The publishing world is changing so fast, that people's heads are spinning right off their shoulders and rocketing into the clouds. One of the major complaints and controversy points seems to be pricing. I talked to a lot of writers and did a ton of research when it came to pricing my new eBook The Sweet Sixteenth. What I learned is that this is a touchy subject for many writers, especially those who are already established.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
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