$12.99 ... but then, you are my favorite author.

I think you should leave book 1 at $2.99, and price your new release higher at $4.99.

I happen to agree with Lisa. Divide the cost of your book by the amount of time you've spent on it... That's your wage.

For the amount of work that goes into producing a book, $0.99 is just ridiculous. Quite frankly, it doesn't say much about what an author thinks of their own writing.

It's a tough call, Gerard, and your statistics make me want to cry.

I sell at $2.99 (80,000 words). I trialled a week at 0.99 and made no difference. Like you, I have people telling me not to be stupid and to put the price up.
I sold plenty of copies in the first two months.

Personally, I do tend to think that anything lower than $2.99 says something about the quality of the writing and/or the author's belief in themselves.

As suggested, leaving book 1 and $2.99 and pricing book 2 higher seems like a good plan. I hope I can have the courage to do the same and not be tempted to give book 1 away in hopes of garnering a Konrath-sized following.

It's worth noting, Konrath and Hocking (is that right?) etc are pumping out books like KFC does chickens. What is the quality like of these? I spend a lot more time on a single piece.

Throw away the stats…go with your gut!

I think deep down every writer knows what they want to charge for their book, story, etc. If it’s a good book, readers can be found regardless of price (for the most part). So, go with what you want to charge and don't worry about what everyone else is doing or what the statistics says you should do

In the current market I think the expectations have been set a bit in that the price of the first book in a series comes in lower to entice new readers, but that later ones are set to what I would consider reasonable levels.

For me, anyone that spends time writing deserves to receive something for their effort, even if it's the low price of 99 cents. To everyone who provides their work for free outside of small windows of marketing opportunity, that tells me that they really don't respect what they've done, or it fails to meet the standards set by other works in their genre.

At a minimum I'd ask for $2.99 but probably would not price it over $4.99. To me, those price points are no-brainers when it comes to purchasing an ebook.

Any price above that range and I have to really, really like the authors work, while everything above $9.99 looks to me like simple greed on the part of the publisher. Where they are trying to conflate paperback/trade book prices with digital prices in the minds of the consumers.

In reality, this is a great problem to have. Best of luck with the new book release.

New book: $2.99
If it doesn't sell the way you want, go down to .99 for 3 months.

I buy e-books on the kindle. I buy books between $3.99 and 99 cents.

At 80k words, a full-length novel is worth at least $4.99. But what it is WORTH vs. what readers will PAY, now there's the rub. I will give my experience (peppered with a bit of my wife's as well) as a Kindle reader and after having just under two months of statistics from the Pauper's Book Club.

$0.99 cent novels sell a lot more than others. Every bit of data I've seen, including your own, shows that to be true. That's an easy one. I agree with Jaye that just about anything under $5 could be considered an impulse buy for some, but I find my "impulse limit" to be much lower. For me, $0.99 is an impulse, $2.99 gives me a little pause unless I know the author or series, and $4.99 I read a lot of reviews before I shell out. And most times I'll borrow a $5 book from an author I don't know if I can't find a cheaper one to try first. That might lead to a later sale, or it might lead to me being pissed that I can't read any of your stuff for under $3. :)

Anything over $5 is almost off my list these days. Yeah, I'm a cheap-o, but I have a set reading budget every month that I can spend, and my wife has her budget. Without them, we would drop $100, easy, on books every single month.

All of that leads to my advice, which is not a terribly unique perspective, but it's my own, so there. :)

Price the first book in your series at $2.99. Price each subsequent book at $4.99. People who are already your readers will pick up your books at these very fair prices and not even blink.

If you have enough books available, make at least one or two of them $0.99. Make the barrier for trying you out as a new author as low as you can possibly make it while still respecting yourself in the morning. If you have some older books that have been around a while but are still very reflective of your style as a writer, make a few of those $0.99 and point people to them to try you out. Even better, pick an older series (if you have one) and make the first one $0.99 and the rest $2.99.

I can't tell you how many writers I've tried at $0.99 and then ended up picking up their $3 and $5 titles after discovering how much I like them. I CAN tell you how many I've discovered with nearly every book priced at $5. Next to none. If you don't have a book cheap enough (for me) to try you out, I'm probably not going to.

