The price is right.
Can readers guess the price for your book? Even better question is how to choose the right price for your book.
Choosing the right price point is critical to sales. It can make the difference between whether the reader will buy your book or put it back on the shelf. While you want to make a profit from the money you invested, you don’t want to price your book so high that it deters readers. On the opposite side of the coin, if you price your book too low, you will have to rely on getting a greater number of sales just to break even. While most people like a good bargain, a book that’s free or cheap may give some readers the impression that the quality is cheap. Not all readers think that way and some successful writers have priced their books for free or $.99, whether permanently or for a limited time offer.
The pricing of your book will vary depending on the format it’s available in. If it’s a print book, the ink settings, binding, and page count will determine the minimum price your book can be set to. If it’s an eBook, you don’t have to worry about printing costs that come with distributing and shipping paperbacks and hardcover books, so the costs for the eBook will almost always be cheaper than the paperback version. Let’s look at each format and the pricing guidelines to follow.
EBooks have the most flexibility in pricing. I’ve seen Kindle prices range from free to $34.99! Textbooks typically fall in the higher price range, so those are more the exception rather than the rule. Most eBooks fall within free to $5.99. So, there is a considerable range in which you can price your book.
Your best approach is to select a competitive price for your book. How do you do that? Here are some consumer practices to consider when pricing competitively:
The Length of the Book
It’s widely practiced, even expected, that a writer would charge more for a book based on the sheer volume of content even if it’s in electronic or audio form. Most people expect to pay more for a college textbook versus a short story. Conversely, if you set a higher price, readers will expect more content. This is just one example of basic consumer practices that can help you set reasonable prices.
The Genre
Some genres have a higher price point than others. Per David Kudler in his blog: The Book Designer, readers of some genres such as romance, science fiction, and mysteries, expect shorter books (50,000 words or less) to be priced at $.99. Meanwhile, for full-length works (over 50,000 words) readers expect to pay between $2.99-$4.99. For other genres, like literary fiction and nonfiction short stories and novellas which clock under 40,000 words, a reader would expect to pay $2.99. For a full-length work in those genres, you can expect to price it somewhere between $4.99-$9.99. As mentioned earlier, nonfiction books, especially reference books, tend to run higher in cost. When choosing a price, note the prices of similar books in your chosen genre. One exercise to try is to select ten books for a genre so you can get a good range and calculate the average price. You can then use the average to determine the price point to start from.
Demand
The higher the demand, the higher the price. Therefore, textbooks are priced higher than your average books. There is a greater demand for them from college students and/or professors across the country. If there are fewer competitors, you can afford to raise your price. However, in a saturated book market, readers have more choices even within a given subject matter. So, choosing the higher tier is not a wise strategy for any writer starting in the publishing industry.
Credibility/Following
This leads to my next point; readers gravitate to what they know. If you are a new writer and have a tiny following, people will typically have reservations about taking a chance on your book. When you don’t have the advantage of a marketing team, a huge social media following, or a fan base, that’s already one strike. If readers get the sense, your book is not high quality or you are not qualified to write on a certain genre, that’s even more strikes against you. Buying your book then becomes a risky move for the reader. Choosing the wrong price only exacerbates this problem. For example, if you select a higher price (compared to books with a similar page length and genre as yours), the reader may think the risk of buying the book and not liking it is too high. However, if you set the price on the lower end, readers are more likely to take a chance on your book.
A popular price point, especially with new writers, is between $.99 and $3.99. The average price of eBooks typically falls closer between $2.99-$3.99. Keep in mind that certain sites, such as Amazon KDP, will reward you with higher royalties if you price the book at least $2.99. Using KDP as an example, if you price your book at $2.99, you’re looking at 70% royalty vs. 35% royalty for books priced $.99 and lower. Some sites, such as Kobo and Barnes & Noble, will reward you with a higher royalty rate at $.99, so that is something to keep in mind when you are setting your prices. Understandably, upcoming writers may price their books within this range. Some, though, may take it a step further and set their price as free. They may reason that if you download a book for free, readers have nothing to lose—except time—but that’s a different story.
This leads to my next point: making your books free. This may seem counterintuitive if you want to make sales. Obviously, if your book is permanently free, don’t expect to make a profit. So why set the price to zero? Setting your book free can be a strategic marketing strategy. Most people, including myself, like free things. Even people who normally wouldn’t read your book might give it a chance. If you set your book for free, people are far more likely to download your book, driving up your sales rank on online retailers. This helps you drive not only more downloads but also more visibility, which funnels more downloads.
Keep in mind that setting your books free will attract many readers. Not every reader that downloads your book will read it. They may just download it only to forget about it. I think many of us are guilty, including myself, of downloading a book that was on sale or free, only to never read it.
Another reason people may set their books free is that they want to gain readers. Making your first book free and then charging for the next book has been done by many authors hoping to gain a solid readership first before promoting their next book. This can be effective, especially if you plan to write a series. The assumption is if the readers liked the first book, chances are they will pay for the second book. For many writers, this has proven to be the case.
Even if you price your book for sale, you can always set it to free for promotional purposes. Most times writers will make their book free for a limited time to create buzz and drive sales ranks and ultimately sales if done right. Retailers, such as Amazon and Smashwords, will let you set your book for free for a limited time. Keep in mind that if you set your book free, other retailers will need to price-match so that readers will see a consistent value no matter where they go. Thankfully, if you go through an aggregator, such as Smashwords, they will ensure it updates your pricing across all its channels although don’t expect the price change to be instantaneous. If you want more control over the exact timing of your free run, choosing Kindle Unlimited is a better option although you have to make your book exclusive with Amazon for 90 days.
Want more information on pricing your books including audiobooks? Get an advanced reader copy of my latest guide: How to Self-Publish Without Going Broke before it goes live on June 29th, 2020.
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