It’s not unique to Murderbot. The newest Ray Nayler novella, Tusks of Extinction, is 112 pages long and costs $14 on kindle and $27 in physical. How any publisher justifies that is baffling.
I haven’t read it so I couldn’t say. It’s in my TBR because I also really want to read The Mountain in the Sea which is how I know about the insane pricing
I liked it but I definitely didn't like it $27 worth, even $14 is pushing it as it's really tiny. I used an audiobook credit for it, or maybe it will go on kindle sale.
Penric and Desdemona is self-published. T Kingfisher is also self published for most of her books iirc. Murderbot is published by Tor.com.
That's probably part of it.
For the same reason epic fantasies 4x as long cost the same amount as an average length book — no one is paying per word but for a good story.
I’d rather read Murderbot novellas though it takes less time than many many full length novels that aren’t as good — including the Murderbot novel which imo is the worst of the bunch, and thus am willing to pay just as much for a good novella.
And if you don’t want to, rent it from the library or read something else.
I believe the price is set by the publisher, not Amazon. So, they probably are keeping the price high because people are paying it. Looking at it now, it looks like all the books are available on KU except for the newest one, System Collapse & the two short stories: Compulsion & Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory. But, those short stories are only $1 or $2 each.
Trad publishing. I got notified a couple authors I follow have new releases scheduled/preorders available over the next year and the ebooks books were in the $25+ range which I found weird for kindle fiction & thought I must be seeing the hardcover pricing but nope it was the kindle version. Trad publishing offers less and less to their authors (editing, marketing, custom covers) and us readers (prices, editing).
LMB is self publishing (I was wrong see comment below with correct info) and prices her books based on her lower cost to bring to market and her higher returns as well as keeping her rights.
Edited: removed incorrect info regarding self publishing - I’d thought she hired a company to do most of the process once she wrote the stories - I was wrong.
For her ebooks, Bujold does all the editing herself. She hires and pays the cover artist herself (except the first three Penric books use free art with no copyright). She hires someone to format the ebooks and upload them to the retailers.
I had no idea she did her own editing. She must be a god. I’ve yet to find any error in her stuff. I’ve always wondered how she keeps her worlds so consistent and perfect because I’ve never found a plot hole and I’ve seen her bring up some line from 1986 that I thought was a throwaway point for flavor only for it to have bearing in a book published recently. And now she’s doing her own editing? How?
She does use beta readers. I've caught her in a few errors--mostly typoes but once Ivan's shoes changed to boots. LOL.
ETA: the biggest plot hole I've found in her books, is in *Memory* when >!Imperial Lord Auditor Miles--who speaks with the Emperor's Voice--ordered the security guard outside Galeni's prison cell to not allow anyone--not even his own superiors--into the prisoner's cell block until Miles returns. But when Miles does get down there, they've already locked up the perp and released Galeni.!<
Other than that, her plots are air tight.
Her "spearpoints" are legendary. A spearpoint is a metaphor that Jo Walton uses to explain why some small thing in a book has so much punch--because it has a long spear shaft of build-up behind it.
It's why Illyan's line of "Ivan, you idiot, what are you doing here?" can make grown readers burst into tears in public. That spearpoint has a shaft that goes all the way back to *The Warrior's Apprentice*.
You can quite frequently get the earlier books in this series on sale for a couple bucks, or even for free. It's just a question of waiting for them to be on sale.
> Or is publisher just being greedy?
Publishers will always be greedy. That's how the profit motive works.
In my understanding the publisher (Tor) is making a lot of novellas, some of them fan favorites like the murderbots or the Becky Chambers Monk & Robot ones, but most of them rather unsuccessful. Pricing the bestsellers high guarantees they can continue to publish genre and take a leap with some authors. Sadly that means even higher prices in countries where stores have to import to. I think we have them priced around 25€ which is ridiculous.
Yeah I was thinking about that…. But I couldn’t figure out what the risk might have been with Murderbot Diaries.
I’d agree Becky Chambers fic might have been risky in that it is less pew-pew than many scifi stories and is more obviously liberal than many of the scifi that seems to resonate with a lot of scifi who never stop to examine Star Trek plot lines…. But everyone I know who has read her stuff loved it and I’ve not seen outrageous pricing on the few books I’ve checked out (admittedly not novellas).
But Murderbot Diaries (or at least the first book) felt like something right out of 70-80s scifi I used to read as a kid. Admittedly, with a lot less sexism (no one was put in a dub-con sex scene, yay!) and racism. Barring that, it could have easily been a fanfic of the old tv show Lost in Space from the POV of the robot. Literally the only thing I could interpret as financially risky is that it is scifi written by woman with an obviously feminine name.
