How Much Should I Charge for My Book?
As a self-publishing author, there are myriad things to think about–among them, how much to charge for your book. With all the different books on the market and all the different places you can sell them, it can be overwhelming to determine the price-point for your book. You don’t want to price so high or so low that people won’t buy it. Instead of worrying about it, continue reading for important tips about book pricing.
The importance of book pricing
Writing is something you do because you love it. You’ve spent a lot of time and effort to write and prepare your book for publishing, and you don’t want to, literally, sell yourself short. However, if you price your book too high, people might not buy it. If you price your book too low, you may never make a profit. Ask yourself what your goals are for publishing: Are you trying to sell a lot of books? Make a lot of money? Expand your readership? Knowing ahead of time what your goals are will help you decide on an appropriate price.
Amazon and IngramSpark, another popular print-on demand publisher, offer online cost calculators. When you enter your word count, trim size, publication type, and whether it’s color or black and white, the calculator will show how much it will cost to have your book produced. Using this information will help ensure you don’t price your book so low that you won’t receive any royalties. Playing with these calculators before you finalize your book can also help you decide if your manuscript is too long, if you should or shouldn’t do color or hardback, and what trim size makes the most sense cost-wise.
Look at the competition
In every genre, there are thousands of other books on the market. Looking at books in your genre can help you understand how much people are paying for similar stories. You don’t want to charge a lot more than these competitors, but you also don’t want to price your book too low comparatively. For readers, they might see the lower price and assume your book is poorly written compared to the competition. Pick book pricing that is similar to what other authors in your genre are selling their books for, with the knowledge that you can raise or lower your price at any time. You can also run promotions at various times throughout the year to increase sales and engage more prospective readers.
Play money mind games
There are all kinds of theories and research done about how to encourage sales and attract buyers for products. One of the most popular strategies in book pricing is to end your price in an odd number, specifically a five or a nine. Psychologically, seeing a book for $5.99 makes it seem much cheaper than the same book for $6.00. Most ebooks on the market are selling for amounts ending in 5 or 9, with one of the most popular costs being $3.99. This is a low-risk investment for the consumer–if they don’t like the book, they spent less than $4.
International book pricing
For American authors, you might not have considered publishing your book in Australia, England, or other English-speaking countries. But in doing so, you increase the number of your potential readers by millions. When selling your book in an online store, most have options to list your book in various currencies. With the couple extra minutes it takes to list your book in a variety of international markets, you could gain numerous additional readers.
Publishing a book doesn’t have to be confusing or difficult. When it comes to pricing and everything else that goes along with self-publishing, let Publish Pros help you create a finished product you’ll be proud to call your own.