Most of this is just my feelings, but some of it comes from PBC's stats and the buying habits of people I've seen on the site. It's definitely given me a lot to think about when my first book comes out here in a few months. Hope that offers... something. :)

Hi,

I'm new to this, but from a business and economics perspective I don't see the logic in pricing ebooks extremely low. I think a sliding scale based on book length is a preferable way to go. That gives a profit margin proportional to the amount of work that went into the story, and sends a clear signal to the consumer as to what he/she is getting for the money. I wrote a post on this a couple weeks back (http://bit.ly/nheQZz).

Good luck!

I apologize if this has already been stated at length (I haven't read the whole thread, which I know is rude but I'm crunched for time!), but how much effort you've put into a book has no effect on what price the market will bear. As a result, I don't think effort should be the main input when deciding on price.

All of the data we see is really limited, so I'm not sure I would consider it to be rigorous, or anything more than anecdotal.

Speaking of anecdotal...my own behavior: if I'm a fan of a series, I'll snap up the next one for 7.99. Intro book priced lower is always nice, but if I really love a writer, 7.99 isn't a big deal. I do pay more for one shot classics / books who's awesomeness is well known, but that's about it. 7.99 is also the price point where indie meets traditional, muddling that signal a bit, if you're concerned about your wife's tendency to think lower priced books are of lower quality.

This business is moving so fast right now that EVERYONE is shooting from pure feeling and instinct. The ones who have real data are sharing it with all of us, but some of them have already "made it", so their data doesn't really tell you what you need to know as a newer author. You'll have to find what works best for you and your books.

The beauty (curse?) of the internet is the volume of information (and opinion) you can find on any topic you want. There's a lot of data out there, but the only data that will ultimately matter is your own. Your books will sell, in some ways, like many others out there. They'll also sell very differently from everyone else. See: writer as artists, unique and beautiful snowflakes, etc, etc...

As an example, I'm working on an epic fantasy novel. It'll probably end up at about 50k words when it's done. I purposely wrote it short because a) it was less expensive to get started, b) I've actually come to REALLY like shorter works but not necessarily "short stories". The problem, of course, is that epic fantasy readers tend to prefer tomes of weight and heft. Something you could kill an intruder with if you happen to have left your sword downstairs. Will some fantasy fans appreciate a shorter read? Hell if I know. But I sure do.

Since this is only your second book, you still have a lot of data to gather. Which is what this whole blog post is about, so bravo! :) May I suggest, from no actual data or experience selling a single book:

Price the first one at $0.99 for a limited time once you release the second one. Now that you have more than one book to see, let some new people try out your first one and maybe get hooked on you as a writer. I wouldn't leave it at this price indefinitely though. Make sure people know it's only for a while. It makes the impulse decision almost irresistible. I know it does for me.

Something I've not seen done before, but you might be able to make work, is to price each book successively higher. $0.99 for the first, $2.99 for the second and then $4.99 when the third comes out. Sort of a stepping stone to people who like you enough to want to keep going with the series. Until the stigma of self-publishing goes away in the PUBLIC consciousness, I don't think higher than $5 is viable. I may be someday, but like it or not, people are getting used to lower prices for digital goods.

Once I'm hooked on a writer, I'll buy their stuff at nearly any price. I still stick mostly to the under $5 bin, but I would consider going higher for a writer I love or a new book in a series I'm completely hooked on. But I've definitely discovered more writers with a $0.99 book out there than any other. Though you risk bodily harm from wifely projectiles, I would at least consider $0.99 for a limited time to promote the second book.

Interesting discussion! K.A. -- that's an e-publisher, not an indie, so I think some of the arguments for lower indie pricing still hold. :)

Gerard, the cool thing is that you have control and flexibility over all this. My unscientific advice is to price your new book no higher than $4.99 and no lower than $2.99. And consider discounting your first book -- but again, I don't think a novel should live under the $2.99 price point for any extended period of time. As a temporary loss-leader? Sure. But I wouldn't want to leave it there.

Good luck and make sure to post about how it goes! :)

I'm with Mr. Kingswood on pricing. I think
novel length ebooks should be priced less than your average impulse mass market PB at the grocery store checkout, but not at 99c for more than a limited time.

In fact, his price points are pretty close to my own.