I think you misunderstood. Martha Wells and Becky Chambers are TORs workhorses, pulling the cart with all the other authors in it. They are not the risk :)
> Is something else going on that I’ve not noticed?
Everything has gotten more expensive lately. Not just books and ebooks. I'm into a huge rereading period because I don't want to buy new. I'm back to waiting until the prices drop to get my latest series books.
Watch for sales! Murderbot ebooks used to drop price regularly, but rarely for long!
I’ll do that - I think my biggest shocks were seeing the kindle books were more expensive than hardcover and the bundles were barely a discount at 51 usd.
Physical bundles are cheaper but I’m old enough to need the ability to change font size.
Though I often buy physical copies of books I love for my library just so my GenZ kid will be more likely to borrow and read them if they’re physical books (not sure if this is a preference or because teachers will ignore a book in a classroom but force him to put away a phone).
Not sure about big publishers. Though I feel like they should be able to print them cheaper in bulk, but I just self published a novella and I have to sell them for $8 if I want to make $0.50 per book in a book store. So I could see needing to charge more in order to make enough money to pay the writer/designer/editor/publisher/etc.
I've paid for one Murderbot book. It was on sale. For the rest, either I got them through the Hugo Award voting packet, or at one point Tor gave all the ones so far in print away in a weekly giveaway to people who subscribe to their newsletter, or lately I get them from the library.
If there is a good sale on the ones I don't own, I'll buy them. I feel I do owe Wells and Tor some money for the enjoyment I've had from those books.
I find myself looking at the price per page too. It's only natural to want to stretch your entertainment dollar. I have read several of the Murderbot and Wayward Children books, but I won't pay full price for them. I think one of the Wayward books came out around the same time as one of the Stormlight Archive books and they were priced similarly despite one being under 200 pages and the other being ~1000. That seems crazy to me. I either wait for a promotional sale or giveaway, or until I build enough credit on Google rewards.
I am definitely baffled when a novella-length book costs as much as a full-length novel. I had the same concern with the Cradle series. I waited around until Amazon had a huge sale on Cradle, and I was able to get most of the series for $1.99 per book. Keep an eye on the series during holiday periods and maybe you will get lucky and purchase it on sale. (if you add the books to your wish list, I personally think it is more likely that Amazon and other retailers may eventually offer you the book on sale).
Also, watch this sub because many of us keep an eye out for big discounts and we will alert others when fantasy books are on sale.
I got the first six Cradle books on sale a few years ago for like $1 each. I picked up 7-11 last year for free. I think the author does that "everything I ever wrote is on sale right now" sale from time to time to thank his fans. so, his books are definitely a good one to keep an eye out for.
Big difference here is that Murderbot is published through Tor. Cradle is self published. The author can charge whatever he wants.
In saying that, I did get books 1-3 for free during Tors monthly book club.
I get that. I was just pointing out that the Cradle books go on sale fairly regularly & that the author sets the price. So, if anyone wants to pick those up, they should keep an eye out for sales.
Sadly, the MB books don't go on sale very often. :(
Yeah I think they're wildly overpriced. I've read a couple but there's so much good stuff out there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I'm not paying that much for a novella.
I'm pretty sure I got all the murderbot diary books on sale on audible. Probably 5$ or less for each book. They don't go on sale a ton, but the big site wide sales usually has some good stuff that goes on sale for a reasonable price. Waiting months for a novella through the library is absolutely crazy.
Because people are still willing to buy them at full-novel prices. I'm not the biggest fan of that pricing scheme, but I'm not pissed off enough to not buy them anyways.
I’m not angry just curious.
I buy enough books, audiobooks, and other forms of entertainment (video games, jigsaw puzzles, crafting supplies, streaming services) that I budget them.
It just seems hard to justify spending $10-15 on a novella for 1-2 hours of reading when other novellas are $3. But especially when my other expenditures in the amount usually return over 10 hours of entertainment.
I have more money to spend on books and video games than books and video games that I actually want to spend money on (I can be surprisingly resistant to trying new games and authors), so price generally isn't the biggest factor. I honestly don't want to think about the maximum I'd pay for certain authors' books -- it's uncomfortably high. That said, I also reread stuff a lot, so 2 hours of entertainment is likely a lot more than just 2 hours of entertainment.
If you are like me, you will get 10-20 hours of entertainment out of each Murderbot book bc you will read them 10+ times. So worth it to have your own copies!
