Pricing an E-book

The genres all seem to have their own comfort zones for price, so have a look around your genre and see what others are pricing their books at. Then experiment a little to see where the ideal price is for you.

I followed the standard advice and tried my first ebook at 99 cents and $2.99, but for whatever reason it sells best at $3.99. And not at all at $4.99. My readers are very particular....

I would suggest looking up a dozen competing titles and using that as a guide.

The only firm belief I have on pricing is that you should be flexible. Be willing to experiment, and find the sweet spot for each title.

Do as veinglory suggested, as pricing can vary from genre to genre. Be aware that 99c will limit you in terms of other promotional strategies such as discounts, sales, and coupons.

There are self-publishers making money at all sorts of prices in-between 99c and $4.99. The pricing strategy you choose will also be affected by what your goals are. Do you want the maximum number of readers or profit?

I priced my mystery Big Lake at 99 cents because that seems to be a common starting point for first novels, with the idea that you will attract readers who don't know you, and subsequent novels will sell for more.

I priced my four non-fiction books between $2.99 and $3.99, because three out of four of them have been out in print editions for several years and sell steadily to my niche market for between $10.95 and $16.95 and I knew they had a waiting readership.

Robrealm said:

To anyone who has published an e-book, how did you decide on your starting price?

Thanks for your input

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I started at $4.95 as it was about 1/2 the paperback price, considerably cheaper than books sold in the same genre by established publishers, and under $5.00.

I went with $3.99 for my starting price. I came up with that by considering word counts and by asking a few fans what they'd pay for an e-book. (They actually gave higher numbers.)

Why word counts? I write short stories, too. If I'm going to sell a 4k word short story for $0.99 US, I don't want to sell a 80k word novel for $1.99.

I also considered what I'd be charging for a PoD. I'm currently tweaking book layout and such to try to be able to offer a print version at mass market pricing. I don't feel comfortable charging $4.99 for an e-book when I want to sell print books for $7.99, if possible.

For the month of June, I'm trying a $2.99 price point. So far, sales have actually dropped. Once I have more books done in this series, I may try a more dramatic sale of the first book, because I've seen other authors report that it helps sales for succeeding books, but I've not decided yet.

Genre: YA fantasy

I started at $2.99. Today was the first day it was available. I may tinker a bit with the price in a month or two but, for now, I'm comfortable with it.

I usually price at $2.99 for novels, and 99 cents for short stories. But this summer to get people trying my stuff I'm doing a 99 cent ebook sale on everything on amazon and B&N until September 1st.

Also offering a bunch of YA stuff free on Smashwords.

I'm hoping to get more readers and build an audience long-term.

SJS DIRECT said:

I usually price at $2.99 for novels, and 99 cents for short stories. But this summer to get people trying my stuff I'm doing a 99 cent ebook sale on everything on amazon and B&N until September 1st.

Also offering a bunch of YA stuff free on Smashwords.

I'm hoping to get more readers and build an audience long-term.

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I'll be interested to see how this affects your sales. Please let us know.