Indie Book Club discussion

I often struggle with this quite a lot.

Not unlike release dates, there seem to be strong arguments for/against just about every price point (except ludicrously overpriced). [NB prices below are for e-books, unless otherwise indicated].

$0.99 is cheap as chips, so people will be willing to spend it easily. Yet, it also suggests the work may be of little value. And, on Amazon, the commission is 35%, half the 70% available for $2.99. So, to make *anything* you've got to sell bucketloads.

$2.99 offers the nicer return with the biggest beast in the book world. But it's still pretty low, and I've read comments from people who would refuse a book costing less than £4.99 (about $6.99-7.99) on those grounds. As someone who loves a bargain this perplexes me, but there we are.

$4.99 plus means far nicer returns per copy sold. But, just as stacking 'em high and selling 'em cheap can work, people may well think they could buy this one book, or five independently/self-published works instead. With that mindset, such a 'high' price is an active deterrent. On the other hand, those who consider a price to reflect the value of the work may prefer paying more.

Of course, for self-published physical copies, as many here will know, the cost is far more. I make more per e-book of Sir Edric's Temple than the physical edition, but the latter is more than twice the price of the former. It's a little ridiculous, frankly, but there's not much to be done about it.

So, what price do you like buying for? Or selling for?

I prefer the low price. Samples mean you can see if it's likely to be any good, so why pay more if you can help it? As for selling, I've got a couple of low-price books and I'm gradually increasing the price with each new release [keeping original prices intact]. I'm hoping that's a cunning way to go.

I charge $3.99 for my book (over 75K words) which is about as high as I'm willing to pay for an ebook unless it's a fellow author friend (would have to be a very good friend too). I've found a lot of good books for FREE and for 99 cents. So price doesn't really say much about the value. For a shorter book or novella, I would charge $2.99 (this is said to be the price that sells the most books). I also have the KU/KOLL on my book. My book will also be on the Kindle Countdown sale for $1.99 starting tomorrow for a limited time. And I am running a contest at the same time as the sale price to try and boost purchases. The print price for the same book is $9.99. I would like to recommend two books I think are good on marketing, Supercharge Your Kindle Sales and Reader Magnets by Nick Stephenson. Reader Magnets is FREE right now. Or you can also read his blog at http://noorosha.com/blog-4/ -- very good articles on marketing there too. I'm trying his strategy right now, except I messed it up a bit, but won't make the same mistake again.

I have my e-books(each about 100K words)at $2.99, the minimum. In print, they're around $15-$16 so I don't get many sales there. That means my royalty checks are typically quite small - though not zero! I intended to put the latter two up a buck but haven't yet. I have a new one ready and may start it at $3.99. I suppose I lack the confidence to charge more; I know I lack the fame. I'm working on it!

I don't want to charge more than what I would like to pay, so that's why the maximum I charge is $3.99. I also plan to offer a lot of sales at half price, 99 cents and FREE for limited time periods. I have some I will offer free all the time. I have one very short up at Amazon now for free and will be for a while. I wish I could sell that many downloads as that one has racked up--even at 99 cents would be a good income.

I read a comment from another author today that said she was going up on her prices because of the VAT tax. She said her books that have been priced at $2.99 would go up to $3.99--all going up one dollar. I thought the VAT taxes were for books sold in Europe. I guess I'm not too worried about that yet. All of the books I've sold so far have been in the U.S.

The VAT issue is a classic example of the EU being horrendously incompetent.

If you're a US author selling in the US, it's a non-issue.

The 'charge what I'd pay' approach is broadly the one I've taken thus far, but other people do seem to (often) think differently. I do plan on charging more for my next self-published book.

I charge between 2.99 and 3.99 for the novels, 1.25 for the longer short story antho and 99c for the small stories.

The print versions range from about 3.50 upwards.

I generally go with the recommendations from this post on ebook pricing .
It's a bit old (2012), but still seems fair.

It does seem fair, Claude. It's close to what I charge, except I charge a little less. Good reference though.

I tried $3.99 for a while on one of my books, but sales dropped afterwards. I can't say if it was coincidence or because of the price, but sales at $2.99 seem to do okay enough. Can't say I've ever heard anyone say $2.99 was too cheap.

My two novels are in the same series but I have them set at different prices because they're significantly different lengths. The shorter one is listed at $2.99 and the longer one is listed at $3.99 - both are using the 70% royalty rate.

I know in my personal experience shopping for ebooks, I'm more likely to buy a book that's $2.99 (somehow it seems a lot cheaper, even though it's only a dollar!). I'm hoping other people who feel the same way buy my first book, enjoy it, and then be more willing to pay a little more for the second one.

I've also found that having periodic "sales" and making my book(s) $.99 for a given amount of time is helpful. In the month leading up to the release of my second book, I kept my first one priced at $.99 in hopes that more people would buy it and then be interested in the sequel. No, you don't make much money, but people are more willing to buy it. So there's still the chance that you'll make a reasonable amount of money if a large number of people pay. But the way I see it, if you can get a lot of people interested in it at a low price, you could get some of those same people interested in sequels or other things you write, and they'll be willing to pay full price. Also, the more people who read, the more potential reviews/blog posts/exposure you'll have, which could end up increasing overall sales in the long run.

TL;DR - I feel like the initial price should be based on how long the book is, and that price doesn't necessarily matter if you have $.99 sales or free giveaways or something every so often to spice things up. I've found that varying my prices periodically has been really helpful.

I always feel wary of varying prices, because I think I'd be irked to pay 'full' price [we're not talking megabucks, but still] and then to see it drop to under a dollar the next day.

That said, I did have coupons/vouchers for new releases on Smashwords, so people who followed my Twitter (MorrisF1) could get a cut-price version [my books aren't up there at the moment, but when I put them back up I may do the same].

That was also to try and help get some early sales, encourage reviews etc.

Based on what I've seen on KDP, the largest volume of sales come in at $2.99 an eBook.