story collection (or one of the short stories) in with the omnibus (if and when I get to splicing it all together :D).

  8. Kirstie says:

    I can definitely tell you that the publishers of comic books get me nearly every time with the omnibus because of those extra tidbits. I’ve yet to do it with any books except the Chronicles of Narnia. If you were worrying about offending people who have already bought them separately perhaps offer that extra content for free download to customers who purchased them separately.

    It’s a clever move to put them together to vault yourself up to the 70% share with Amazon and also a good idea to perhaps tempt readers who were fence sitting in regards to buying the series.

  9. TL Jeffcoat says:

    I think the idea of an omnibus is awesome. As a reader, I am usually likely to pick up an omnibus because it is a good deal and often it’s the entire series. I’ve spent years reading the Wheel of Time series and it has made me a little discouraged to look at series that are incomplete. With an omnibus, most of the time it’s the whole story and I’m not left hanging for months or years.

    I think it brings in new readers that probably already looked at your books, and moved on without buying for whatever reason. Some people, like myself, when I do have lots of reading time, I prefer to buy a thick book and will skip shorter books because I would blow through them too fast.

  10. Mary Sisson says:

    I guess this is fodder for the “spurs impulse buys” arguments–I was just reading this, thought, “Oh, boy! Wool has an omnibus! I’ve heard great things about those books, and if he decides to go tradpub, they’ll get way more expensive.”

    So I bought it.

    There are definitely people (myself included, it seems) who have very little resistance to a bargain. I think wondering about lost revenues when you do an omnibus is like kicking yourself because a sale was effective, or because your first book is free. Are you leaving money on the table? Who can tell? As long as your income doesn’t fall off a cliff, I wouldn’t worry about it.

  11. I have a series of novelettes of a future series under development, and my plan on pricing/release echoes a thought of Carradee’s. The first novelette will be released solo, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th will combined into an omnibus, as well as solo releases. The 5th, 6th, and 7th will also be bundled, as well as being released individually. So, interested readers may read the first story to determine if they are pleased with the subject and writing, then see the discounted pricing if they purchase the bundles, without ever thinking that they are purchasing the same story twice. I can play with the introductory novelette with coupons, giving it away free, bundling with other works for a discount (including different series—check out all my series with the first in each—that is, when I have multiple series to promote)… whatever marketing that I would like to play with.

    The bundles will be priced so that I receive the most percentage from Amazon (at, or above, their $2.99 floor price), so I win. The reader gets a discount from the additive prices of the individual stories by buying the bundles, so the reader wins. Hopefully this drives more sales total, so Amazon wins.

    Well wishes,
    and happy marketing,
    John

    The first six chapters of my fantasy steampunk novel are available for free at my site:
    www(dot)john-m-portley(dot)com

    • Lindsay says:

      Doing 2, 3, and 4 would make a lot of sense, since people wouldn’t necessarily want to buy Book 1 twice. Good luck!

  12. Mary says:

    It’s something I might consider in the future, especially since I’m giving the first in each series away at free … if Amazon ever price matches & I ever get into B&N and iTunes. Smashwords really dragged their feet on this last go-round. Jeez!

    Anyway, I think it can be a great idea. I’ll be watching to see how it works for you. 😀

    • Lindsay says:

      The Smashwords’ distribution slowness has been killing me of late! I’ve had numerous folks ask why EE4 isn’t in iTunes yet. I don’t have the heart to tell them it was almost two months for Peacemaker to make it from Smashwords to iTunes. 🙁

      I really need to look into uploading directly there. I’ve heard it can be done if you have a Mac and are willing to buy an ISBN.

      Anyhoo, random aside there! Thanks for commenting. 🙂

  13. Heidi says:

    $7.99, really? I don’t think you charge nearly enough for your work. I’ve mentioned this before, but I got your first EE book free and found it via Pixel of Ink and I’m pretty sure would have paid hard-cover price for the rest of them. I still would. I am (not so) patiently waiting for book 5 and if you decide to up the price a little, (or a lot), I’ll be there. I was reading an ebook series and I was reading them individually and they were illustrated. When I finished book 3, (out of 5), they no longer had the single, illustrated books available so I bought the 5 book omnibus. I enjoyed it, of course, but when the last two books are available by themselves and illustrated I will go back and get those as well. The 5 book omnibus cost the same as two individual books but I didn’t really do it to save money, but to feed my habit. 🙂

    • Lindsay says:

      Thanks for the support, Heidi, especially considering you are (not so) patiently stuck waiting for Book 5!

      As to price, I don’t have an agent I have to share my earnings with, so there ya go. So long as I make enough to support my latte habit, I’m good. 😉

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  15. To ride the omnibus or not?

    The sneaky bit – If I owned 3 books already and an author came out with a 4th that was only available in an omnibus at twice the price of the other books, I’d probably skip it.

    Boxed Sets. If I really like a 1st book and an omnibus is available, I’ll probably buy it. Usually you save a bit overall, but I like the convenience of having stories bundled on my Kindle.

    Switching Horses: If I have three of a 4 book series and the author puts out an omnibus AND the 4th book, I’d probably go for the 4th book alone because… well… because I’m cheap. 3 of 5 (or more) is looking more attractive.

  16. JLawson says:

    Just finished listening to the first Emperor’s Edge podcast off of Podiobooks – just bought your Kindle omnibus, too, so there’s $5 or so in your pocket.

    To ‘bus or not? I’d say… you should. If your work is solid (and yours is, by my estimation) then grouping novels togther allows someone who stumbles onto it through other means (like the podcast) to satisfy the itch for more, easily.

    So – now to start listening to #2!

    • Lindsay says:

      Thanks for the support, J! I hope you enjoy the second podcast (and the books). The third audiobook will be out this summer. 🙂

  17. Is there any difference to the way you put together the body of the omnibus? As opposed to putting an individual story out?

    • Lindsay says:

      Nothing big, Jeffrey. Just link to the individual books in the table of contents, so people can skip around if they want.

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