Why I Priced My Books The Way I Did
When you’re indie author, you get to be your own boss. Every decision made about your book is up to you. Including the price of your books. While it is kinda fun having that much control over your book, picking the price is not as simple as it may seems.
Some authors prefer to have their book set to free to get more people to read it. Then of course you have authors who price their books to maximize their profits.
In the case of the latter, there are some basic guidelines primarily from Amazon as to the base minimum authors should price their book. Books on Amazon should at least be priced at $0.99-$2.99 to earn any type of revenue.
Authors can make the price higher, but if they want to see anything from it, it has to at least be within that range. Another factor that impacts pricing is what type of book, the book is. An eBook will cost less than a paperback. A paperback will cost less than hardcovers. And so on and so forth.
eBooks will typically be around $0.99-$5.99. Paperbacks are normally $11.99–14.99, but can be more or less. And hardcovers will be $20 and up. Authors will have to decide what prices work the best for them and what they are trying to accomplish.
If the authors’ main objective is to get people to read their books, they will price their books on the lower end. But if they want to make an earning, they price it toward the normal or higher end. Authors do have to be careful though of making sure the price of their books doesn’t make them look cheap or scare readers away by being too high.
Being conscious of this, I did my best to avoid either perception. I want my books to be affordable, but not too cheap. Here’s the final prices I came up with.
- Kindle eBook Pricing: $3.99
- Royalties I Make Per Book I Sell: $2.92
- Kindle Paperback Pricing: $9.99
- Royalties I Make Per Book I Sell: $3.62
- DraftToDigital eBook Pricing: $3.99
- Royalties I Make Per Book I Sell: $2.37
- Barnes & Noble Paperback Pricing: $12.99
- Royalties I Make Per Book I Sell: $3.54
- Lulu Paperback Pricing: $15.50
- Royalties I Make Per Book I Sell: $1.77
Every author will have to decide what price(s) work best for them to get what they want from selling their books. These prices just so happen to be mines. But it’ll be different for everyone.
Originally published at http://fairlyprofessional.com on July 12, 2022.
