Pricing

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Jazen

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I have a question on how to decide what is a fair price for your book.

I know Kindle as a suggested price tool and based on that it tells me I should charge $9.49 for my book. It's currently priced at $3.50.

As a new author, I don't think readers would be willing to sink nearly $10 into an unknown, but at the same time I don't want to short change myself.

I've plopped it into the romance genre (for now still working on finding the proper home) so I tried to price it for something comparable to other romances while taking into account my newbie status.

So when determining price how much does page count weigh into how much should be charged? In romance novellas are big and some are priced at $2.99 for less than 100 pages.

I'm currently working on a second book as a companion to the first and want to find a price that will be fair to both the reader and myself. Is it in bad form to raise the price of the first book and offer the second for a lower price? I know (or hope) book 2 will be shorter than book 1 therefore my logic says it should be priced lower.

Thanks for any feedback. :) Have a good day.
 

WriterBN

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Check the prices of other self-published books in your subgenre/subcategory, and price accordingly. Keep it at that price for a few months, then try raising or lowering the price and see how it affects your sales.

Basically, "what the market will bear."
 

SBibb

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I've wondered about this myself. I guess the biggest thing I can say is that as the self-publisher, you're enable to play with pricing if one price doesn't work. Other than that... you could either experiment and see what happens, or try to find similar books and price accordingly.

I've wondered at times about starting a first book (in a series) priced where I plan to put the second book, then drop the price of the first as a promotional sale when the second comes out, then only raise it partially afterwards, that way it might lead readers into the next book after they've tried the first at a lower price.

Then again, that may depend on if you have a series and how big the size difference is.
 

shelleyo

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As a new author, I don't think readers would be willing to sink nearly $10 into an unknown, but at the same time I don't want to short change myself.

They probably wouldn't. People will shout about that and say that readers buy new trade-published authors for that price. True, but this isn't trade publishing.

You can change the price to see what happens. If it doesn't work after a while, change it back. Even if you sell less, your income from 9.99 is almost tripled, so fewer sales could still mean more money. I'd at least experiment with $3.99 or $4.99. Prices ending in 9 and 99 are what customers are used to.

If you're coming out with a second in a series, you could lower the price of the first to 99 cents when you do, for a limited time (say that on the page), and submit that to some places that announce bargain and 99-cent ebooks to try to gain readers and get people to sign up for your mailing list. I think it's far more important to focus on gaining fans who will buy your other stuff in the beginning than it is to worry about getting a "fair price" per book, whatever that might be.
 
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Jazen

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Thanks so much for all the feedback! I will play around with pricing and maybe go up to $4.99 and see what the response it. When book 2 is closer to release, I'll put book 1 on sale for a short while.

@Shelleyo question about the mailing list. Book 1 was released prior to me having that or a website set up so the only contact links found in it are to my blog and my facebook page. Would it be advisable to update the edition adding the new links?
 

shelleyo

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Thanks so much for all the feedback! I will play around with pricing and maybe go up to $4.99 and see what the response it. When book 2 is closer to release, I'll put book 1 on sale for a short while.

@Shelleyo question about the mailing list. Book 1 was released prior to me having that or a website set up so the only contact links found in it are to my blog and my facebook page. Would it be advisable to update the edition adding the new links?

Yes, you want the link to your mailing list in your book. Put it in there as soon as possible. One of the perks of self-publishing is the ability to make changes on the fly.
 

Jazen

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Thanks Shelleyo. I will update the book with the new links.
 
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