The Price is Right

As a publisher I have to make any number of decisions that authors don’t have to consider, unless of course they’re self-publishing.  One of those decisions is product price.Every author invests hundreds of hours of sweat into creating a novel. Every novelist (myself included) believes his books deserve to sell far more copies than they do. And most of us believe our hard work, inspiration and talent are worth far more than the cover price on our book suggests. I think that explains why so many books I see on Amazon, especially ebooks, are so costly. Unfortunately for them, book buyers are very price sensitive, so a price that’s even a little too high could kill their sales.Remember the battle Hachette got into with Amazon over pricing? Amazon was trying to force the publisher to lower its ebook prices. Like other major publishers, Hachette was trying to sell ebooks at a price almost as high as their paper books. I have to believe that cuts down on sales.So how do you find the right price? We start by checking out the competition. After looking at a lot of fiction ebooks for the Kindle we decided that $2.99 was the best choice. If your ebook is one of the genres we publish and it’s around our usual page count but costs more, well, thank you. People who see your promotion may well decide they want that kind of book. But when they see your price they may also decide to get one of ours instead.It’s just as important for print books to be priced close to their competitor books if you want strong sales. It’s a bit more of a challenge because hardcovers are very expensive to make, and other things like paper choice and the number of pictures, can impact cost. To keep the price of your book in the ballpark of others like it you might need to be flexible about the number of photos or pictures. And you might need to give up hard cover production and stick to paperbacks in the most economical size. If you really want your book to be more expensive, and still sell, there’s only one way. Again, check the prices of other books and you’ll see that those that are both successful land higher priced are by authors whose names you recognize, authors whose fans will buy their books without looking at the price. To raise your price without lowering your sales you’ll need to build a platform as substantial as those authors. When you have enough fans who will buy a book with your name on it, without caring about a couple more dollars, THEN you can raise your cover price.Can you get there? Maybe, if you build your fan base. So increase your email list. Get lots more reviews! Make contacts at appear at conferences.
But keep your cover price low while you are still an unknown quantity to most readers. When more people know that your books are a sure thing, price will no longer be an issue.