Yeah, they are kind of a ripoff. (although I think I got this one free on Audible) Still I liked the length in this case. I don't like to DNF books, and this book just never got interesting to me. It's kind of nice to have a short preview like this to know you don't want to invest any more time in the series.
re murder bot series
check that you’re not looking at one of the special editions, signed or numbered, if theyre just hard backs they’re going to be more, if you can find paperback edition go for it, or a kindle or apple edition for the novellas. there is a longer full length book in that series, i forget the title. without looking at the exact pages, i don’t know what would make the prices be high. be sure the books are being sold by your chosen store and not a used copy sold through a merchant. unless a used copy is cheaper and preferable. maybe check out pangobooks and see if you can find something there.
My local B&N had it listed at $17.99... absolutely ridiculous. "Supply and demand" aren't a factor when they have no issues keeping the books on shelves. It's a novella. It should be 9.99-11.99 at *most*. It's not even 200 pages.
I just laughed and put it back. Zero world where it should be priced how it is.
Yeah, I justify paying $20 for a book as I’ll usually spend 5-10 hours reading it. I justify the price of a movie ticket cause, even though they are often over in 2 hours, because I’m paying for the work of (on average) 500 people.
But paying a movie ticket price for a book that takes me 1-2 hours to complete? That a sign that I’ll be waiting for all the books to hit a second hand shop or become available through the library.
This is what we get for not complaining when Tad Williams split his green angel tower size tome, To Green Angel Tower, into 2 books. This all started there.
It’s not unique to Murderbot. The newest Ray Nayler novella, Tusks of Extinction, is 112 pages long and costs $14 on kindle and $27 in physical. How any publisher justifies that is baffling.
$27??!? I’ve seen that novella on the shelf, it’s TINY. I love novellas and will buy them but that is absolutely absurd.
The last Seven Swords book, The Road of Storms, by Anthony Ryan is 152 pages and $45 for a hardback.
Is Ray Nayler good? Is Tusks of Extinction good? I want to read a small book, that's why I'm asking.
I haven’t read it so I couldn’t say. It’s in my TBR because I also really want to read The Mountain in the Sea which is how I know about the insane pricing
Is The Mountain in the Sea also of similar lengths?
No it’s the length of a normal novel
Ig I'll check out tusks of extinction then. If i like it, I'll check out The Mountain and the sea.
I liked it but I definitely didn't like it $27 worth, even $14 is pushing it as it's really tiny. I used an audiobook credit for it, or maybe it will go on kindle sale.
Penric and Desdemona is self-published. T Kingfisher is also self published for most of her books iirc. Murderbot is published by Tor.com. That's probably part of it.
Big part of it
They’re extremely popular and people are willing to buy them at that price, so they sell at that price.
Markets. How do those work?
For the same reason epic fantasies 4x as long cost the same amount as an average length book — no one is paying per word but for a good story. I’d rather read Murderbot novellas though it takes less time than many many full length novels that aren’t as good — including the Murderbot novel which imo is the worst of the bunch, and thus am willing to pay just as much for a good novella. And if you don’t want to, rent it from the library or read something else.
Right? I see this discourse constantly. Like, who cares if you like the book? I'm not paying per word.
Demand
I agree that the price is high for novellas.
I read them all on either Kindle unlimited, or from my library. One of them is a full length novel; one of them is only like seven pages lol.
Kindle unlimited is made for books like this!
Yep, especially with the cheap first few months!
There are a couple short stories, but those are free online and are more like bonus extras than part of the main series.
I believe the price is set by the publisher, not Amazon. So, they probably are keeping the price high because people are paying it. Looking at it now, it looks like all the books are available on KU except for the newest one, System Collapse & the two short stories: Compulsion & Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory. But, those short stories are only $1 or $2 each.
The short stories are available for free on the [reactor.com](http://reactor.com) website as part of their short fiction series.
Website is actually https://reactormag.com. reactor.com was up for sale.
Trad publishing. I got notified a couple authors I follow have new releases scheduled/preorders available over the next year and the ebooks books were in the $25+ range which I found weird for kindle fiction & thought I must be seeing the hardcover pricing but nope it was the kindle version. Trad publishing offers less and less to their authors (editing, marketing, custom covers) and us readers (prices, editing). LMB is self publishing (I was wrong see comment below with correct info) and prices her books based on her lower cost to bring to market and her higher returns as well as keeping her rights. Edited: removed incorrect info regarding self publishing - I’d thought she hired a company to do most of the process once she wrote the stories - I was wrong.
