This week’s Guest Post is by G.L. Drummond – an Indie Author/Self-Publisher who is active in both the weblit and ebook communities.
She’s been experimenting with the pricing of her ebooks for sometime and is sharing the benefit of her experiences with us today.
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How to Price Your Ebooks
If there is a secret formula for pricing your ebooks so that they sell like hotcakes, many of us have yet to discover it.
Some Indies opt for 99 cents or at least under $2, hoping to entice readers in with those super low prices in order to build their brand and author platform. In other words, to get their stories in front of eyeballs belonging to readers who will remember their names.
Others refuse to price that low, either feeling that it proves they devalue their own work, or in fear that readers won’t take a chance due to believing the low price denotes horribly bad writing.
Yet, either option might be the right choice for you.
I’ve done both. My results? Eighty-five percent of my sales have come from titles priced $3.25 to $5.25, while only fifteen percent have come from titles priced $2.99 or less. When Amazon or whichever site decides to discount my ebooks, my sales usually dry up.
So I’ve decided anything under $3.25 doesn’t work for my ebooks.
Basically, what it comes down to is a willingness to experiment with pricing until you find the right price that your Ebook(s) sell consistently at.
You can start low, with 99 cents, then gradually raise the price. Or start high and gradually lower it. Eventually, you’re going to hit that magical right price that will entice readers to purchase your ebooks.
Don’t change prices daily. Give each a couple of weeks to a month to see how that particular price does. Ebook pricing is a total guessing game!
Offering yours at 99 cents doesn’t guarantee you’ll see sales like J.A. Konrath or Zoe Winters does. In fact, you might not sell a single copy – and then have five sales when you raise the price to $2.99 or more.
Be reasonable about your pricing. If it’s a 7500 word novelette, don’t price it at $12.99 or anything ridiculous like that.
After all, would you prefer 3 sales at $12.99, or 100 sales at $3.25?
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G.L. Drummond is an Indie Author/Self-Publisher who is active in both the weblit and ebook communities.
According to Miladysa on Twitter she’s “gun-toting alien with a fetish for fur and four-legged creatures who writes fiction & tweets.”
Visit her on the web at Feral Intensity or find her on Twitter. Her ebook releases are available from various outlets including Smashwords and the Amazon Kindle Store.
