That is the question that every publisher and self-published author asks themselves. The short answer is as much as you can and still sell the book. But it’s not that simple. Most of the eBooks published through NTD costs an average of $3.99 to $5.25. Someone I know was doing fair sales with price at $4.99, so he decided to lower his price to $2.99. He felt that his sales would explode. That didn’t happen. The sales tanked. I also heard of people giving away their book or selling it for $0.99, and the sales didn’t happen.
Howcumzit? When you low-ball your book’s price, you could be sending a negative message. People might think that at that low price, the writing might be second best. How? Well, let’s think about the way I shop for balloons. I always get them at the Giant or Acme because, aside from their beauty, the balloons hold their air a good week or two before they need a refill. People often tell me I could save a bundle by buying balloons at a dollar store. I’ve shied away from the dollar stores because a lot of times the balloons deflate two days after I get them. So I cheerfully pony up the $3.99 for the balloon at Giant instead of $1.00.
Charging $1.99 for a book would seem appropriate if I were selling a novella. I’m considering how many pages the book would have if it were printed. I charged $2.99 for City of Brotherly Death because it’s an anthology with 165 print pages. I charged $0.99 for Trilogy of the Dead because it would only have 25 pages printed. For a full-length novel of about 100K words, $3.99 to $4.99 feels like a reasonable price. I’d never charge $9.99 like traditional publishers do unless I was dealing with an author that had a strong track record.
What do you consider a reasonable price for an eBook, and why? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
These lovely balloons came from the Giant.
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