Self-Publishing: Pricing Your eBook!

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how much to price my eBook(s) at and I've actually noticed that more and more people have been posting this question in groups that I belong to, and they're asking for opinions on whether $xx.xx amount is the right amount.



Well, let me put this straight, there is no right amount. There isn't a guide saying that x amount of words means that you should sell your eBook at x amount of dollars/pounds/euros etc. it doesn't work like that, and because there are no overheads like production costs, it means you can price your eBook at whatever you like.



In a previous post I do go over pricing a little bit at the end, and that might shed some light on how you might want to price. (Taken from my post: Short Stories: Selling Them.) --- "I am no good at pricing. So I don't really know what to say you should price your short stories at. For me I'd price them at £0.79 / $0.99 but for others they price them at $2.99, which I respect as it has cover art, a lot of editing and time has gone into those 5,000 words, and also formatting. So I respect it. The downside to the higher end of pricing a 5,000 word short story is that there won't be many people buying, say 5 people a month (maybe). And the upside to being priced at the lower end is that people might think your work isn't good and so you've priced it so low, but more people would buy it. There's also the profit: you only get 35% for a $0.99 eBook ($0.35), and 70% for a $2.99 eBook ($2.09).





#1 so if you sell an eBook at $0.99 and you're making $0.35, and you sell around 5 a month, you're only making $1.75 a month, so $21 a year per eBook.




#2 now, if you sell an eBook at $2.99 and you're making $2.09, and you sell around 5 a month, you're making $10.45 a month, so $125.4 a year per eBook.


That's a huge difference, but when you publish you can always play around with pricing."



A little disclaimer here, I think that with proper marketing and promotion, you'd be making more than five sales per month, so call this 'bare minimum'. I am not sure what's realistic for a self-published author to get in sales, but like I say, it's probably all down to marketing and promoting, and if you don't do enough of either then don't expect many, if any sales.




Your First eBook


I'm currently at this stage in my self-publishing career/life, whatever you want to call it, and it's making me slightly stressed out and nerve-racked, and anyone who says otherwise is probably just saying that to sound confident. I suppose there is a lot to be confident about; formatting, editing, cover art, and most importantly the content... but they're also going to be under scrutiny and that's why it's making me nervous.



I know that it shouldn't matter if you're publishing your first or twenty-first eBook, but I'm on the fence about how to price it. A part of me is saying, "Joe, price it lower, get more people reading your writing and then build up a readership of people who are willing to pay more for your other work." And then the other side is like, "yes, it's about building a readership, but at the same time, you've worked so god damn hard on this, don't undersell yourself, Joe! And this is what you're choosing as a job, you do need to make money from this... but remember that it's not all about the money. Okay?" I'm not sure, in fact, the only thing I am sure of is that I'm going to use more colours because I've got more voices that want to talk.



"Joseph Thomas James Eastwood! Listen to me, don't listen to them! Now that I have your attention, I'll tell you what I was thinking... I was thinking that you should stop pussy footing around with this blog post. Oh, and my thoughts on pricing, well, you don't have to pick a price and stick with it, you can always price it high and then do those 'FOR ONE DAY ONLY' things and price your eBook cheaper or for free." << that's the demanding voice, and also the reasoning one.



Side note: Part of the reason for creating this blog was to meet new people, to meet other writers, readers, bloggers, whoever, just people who might be interested in my life story (currently a work-in-progress) and I'm going to be honest and up front with you guys... whereas some people like to keep their identity a secret, and don't like to share. Well, I'm a huge sharer... when it comes to the invisible audience that is!



I created a chart on excel to work out the 35% and 70% profit from each sale... I feel a little bit nervous sharing this chart because I fear that you're going to be thinking "oh, he's only writing to make money" and it would kill me to have you guys think that about me when all I want to do is write for a living and if making money will allow me to do that, then I'm going to try and make money. Anyway, I'll show you guys, this is for research, and if you're like me and love to research, then you'll love this!






*35% sorry! lol


I created this chart with 3 currencies as I'm from the UK and at the end everything needs to be turned into pounds and it's good to know I'm pricing the eBook at similar prices across all of Amazon's Kindle stores. Yes, it might look a little bit excessive, although I've been told that I should have gone all the way up to $8.99 etc. (I felt that would have been excessive).



I think the excel chart is pretty easy to read. Right? White is price. Light blue is profit. Purple is euro in pound, and black is dollar in pound. I'm going to focus on dollars and America as that is probably the biggest eBook market, and America is a very big place. Those highlighted in red are the price points that I'd like to try out.



The line starting £0.75 is what I want to try for my short 5,000 word short stories.

Would you pay that? Is it too cheap? I hope that pricing it so low will make people think it's not going to be a good read.



The line starting £1.99 is what I might also try for the 5,000 word short stories, or perhaps longer/novellas of around 25,000-ish words. But this is all still maybes and I've not thought everything through.



The lines £2.99, £3.49, and £3.99 are all for the novels, and they're for playing around with as I feel that they're definitely worth that, especially with all of the hard work that it's taken and cups of coffee I've had to drink into the early hours of the morning saying to myself. "Finish the next line/ the next scene/ oh, go on, you can do another chapter before bed!" I think it's a form of abuse to be quite honest! HA!



Oh, I should say something about that last line on the chart, that's going to be for compilations, like super compilations of all the short stories that I've written, with extras in those. (That's still an ideas stage thing.)



Now that I've put some ideas in your head, I'm going to put some questions to you, and it would mean the world to me if you could answer them. Thank you!




What's the maximum price you'd pay for an eBook?

Do you read free eBooks or just store them?

Would you go out on a limb for an author's books that you'd never read before?


-Joseph





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