The Fourth Reich - Head of the Snake...

[Gary Compton]

I am putting this here in my humble capacity as an author and not a publisher. I am just about to put this on pre-order and am debating on pricing.

When I did expensive kitchens, customers were put off with cheap prices. I personally don't get these 99p/99c offers and even the 2.99 to 3.99 supposed sweetspot. I think if the customer likes what they see, they will pay more, as long as it isn't stupid money. It's reverse psychology.

So I am thinking £6.99 UK and $9.99 US

I do think sometimes you can undersell yourself by thinking "cheap"

What do you guys think?

 

[Brian G Turner]

The report linked to in this thread has some good data on pricing points for ebooks: Smashwords self-publishing stats 2015

 

[Foxbat]

I'm assuming at these prices, we're talking kindle?

As a buyer, I tend to ignore 99p/99c offers unless it's a book I'd been meaning to buy but never gotten around to.
I sometimes take a punt on 2.99-3.99.
Anything above, I start thinking at that price, might as well buy the paper version.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

At $9.99, I'm not likely to buy the e-book if it's not something I've seen recommended or been meaning to get. I snap up a fair amount of 99-cent ones on the spur of the moment, but it still takes a good look inside and something to attract me to it in the first place. Anything from $2.99 to $5.99 doesn't slow me down if I have some reason to believe I'll like it.

I did just pay $11.99 for The Call, because it was intriguing and came highly recommended. And that was $1.00 over the paperback price, because I just really didn't want another paperback right now. But that's highly unusual for me to do.

 

[Dan Jones]

I agree with you on this, Gary. Although the difference between your US and UK prices are way off right now (thanks again, Brexit...), and I'd advise putting them at parity.

Having your book at, say, £6.99 and then discounted to £3.49 or £3.99 represents a better offer to the reader than 0.99p, which I always think looks suspiciously cheap. £9.99 discounted to £4.99 looks an even better deal and keeps you in the sweet spot.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think as an indie you will struggle to achieve much more than £4 for the ebook. To make a book successful you need to get it into enough hands early on that it gets word of mouth. People will not take a punt on an unknown author at a high price.

Bottom line - to sell lots of kitchens they need to be priced accordingly, when selling higher quality kitchens you have to take the hit on quantity sold and make a higher margin. To become established as a writer you need to sell quantity or it will sink and to do that you need to at least stay in line with the indie market. And then you need to write at least another two books, probably more.

Once your name is established (and Dusty's Peadar O'Guilin is a good eg of this - a track record of a well regarded trilogy, known from a lot of graft (no one works harder, that I've seen) at every convention going, and hot, hot reviews - THEN you can charge what you might be worth. But if you go it on the first release, in the indie market (because you could charge more with a big publisher) you'll sink.

(Also, for me, 7 quid for an ebook is stupid money. I use libraries, 2nd hand shops and remainders shops a lot and buy hardbacks for less than that - a lot less.)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I agree with you on this, Gary. Although the difference between your US and UK prices are way off right now (thanks again, Brexit...), and I'd advise putting them at parity.

Having your book at, say, £6.99 and then discounted to £3.49 or £3.99 represents a better offer to the reader than 0.99p, which I always think looks suspiciously cheap. £9.99 discounted to £4.99 looks an even better deal and keeps you in the sweet spot.

To sound a note of caution - UK consumer law only allows discounts if the previous price has been in place for a certain period of time. Which means having the book at 9.99 for a long period before discounting to 4.99 (still about 2 quid over the average for an indie ebook). Consider sales killed at those prices.

The reason customers expect ebooks for a cheaper price (and why indies wipe the floor with the big boys on e-books) is there are no overheads on production. What I did, when setting IC, was work out my profit margin on the paperback and aimed for the same on ebook

 

[Dan Jones]

To sound a note of caution - UK consumer law only allows discounts if the previous price has been in place for a certain period of time. Which means having the book at 9.99 for a long period before discounting to 4.99 (still about 2 quid over the average for an indie ebook). Consider sales killed at those prices.

I did not know this.

And now I do. Cheers, Jo.

 

[HareBrain]

To sound a note of caution - UK consumer law only allows discounts if the previous price has been in place for a certain period of time.

Used to be that an item could only be marked as "reduced" if it had previously been offered at the higher price for 28(?) consecutive days prior. But I wonder if this applies to books, as I'm sure(ish) I've seen titles offered at prices below "list price" from launch day.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Used to be that an item could only be marked as "reduced" if it had previously been offered at the higher price for 28(?) consecutive days prior. But I wonder if this applies to books, as I'm sure(ish) I've seen titles offered at prices below "list price" from launch day.

But the list price tends to be the paperback price (ebooks that are lower always show it as a discount - a practice currently being challenged by consumer groups.) it's also okay to launch at 99p but you can't say it's a reduced product.

 

[HareBrain]

But the list price tends to be the paperback price

Actually I meant paperbacks -- in Waterstones etc. But it could be I'm getting confused.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Actually I meant paperbacks -- in Waterstones etc. But it could be I'm getting confused.

I think there are different rules based on how you term it - opening offer, for instance, is okay or 2 for whatever. But it's if you show an item as being discounted from a previously higher price that you run afoul.

I think it's a moot point as Amazon wouldn't let you show the two prices except as a Kdp countdown deal.

 

[WaylanderToo]

The reason customers expect ebooks for a cheaper price (and why indies wipe the floor with the big boys on e-books) is there are no overheads on production. What I did, when setting IC, was work out my profit margin on the paperback and aimed for the same on ebook

being a punter and not an author I'll second this. If a PB and EB are the same price I'll go for the PB if the PB is within a reasonable amount of the EB I'll again buy the physical copy - it's a 'thing' for me that I really can't make myself pay the same or even similar for a collection of electrons as a 'proper' book. That being said it should also be noted that I am old - someone in their 20's may well take the opposite view....

 

[Gary Compton]

Speaking as a publisher, I recently started marking our PB's at £12.99 and they ar selling better than the ones at £8.99 so I do wonder about pricing and until you try you never know. Think I will go £5.99 for ebook, £12.99 for PB and £25 for HB

My best selling HB's are those set at £25 so food for thought.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think pb and hb are a different market than e and people will pay more

 

[Gary Compton]

Time to find out

 

[tinkerdan]

Think I will go £5.99 for ebook, £12.99 for PB and £25 for HB

This sounds reasonable to me.
What messes me up is when the PB is 9.99 and the ebook is 8.99; although it is a great way to get me to buy the PB because I'd rather have a book in hand if I'm paying almost the same price.

 

[Gary Compton]

I changed my mind LOL ebook 99p/99c at moment. Going up to 3.99

Haven't quite decided on ON price yet.