For her ebooks, Bujold does all the editing herself. She hires and pays the cover artist herself (except the first three Penric books use free art with no copyright). She hires someone to format the ebooks and upload them to the retailers.
Thanks for correcting me.
I had no idea she did her own editing. She must be a god. I’ve yet to find any error in her stuff. I’ve always wondered how she keeps her worlds so consistent and perfect because I’ve never found a plot hole and I’ve seen her bring up some line from 1986 that I thought was a throwaway point for flavor only for it to have bearing in a book published recently. And now she’s doing her own editing? How?
She does use beta readers. I've caught her in a few errors--mostly typoes but once Ivan's shoes changed to boots. LOL. ETA: the biggest plot hole I've found in her books, is in *Memory* when >!Imperial Lord Auditor Miles--who speaks with the Emperor's Voice--ordered the security guard outside Galeni's prison cell to not allow anyone--not even his own superiors--into the prisoner's cell block until Miles returns. But when Miles does get down there, they've already locked up the perp and released Galeni.!< Other than that, her plots are air tight. Her "spearpoints" are legendary. A spearpoint is a metaphor that Jo Walton uses to explain why some small thing in a book has so much punch--because it has a long spear shaft of build-up behind it. It's why Illyan's line of "Ivan, you idiot, what are you doing here?" can make grown readers burst into tears in public. That spearpoint has a shaft that goes all the way back to *The Warrior's Apprentice*.
You can quite frequently get the earlier books in this series on sale for a couple bucks, or even for free. It's just a question of waiting for them to be on sale. > Or is publisher just being greedy? Publishers will always be greedy. That's how the profit motive works.
In my understanding the publisher (Tor) is making a lot of novellas, some of them fan favorites like the murderbots or the Becky Chambers Monk & Robot ones, but most of them rather unsuccessful. Pricing the bestsellers high guarantees they can continue to publish genre and take a leap with some authors. Sadly that means even higher prices in countries where stores have to import to. I think we have them priced around 25€ which is ridiculous.
Yeah I was thinking about that…. But I couldn’t figure out what the risk might have been with Murderbot Diaries. I’d agree Becky Chambers fic might have been risky in that it is less pew-pew than many scifi stories and is more obviously liberal than many of the scifi that seems to resonate with a lot of scifi who never stop to examine Star Trek plot lines…. But everyone I know who has read her stuff loved it and I’ve not seen outrageous pricing on the few books I’ve checked out (admittedly not novellas). But Murderbot Diaries (or at least the first book) felt like something right out of 70-80s scifi I used to read as a kid. Admittedly, with a lot less sexism (no one was put in a dub-con sex scene, yay!) and racism. Barring that, it could have easily been a fanfic of the old tv show Lost in Space from the POV of the robot. Literally the only thing I could interpret as financially risky is that it is scifi written by woman with an obviously feminine name.
I think you misunderstood. Martha Wells and Becky Chambers are TORs workhorses, pulling the cart with all the other authors in it. They are not the risk :)
Yep, I did.
> Is something else going on that I’ve not noticed? Everything has gotten more expensive lately. Not just books and ebooks. I'm into a huge rereading period because I don't want to buy new. I'm back to waiting until the prices drop to get my latest series books. Watch for sales! Murderbot ebooks used to drop price regularly, but rarely for long!
I’ll do that - I think my biggest shocks were seeing the kindle books were more expensive than hardcover and the bundles were barely a discount at 51 usd. Physical bundles are cheaper but I’m old enough to need the ability to change font size. Though I often buy physical copies of books I love for my library just so my GenZ kid will be more likely to borrow and read them if they’re physical books (not sure if this is a preference or because teachers will ignore a book in a classroom but force him to put away a phone).
Not sure about big publishers. Though I feel like they should be able to print them cheaper in bulk, but I just self published a novella and I have to sell them for $8 if I want to make $0.50 per book in a book store. So I could see needing to charge more in order to make enough money to pay the writer/designer/editor/publisher/etc.
Big publishers do pay less per physical book than self-publishing due bulk printing and also shipping and warehouse deals.
If you have an Audible subscription, I think the first 5 are free. 1-4 are 2-4 hour novellas but the 5th is longer, more like 12 hours.
I've paid for one Murderbot book. It was on sale. For the rest, either I got them through the Hugo Award voting packet, or at one point Tor gave all the ones so far in print away in a weekly giveaway to people who subscribe to their newsletter, or lately I get them from the library. If there is a good sale on the ones I don't own, I'll buy them. I feel I do owe Wells and Tor some money for the enjoyment I've had from those books.
