What do i price my book? - A Marketing Tip by L.L. Hunter
This is a very common question in the indie
publishing world, but it's a very important one.
Pricing is one of the most important factors about
selling a product, and if you get this right then you can be quite successful.
There aren't really any rules about pricing. You
can price your book anything you want. But if you price your book at $9.99 (I'm
talking ebooks here), and everyone else is pricing their's at $3.99, it really
doesn't take a genius to figure out which book people are going to lean
towards.
This is different in the traditional publishing
world, (most ebooks are around the $7-$12 mark in the traditional world) so for
arguements sake, i am going to base this post around Indie/ self publishing.
So what is the best price for a new self
published author?
Rule 1: Watch the market. Watch authors in
your genre and see what they are pricing their books, and then figure out which
price range each genre sells best at.
This is the general guideline i stick to:
*99 cents for SALES and the first book in a new
series.
*$2.99 for novellas. (anything over 100 pages.
**Not the general rule. Its MY general rule and what i have found works best**)
*$3.99 for novels.
*$4.99 - I have noticed some people have been
pricing their book at $4.99 now. I think this works best for a boxed set or the
3rd book/ last book in a full length series.
Out of all these prices i think $3.99 sells the
best.
I think this is because the store and the author
get a bigger share of the royalty, it helps your book show up in best seller
lists, and it shows that you the author believe in your work.
The number 1 thing you should get in your
head and say it over and over when you doubt yourself is: 1: Believe in
yourself and your work. If you don't, who else will? 2: Don't be afraid to
price your book high.
At the end of the day, you have a business to run
and you won't make any money if you only price your book at 1 or 2 bucks.
Why are some books free?
Free promotions are another handy marketing tactic
to get right. Again, it is all about researching and playing with the market.
I have been given exclusive marketing advice from
the CEO of Smashwords, Mark Coker himself. I asked him how i could boost my
sales. He told me this:
Make the first book in one or two of your
series free.
At the time i was umming and ahhing about the
prospect of this, but my sales sucked so i gave it a go.
Did it work?
Literally within the space of 3 or 4 days i had
sold over 10, 000 copies, reached the top 100 on iBooks AU and Amazon US. This
has resulted in the rest of my books selling again.
The result has been mindblowing, and this is
because i took the risk of making a few of my books free.
At 99 cents each, they were hardly selling
anything. (forget the John Locke rule. This rule probably doesn't work for him
anymore. The market is so saturated.) This is such a small sacrifice in the big
scheme of things. It was so worth it!
**I am not an expert in any of the areas of
marketing i write about. These results are from observations and research of
the market. If you want to know anything else, please do not hesitate to let me
know.
If you want to see me cover anything, also let me
know. I'd love to hear from you!
Have a great day
Laura xx
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