Hey there! Welcome to this blog about choosing a price.
In this blog, just as the title says, I will be talking about considerations* when choosing a price.
Price is part of marketing because if you don’t price your book right, then others won’t buy it. As a self-published author, you will have the opportunity to choose the price for your book. Instead of just picking any random price, though, it may be a good idea to compare your book to other books in the same genre and see how much those books are priced at.
Some people will be willing to pay more money for a product, but others may not. I have also heard of authors
talking about perceived value where if you price a book really low, people may not think it is a good book, but if you price it at a range similar to other comparable books, then they may see the value as just as good as the other books. Also, how much is it going to cost to produce and if they are physical books, how much will it cost to ship?
There will be a higher cost to produce a book with color images instead of black and white images. So, does the book need to be printed in color or in black and white?
Obviously, picture books are typically in color, but other books might be able to be done in black and white. Another thing to consider is that e-books can be sold at a much lower cost than print books because they do not require printing and shipping fees. That will be the same with audiobooks, too. So, how much of a difference will the price be between the different available options that you will offer if you do choose to offer different options?
Some authors choose to offer their e-book for free in the hopes that readers will buy other books in the same series or other books written by them or to even buy other products the author is offering. What I mean by that is that within that free book, they may talk about a consultation or coaching or some other service that they provide that entices people to their business. Perma-free means a book is permanently free instead of just free for a short period of time. If your goal is to get your book into as many hands as possible and you don’t care about making any money specifically from that book’s sales, then maybe this is an option. Or, if you have a series and you want to gain an audience with the first book, this may be an option. Some authors offer a PDF of their book in exchange for an email address in order to build their email list for future book promotion. If you don’t want to offer your entire book for free, you could possibly offer a few chapters of a book or a few pages of your book as a PDF for free or in exchange for an email address. Then, if the reader does like those pages or chapters that they have, they can have the opportunity to purchase the rest of the book. I know an author who offered e-books for free during the Covid shutdown in 2020, which promoted all of her other books including the print copies of her books and her upcoming book that she had.
That’s it for this blog. In the next blog, I will be talking about metatdata, which includes keywords, book titles, book descriptions, categories, publication dates, and an overview of a paid vs a free ISBN. Metadata is an important part of getting a book noticed,
Until then, may you have a wonderful day! Take care.