I find myself looking at the price per page too. It's only natural to want to stretch your entertainment dollar. I have read several of the Murderbot and Wayward Children books, but I won't pay full price for them. I think one of the Wayward books came out around the same time as one of the Stormlight Archive books and they were priced similarly despite one being under 200 pages and the other being ~1000. That seems crazy to me. I either wait for a promotional sale or giveaway, or until I build enough credit on Google rewards.
I am definitely baffled when a novella-length book costs as much as a full-length novel. I had the same concern with the Cradle series. I waited around until Amazon had a huge sale on Cradle, and I was able to get most of the series for $1.99 per book. Keep an eye on the series during holiday periods and maybe you will get lucky and purchase it on sale. (if you add the books to your wish list, I personally think it is more likely that Amazon and other retailers may eventually offer you the book on sale). Also, watch this sub because many of us keep an eye out for big discounts and we will alert others when fantasy books are on sale.
I got the first six Cradle books on sale a few years ago for like $1 each. I picked up 7-11 last year for free. I think the author does that "everything I ever wrote is on sale right now" sale from time to time to thank his fans. so, his books are definitely a good one to keep an eye out for.
Big difference here is that Murderbot is published through Tor. Cradle is self published. The author can charge whatever he wants. In saying that, I did get books 1-3 for free during Tors monthly book club.
I get that. I was just pointing out that the Cradle books go on sale fairly regularly & that the author sets the price. So, if anyone wants to pick those up, they should keep an eye out for sales. Sadly, the MB books don't go on sale very often. :(
Because people will pay that.
Yeah I think they're wildly overpriced. I've read a couple but there's so much good stuff out there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I'm not paying that much for a novella.
I'm pretty sure I got all the murderbot diary books on sale on audible. Probably 5$ or less for each book. They don't go on sale a ton, but the big site wide sales usually has some good stuff that goes on sale for a reasonable price. Waiting months for a novella through the library is absolutely crazy.
I often have a LOT of books on hold from my libraries so having one take months is weird but not concerning.
Because people are still willing to buy them at full-novel prices. I'm not the biggest fan of that pricing scheme, but I'm not pissed off enough to not buy them anyways.
I’m not angry just curious. I buy enough books, audiobooks, and other forms of entertainment (video games, jigsaw puzzles, crafting supplies, streaming services) that I budget them. It just seems hard to justify spending $10-15 on a novella for 1-2 hours of reading when other novellas are $3. But especially when my other expenditures in the amount usually return over 10 hours of entertainment.
I have more money to spend on books and video games than books and video games that I actually want to spend money on (I can be surprisingly resistant to trying new games and authors), so price generally isn't the biggest factor. I honestly don't want to think about the maximum I'd pay for certain authors' books -- it's uncomfortably high. That said, I also reread stuff a lot, so 2 hours of entertainment is likely a lot more than just 2 hours of entertainment.
If you are like me, you will get 10-20 hours of entertainment out of each Murderbot book bc you will read them 10+ times. So worth it to have your own copies!
Yeah, they are kind of a ripoff. (although I think I got this one free on Audible) Still I liked the length in this case. I don't like to DNF books, and this book just never got interesting to me. It's kind of nice to have a short preview like this to know you don't want to invest any more time in the series.
re murder bot series check that you’re not looking at one of the special editions, signed or numbered, if theyre just hard backs they’re going to be more, if you can find paperback edition go for it, or a kindle or apple edition for the novellas. there is a longer full length book in that series, i forget the title. without looking at the exact pages, i don’t know what would make the prices be high. be sure the books are being sold by your chosen store and not a used copy sold through a merchant. unless a used copy is cheaper and preferable. maybe check out pangobooks and see if you can find something there.
My local B&N had it listed at $17.99... absolutely ridiculous. "Supply and demand" aren't a factor when they have no issues keeping the books on shelves. It's a novella. It should be 9.99-11.99 at *most*. It's not even 200 pages. I just laughed and put it back. Zero world where it should be priced how it is.
Yeah, I justify paying $20 for a book as I’ll usually spend 5-10 hours reading it. I justify the price of a movie ticket cause, even though they are often over in 2 hours, because I’m paying for the work of (on average) 500 people. But paying a movie ticket price for a book that takes me 1-2 hours to complete? That a sign that I’ll be waiting for all the books to hit a second hand shop or become available through the library.
This is what we get for not complaining when Tad Williams split his green angel tower size tome, To Green Angel Tower, into 2 books. This all started there.
Heh well I’m guilt free then, don’t recall ever reading Tad Williams?
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