Blue Book Price Increase

In the next few days, a new Blue Book - SECRETS OF STORY - will come out... at a cover price of $3.99. The reason why? It's looking like 280 pages right now! I couldn't figure out why it was taking so long to finish, and when I did my rough assembly last night I had my answer - 80,000 words. I was trying for 60,000 words! The original paper version was around 14,000 words.

The e-version of the Blue Books began as a way for me to test the format before I published the expanded version of SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING. The first couple were *really* experiments... and I learned from them. Since then I have revamped the Protagonist Blue Book taking it up to 205 pages. I made a decision to scrap a pair of proposed screenwriting books that would use some of my Script Magazine articles and put those in the Blue Books instead. Make all of the Blue Books about 200 pages like the new ones are.

The IDEAS Blue Book (first one I did) is a little short, now I'm adding a couple of articles (one has run on the website) and integrate the tips and clean it up. See if I can get it close to 200 pages. The DIALOGUE Blue Book was the last one that I did before forming the new plan, and it's just shy of 200 pages. I have a "missing chapter" that I couldn't find on any of my computers that I'm going to retype and slip in there... along with integrating the tips and cleaning up some problems. That was part of the plan since I figured out that the Blue Books weren't just going to be experiments... but actual books that would be expanded from the 40 page paper versions to 200 page e-book versions... and then probably do a CreateSpace paper version.

The current price of $2.99 makes them a deal. The 40 page paper versions are $4.99... but most of that is paper and copy costs! I thought it would be fair to lower the price on the e-versions, since there's no paper. Though I'm not making millions, writing them is kind of an investment - once they are out there they keep making money. So if it takes me a freakin' long time to write the STORY Blue Book, that's okay because it will make money for years afterwards, right?

But then I took a look at books priced at $2.99 (and some that were priced higher) to see if my 205 page $2.99 books were priced fairly. Here are some screen grabs I assembled:

Okay. Do you think I'm over priced or under priced?

Yes, there were some books in the $2.99 range that were similar to mine, but *most* were in the 60-70 pages... with some of those 13 page screenwriting books in there!

The DIALOGUE Blue Book has more pages than the one selling for $5.99! And, um, I think it's probably worth $5.99!

So, I think raising the prices to $3.99 next month is fair. STORY will be $3.99 when it comes out in a few days, the others will go up next month... and the new Blue Books that come out will be $3.99 (Scenes is next, then First 10 Pages) and then I might raise the prices to $4.99 in a year or two. Depends on the market.

But the clock is ticking on the $2.99 price. If you have screenwriter friends who you think might want them, tell them to buy them before I raise the price next month.

- Bill