Pricing of self published nonfiction. Thoughts? Business models?

I am almost at the stage of ordering my proofs with Lulu (When you guys help me with my formatting - see thread below ) - So am almost good to go. The book is non fiction and instructional.

So a 200 page 6x9 costs around £5 lets say, shipping to anywhere will be less than another £5 (Most sales I expect will be in the US) So I am thinking of a price of £14-99 (Under $30) in order to make a net profit of £5+ per book. (What I gain on postage I lose on Paypal fees so it evens out)

Now the subject is niche, meaning people will seek it out on Amazon (not done the sums for there yet) and Google and I am hoping to channel a lot of topic specific forum traffic in the direction of my site that will have a Paypal payment cart on etc....

People are selling some very tacky e-books (And I mean 20 years out of date or dreadfully written and full of errors) for £7-£10 already, and actually selling them!

I perused Amazon the other night and found a book on the identical topic selling (perhaps) at $78! (£40) - Now that guy has no greater topic specialty or experience than me (I Googled him) yet he is pricing his production at $78.

Now I know from selling cars that if you price a car at £2000 and it is cheap you will sell it for sure and get dozens of calls, but of you price the car at £3000 and wax lyrical about it you will get fewer calls but the guy who buys it perceives he is getting a better car than those advertised at £2000, (that he wont even call up) because he is paying more.

Now the subject matter - one can throw thousands of pounds or dollars at and get nowhere, so a book at $78 or $30 should not matter one jot. The information therein will save the punter thousands anyway. But to get that across to the punter without it sounding like flannel is difficult, by the time they have been ripped off a few times they may be reluctant to spend more to get it right. Before they have been ripped off by others they dont yet know they need the information.

So whats the psychology behind book buying? Are there any models that work?

I know when I buy a book I try to find it used or on ebay to save a few quid. The same mentality would drive my potential customers to buy an outdated/useless e-book elsewhere.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

Stormhawk said:

Sorry, it's early and it's not quite clear.

Are you planning on getting a distro package through Lulu?
Are getting your own outside ISBN and selling through an Amazon Advantage account?
Are you going to buy a bulk lot and sell them through your own site?

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Sorry for my lack of clairty; I bought the 10 ISBN deal, so some distribution will be via Amazon and other Lulu avenues. I also have a couple of websites, both of which will sell it, those will be shipped by me.

veinglory said:

If the demand is there you can charge a premium but there is still a balance between profit per unit and units sold.

My understanding is that postage and currency conversion for the UK is fairly unfavorable at Lulu. Have you run the exact figures?

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I priced author copies of course, it was £4 and change, hence my £5 per unit figure above.

ResearchGuy said:

I cannot see a list price of more than $16.00 for a trade paperback novel or fiction anthology as being credible here, and even that much is pushing the limit, IMHO. Exceptions might trade paperback editions of giant novels by bestselling authors (but even then, 800-plus-page tomes by Diana Gabaldon, for example, I see list-priced at $15.00).

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Can the same be said of non fiction?

This is non fiction; the title line was an error I asked the Mod to fix but she hasnt done yet.

I agree the $78 book I referred to probably is not selling much, indeed the Amazon review it has is by a well known shiller who crops up on forums various, shilling the books and e-books of others too.