Pricing your books without selling yourself short or gouging people

If you’re an indie writer, you are totally responsible for every single thing involved in creating your book. From the creation to editing, to the cover, to the pricing.

Ah yes, the pricing. That, um, well it’s a touchy subject. On the one hand, lots of people are hurting for cash, and it can feel like shit to price a book too high. On the other hand, we writers need to eat. Then, of course, the question becomes how high can a book be priced before people think you’re money grubbing? How cheap can it be priced before people think you’re desperate?

Well, I’m here today to help you price your work so that your fans can afford it, and you still get paid. We’re going to go through a step by step guide to figuring out how your books should be priced.

A lot of things go into the price of a book or e-book. The genre will have an impact, as well as the length. I always start by checking out online stores. I’ll start with Amazon because it’s the place my book will most likely be sold. I’ll search for the top ten best selling novels or novellas in my genre, and track them. From there, I have a baseline of what people are willing to pay for a book of that length in that genre.

From those numbers, I come up with an average price. I may or may not use that price, but it’s good to have an average.

Now, I really take a look at this data, and I get realistic. I ask myself the following question.

• Would I be able to buy this book?
• Would I have been able to afford it when I was a broke ass single mom?
• What did I pay for the last book I bought? Generally, I don’t think someone should pay more for my book than they pay for the most recent Neil Gaiman book.

So, let’s break this down into a simple math problem.

Average of top ten books in your genre and length + realism = price of your book.

Now that we’ve talked about your book’s basic price, let’s talk about special pricing.

I only give books promotional prices when there’s a good reason to. When I’m doing an event, when a new book is coming out, or during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Promotional prices are supposed to do two things. It should make it easier for people to give your work a try. It should also give fans who might be strapped for cash a chance to grab your book for less money than normal.

Finally, under what circumstances should your book be free? I have two times when I make a book free.

One, when I already have two or so books out, and a third book is coming out. I will make the first book free for a few days, to give people a chance to start off from scratch.

Two, when I’ve written a book that I intended to be free. I have two short story collections that I put together to promote myself. They’re a good place to start, for people who have never read me.

What do you think about book pricing? Do you think we pay too much for books?

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