The art and magick of…pricing eBooks!

Sorry, if you were looking for a definitive, comprehensive guide on how to price your ebooks I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. Because, just like art and magick, there’s no one right way to do things – it’s about experimentation and finding a balance that works for you.

So, rather than me being some guru about to tell you how to do things, I’m actually looking for input from YOU, as readers first and foremost but also from other authors who’ve tried different prices for their work.

When I first started writing my novella Knight of the Cross I planned on selling it for 99p/ $0.99. I hoped the tiny price would draw in new readers who might not take a punt on my full-length, full price novels. Unfortunately, that really hasn’t happened. In my experience readers don’t really want to buy a novella from me. By pricing it so low I also only get 35% royalty from Amazon – that amounts to just 23p for each sale. Considering I paid to have the cover art made (twice, since I wanted to update it) and hired my usual editor to work with me on it, you can imagine how many thousands of copies I’d have to sell to make back my outlay, never mind actually make a profit.

But, despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews and that bargain low price, people just haven’t really bought KotC the way they’ve bought the other, “full-price”, books.

Today I was looking at the prices of other ebooks on Amazon and noticed that there’s loads of people selling similar stuff for £2+. Even books that are the same length or even shorter than KotC‘s 23,300 word count!

There is an argument that selling your work for 99p devalues it, and readers assume it must be crap or it wouldn’t be so cheap – and that results in few sales.

So, as a little experiment I’ve put the price of that particular novella up to $2.99 US/ £1.99 UK (also opening up Amazon’s 70% royalty rate). Or, if you buy the paperback you get the Kindle version for free, and, if you buy the Kindle version first you can add the Audible version to it for a much reduced rate. So there’s still value to be had.

My other novella, Friar Tuck and the Christmas Devil is still only 99p/99c – as that’s part of the Kindle Singles Programme I get 70% royalty on that one even at the lower price. Furthermore, new readers looking for a great way to try out my work can get the completely FREE Little John short story “The Escape” just for signing up to my Email List.

Perhaps my experiment will fail miserably and the low sales of KotC will drop even further with the higher price. Time will tell.

Let me know what you think! If you’ve already read Knight of the Cross, do you think it’s still fairly priced at £1.99? And if you haven’t read it yet, would you be much less likely to buy it for that price than 99p?

And other authors – what say you? Have you found the ideal way to price your ebooks? If so – please share it with us!