Frankly, the reasons are many, but everyone's blaming inflation, and some folks are considering raising their prices. However, I believe that's not a good idea at this time.
1) For the last eleven years, November has been notoriously slow for indies and busy for trad publishing. This is the time of year where trad really pushes sales for holiday giving. Bestsellers like the latest Grisham, Patterson, and Sparks novels rule the sales, and then there's the specialty items like Paul McCartney's Lyrics. Shoppers like getting a physical object they can wrap and hand over to a loved one.
2) Are we having an inflation issue? Yes, we are, but it's a factor I've been expecting with the shortages and hangups in the U.S. ports. We are still in the middle of a world-wide crisis, and until shipping gets back to normal, prices are going to rise. But raising book prices is a catch twenty-two. Books are a luxury item. If someone is struggling to feed their kids, they're not going to buy your book. And if they do have a little extra for some cheap entertainment, they're not going to buy your e-book that's the same price as a mass market paperback.
3) I won't be worried unless Kindlemas totally tanks. Kindlemas is the nickname for the roughly forty-five days after Christmas when people use their new devices and redeem their giftcards for books. For indies, it's the cyber equivalent of Black Friday. However, I do expect Kindlemas sales to be lower this year because there's a ton of devices already on backorder thanks to the shortage of compute chips.
For now, I'm staying the course--writing and publishing on a regular schedule. Any revisions in my business plan won't happen until February at the earliest.
I hope y'all have a safe, pleasant Cyber Monday!
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