Have you considered bundling your books together? Simon Whaley explores the business basics of box sets.
Box sets began life as an omnibus edition. Victorian publishers printed two or more novels as a collection within one physical book and sold it for less than the cost of buying each novel individually.
In the twentieth century, rather than creating a new book containing several novels, publishers hit upon the idea of collating novels from existing print runs and putting them in a container and selling them as one unit or collection. These collections often appeared in boxes, hence the term box set.
Today, digital box sets proliferate, and for self-published authors, they can provide an extra boost to their writing income. Box sets can be collections of eBooks, audiobooks, or even a mixture of both.
The Netflix effect can partly explain this boom. Whereas we used to watch one episode a week of a serial on television, Netflix has trained us into binge-watching an entire series in one sitting. Some readers do the same with books. Why buy six different books to take away on holiday when they can buy one boxset and binge-read an entire series on the beach?
Commercial Collections
Readers like these collections because they offer value for money. A box set containing three novels might sell for the equivalent price of two novels, effectively giving the reader a free book.
From a self-published author’s perspective, offering box sets can generate more income because we’re creating a new product out of existing content. We’ve already written the books, so we might as well maximise their income-generating potential.
If we’ve written three novels in a series, we already have three separate products. But putting them into a collection and offering them as a box set means we now have four products: the three individual novels and the box set.
If we take the example of an author selling their first novel for 99p to tempt readers to take the risk and books two and three for £2.99, they’ll earn £4.53 in royalties. (The 99p eBook will be at Amazon’s 35% royalty rate, but the £2.99 books will attract the 70% rate.) The reader will have paid £6.97 for the three books.
If the author sells the three books as a box set for £5.99, they will receive £4.19 in royalties. While that is 34p less than if the books sold separately, there are a couple of points to consider.
When the reader buys the box set, the author receives the £4.19 royalty in full. Whereas, if the reader buys each book individually, they might only buy book two once they’ve read and enjoyed book one. If they enjoyed book two, then they might buy book three. These purchases might take place several months apart, if at all, whereas a box set royalty gives the author the royalties from three books upfront.
Another point is that there are some readers who prefer box sets to individual titles, so offering a box set attracts a different readership and, therefore, extra money.
Contrary Customers
Cindy Stark (cindystark.com) has written over fifty mystic and paranormal cosy mysteries, and has recently released her eighth title, Mystic Spirits, in her mystic village cosy mystery series.
She began looking into box sets when she learned they could help her attract new readers.
‘I first tried box sets when I noticed a few authors had hit Amazon’s top 100 in my sub-genre with their bundles,’ she explains. ‘I always hear it’s a good idea to maximise my intellectual property in as many ways as possible, and I had a friend tell me that people who purchase box sets are a different subset of readers than those who read single titles. My books were already written, so I had nothing to lose. At that point, I had three finished paranormal cosy mystery series, which included dozens of books that were more than a year old and weren’t selling well at the time.’
Bundle Bonanza
There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how many books should go into a box set bundle. Cindy takes a flexible approach depending on how many books are in each series and whether she plans to write any more.
‘I started by doing collections of my finished series first, so I included all that were in each series. I also have two ongoing paranormal cosy mystery series. In my Cookie Corner mysteries, I bundled three books, then expanded it to six, and then did another expansion of ten books, with a total of fifteen books in that series. Once the remaining five are older, I’ll probably start a second collection because going beyond ten in a set seems like a lot. I just released a box set of my other ongoing Mystic Village series, and that box set has the first three books plus a bonus novella, with four books that remain single titles only.’
Factual Folios
Box sets can be just as important for non-fiction authors too, especially if you’ve written books on closely linked subjects.
Over a decade ago, I wrote The Complete Article Writer, which shows writers how to craft and sell magazine articles, starting with the initial idea and taking them through the entire process, including what to do when a magazine has published their feature.
A few years later, I regained the rights to my Photography for Writers, which explains how writers can take photos to illustrate their articles. I updated it and self-published it. Then I had an idea.
Writers who can offer editors a complete words-and-pictures package stand a greater chance of success, so I created The Complete Article Writer’s Box Set. This eBook collection includes both The Complete Article Writer and Photography for Writers.
In eBook format, I sell The Complete Article Writer for £4.99, Photography for Writers for £3.99, and the box set for £6.99 (saving the reader £1.99).
My sales data reveals I don’t get many eBook sales of Photography for Writers. Most of the income generated by this book comes from library borrowing, which typically amounts to £0.39 per borrow.
Most of my eBook sales of Photography for Writers have been as part of the box set, which generates a royalty of £3.84. If I deduct the typical royalty I receive from The Complete Article Writer (£2.79), it means Photography for Writers is adding £1.05 to my royalty income via box sets, compared with the £0.39 I’m getting from library borrowing.
Therefore, including Photography for Writers in my The Complete Article Writer’s Box Set enables me to generate more income from this book.
Kindle Considerations
For Cindy, the price of her box sets is less important because of her Amazon exclusivity.
‘Since most of my readers are in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, I’m exclusive to Amazon. I price my collections at 99 cents, which seems a little crazy at first glance for so many books. But when most are reading them in KU, the price point doesn’t matter. I get paid per page read, regardless of the selling price. I would not recommend pricing them at 99 cents if most of an author’s income comes from sales. Though I’d say it’s still worth trying box sets at a price that’s less than if each were purchased separately.’
Under Amazon’s 70% eBook royalty rate, the maximum an author can charge is £9.99/$9.99. Set a higher price and Amazon’s royalty rate drops back to 35%, which has serious financial repercussions. This limit is on the Amazon platform only. Other platforms offer 70% royalties on books priced higher than £9.99/$9.99, which is why some authors offer bigger box sets on other platforms, but not on Amazon.
It’s always worth reviewing what other authors in your genre are offering. How many books do they offer in a box set and what price are they charging?
Cindy suggests starting small and seeing how things go. Just like any other book product, it may be necessary to promote a box set, too.
‘Start small with three books and have five in total in the series,’ Cindy recommends. ‘If your books are still selling well on their own and have good rankings, I would probably wait until you have more books out and the first books are older. Authors will probably need to advertise their box sets in order to gain visibility, and I would specifically target other collections in their genres.’
But Cindy also reminds us to make the most of our existing marketing opportunities as well.
‘Include them in your newsletters and social media. Time the release so that it’s in between other releases and promote as much as possible. And don’t forget to ask for reviews! Getting a handful or more in those first days makes a huge difference.’
Creating a box set is an effective way of re-monetising our backlist. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to create a box set, compared with all the effort needed to write a book in the first place.
Not only can a box set boost our writing income, but it can also attract new binge-reading fans.
Business Directory: Building a Box Set
- Create a new file in your eBook-formatting software (Vellum, Atticus, Scrivener, etc.).
- Copy and paste the eBook files for the books you’re including in the box set.
- A box set only needs one set of front and back matter. (You don’t need three “About the Author” pages if your box set contains three novels. Just have one at the end of the box set.)
- All you need for each novel is the title page, a dedication (if you have one), any epigraphs, and any book-specific material, such as maps or character lists.
- Create a 3D stack, or box set image. Some websites have free templates you can use (canva.com, bookbrush.com, placeit.net, diybookcovers.com).
- A box set is a new product, and may require its own ISBN if distributing it wide. (An eBook box set on Amazon does not require an ISBN.)