And just to throw a bit more fun/confusion into the mix, I've sold more ebooks, ranging from 10k - 44k word counts, for between $3 and just over $5 than I have under $3 down to 99c.

For over a year there, any time I dropped my price points, my sales tanked. ;)

Mate, there is HEAPS of information on this out there, from Konrath's blog to Bob Mayer's blog and Kindleboard Forum posts.

What I've learned from all those is this:
- Write a series.
- Make them really good books.
- Make the first book $0.99.
- Make the rest $2.99.
- Sit back and watch sales grow.
- Retire. Try not to poke yourself in the eye with the little umbrellas that Umberto is bringing you poolside.

Good luck!

PS - Mmmmmmggrkleggggrrrggg... cheeeeeesesteak...

Lots of great points!

As one of those cited authors, my reasoning is: it really doesn't matter what an author thinks their work is "worth." You are NOT a better writer just because you charge more for your work, nor does it automatically mean the reader will place a higher value on it, either (although I acknowledge there is some psychological evidence that correlates value with the price paid, instead of the enjoyment derived.)

Readers will no longer pay you more money just because your book is longer. To them, it's a stack of electrons. There are people out there selling short stories at $2.99, while some 120,000-word novels are 99 cents.

And data is increasingly showing $2.99 to $4.99 is feeling the natural price range for ebooks.

The bestseller list is actually a horrible place to do comparison sampling unless you are a bestseller. Overpriced bestsellers from "habit consumers" will still skew the market, just as free books will. (I don't even know where you found the list that included the free books, but clearly free books aren't selling anything--for the record, my freebie is a story collection that was accidentally triggered through a snafu in another market, I am not a fan of unlimited free books). If you're already a bestseller, you SHOULD be charging $12.99, at least until readers catch on and start resenting your greed.

At 99 cents, you can make a lot of volume. I sold about 70,000 copies of Liquid Fear in three months, so that was $25,000 for me. At $2.99, I might have sold 5,000 and earned $10,000. Which number would make me a "better" writer? All I care about is reaching the most readers and making the most money--all the abstract, subjective notions of the value of "art" are meaningless. This is a product of dreams--it has no intrinsic worth. You can't eat it, drive it to the store, or keep rain off your head with it. It's a shared agreement between the author and customer.

Too many writers just look at what THEY think their book is worth, when they really should be concerned with what the customer thinks it is worth. And the customer is always right.

Good luck, Gerard!

Well, since you asked. :)

I write urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and general scifi with a dash of romance.

69.3% of my sales have been priced between $3.25 and $5.25, for short stories of 7,500 up to 'novels' of 44k. 21% were $5.25 (30k - 44k word counts).

30.7% of my sales have been 99c up to $2.99, and have included shorts of 1-7k, as well as longer works priced lower for a month or two at a time.

13.8% have been 99c-$1, shorts of 1k -7k, as well as the occasional 99c promo of longer titles.

I should note that about a third of those 99c sales were for a new novella release with a promotional price of 99c earlier this year and included a month of pretty heavy promoting.

One of my $5.25 novellas only sold 2 copies when I dropped the price to 99c for two months (and in spite of a good review where the reviewer said the story reminded her of Heinlein's writing).

My two best price points (most sales overall) were $5.25 for novellas/novels (30k - 44k), and $3.25 for shorts and novelettes (7,500 - 15k). Those account for 47% of my overall sales.

Most of the time, I barely promote beyond my own blog or the occasional mention on Twitter, so I am by no means 'known'. :)

No problem. =)

Personal opinion, gathered from a few years of watching my sales and what others have said about their own sales: I think Romance/Erotica can stand higher price points than say, science fiction.

Other genres seem to need the additional 'push' of the author either already being well-known, and/or having built up a readership over a period of time.

I'm working on a series, and may be releasing the first book (they'll all be in the 65-80k range) for 99c its first month, then bump the price up to $2.99. The other books in the series might be initially released for 99c or $2.99 their first months, and then move to their regular price (which will be $5.99).

No clue if that will fly, but right now, about all any of us can do is experiment and see what our personal results are. =)

I'm new to self-publishing, but I've decided to sell short stories in the .99 to 2.99 range and longer work in the 3.00-6.00 range. I'm still experimenting with price.