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Finding the worth of your book and deciding on the price is way tougher than writing a book itself.
Price & cost your book too low, you will lose your worth. Price it too high, you will lose potential sales.
So it is extremely important that you think about the pricing from the start. Don’t keep it for the end to think over.
After book writing, you either underestimate your skills or overestimate them. Start making your mind about the pricing from the beginning.
Close the chapter named ‘ego’ from your life, press your humility just a tad further and let yourself step into the mystical world of pricing a book.
Page Contents
Why is Book Pricing Important
Pricing matters because in the end, after all your tears, frustration, and hard work, this is the form of an outcome that you get.
Why would you waste your priceless investment of months and years just out of idleness?
How to decide the bookselling price?
You have spent more than seven months writing a book and you decide to sell each copy of your book for $9.99 which means you get around $0.05 per day to write.
Gosh, you will have to sell quite some copies to barely live with that wage. However, cost book isn’t that important for you to write with passion.
When you write for yourself, any customer buying your book is like a gift and more like a validation as a writer to you.
This is why you might have heard that pricing a book is an art as well as science. As cliche as it sounds, you can either set a price range by taking a more strategic approach or you might as well think that it doesn’t matter as long as the reader approves your artwork. There are factors that contribute to the price-setting of your books like your experience as a writer and your ability to portray and let readers feel the emotions and the demand in the market of the domain you have written in.
How To Know And Set The Right Price For Your Book in 2023?
Let’s settle the right sum that is worthy of your book. Here is the ultimate guide to letting you choose your number for your years of investment.
1. Setting Expectations That Are Realistic
The most important thing while handling the price part of your book is to be extremely realistic.
The more realistic you stay, the more positive outcome there will be. Unrealistic prices can give you a bad experience as a writer.
To get an idea, you can have a survey of the relevant marketplace and statistics.
An average self-publishing writer is able to sell 250 copies approximately in his lifetime according to the statistics.
Example to Set The Average Price of Books
For instance, in this case, if you sell your copy for $9.99 the total amount you earn would be less than $2500, and catering to the expenses of printing and publishing, you will be left with way less than that.
2. Look For A Emotional Point To Base Your Prices On
Sometimes you can even set $100 for each copy and your book will sell because in the end, it is all about your reader finding an emotional hook with your book that the price doesn’t mean much.
The goal you should set is to set whatever price you want to as long as there are buyers waiting for your book launch.
Let’s take the example of Margaret Kent who sold each copy of her dating book at 100 dollars! It’s insane, right?
After being controversially featured in the Oprah Winfrey show, the book sold millions of copies.
On this Kent said on the show that readers were not buying a book but a spouse in fact.
It is all about positioning and although the price after a few years dropped to the lowest of $9.99 but Kent earned all the profit she could have with this book by just finding an emotional aspect to hook the readers with.
You have to identify which emotional part of the readers your book compels and then market your book accordingly to attract readers.
If you want readers to buy your book in spite of the high price, then target their primal emotions.
3. Do Your Homework Thoroughly
Checking out your competition and doing a thorough check with their prices and pricing strategies is important. What approach they take will help you alter yours accordingly.
Before you self publishes your book, you should keep an eye out for your competitors as their audience is no different than your targeted one.
They will be alluring the attention of your audience, and as a writer of the same genre, the knowledge of what your readers are currently buying is important.
Even if the book you release is far better than that of your competitors, the readers have no knowledge of that yet. The readers, in fact, will notice the new introduction in the market and will judge your book by the cover, reviews, and blurb.
You have to make sure the price range of your book lies within or is less than that of your competitors in order to give the reader a strong reason to make a purchase.
This point is highly vital as your reader will not want to pay a high price for the fun and thrill he is already getting at a low price.
However, by the low price, it doesn’t mean that you undercut your self-published book. This can pull down the standard image of your book that the reader might not be interested in because the low price makes your book look less desirable.
4. Go For The Old School Pricing Strategy
He tried and tested the pricing formula that is the best and works for almost everyone.
Pricing is basically playing with the minds of the readers. Sure the unfortunate truth is, but if you are good at playing mind games, you are going to win this tournament of your life.
One of the most popular and oldest pricing tricks that psychologically work is fixing a price and displaying it as an odd number.
Even if it is only a penny, $4.59 looks so much more affordable than $4.60 and that is why this technique actually works when it comes to increasing your sales or propelling a reader to buy your book.
What is the average price of ebooks?
For ebooks, the price of $3.99 is considered the perfect combination of numbers.
- It is an odd number
- Price is globally the most used one to fix for ebooks therefore is easily
- The price is low enough that readers can take a risk. It will cost them less than a fancy copy so there will be more readers who will not hesitate before making a purchase.
5. Adjusting Royalties
How much you profit each time a reader buys your book is your royalty.
Your royalty depends on the price list as well as the online retailer you pick. For example, publishing your book on Amazon gives you 35 percent of profit if the price range per book is $2.98 or lower.
Above $2.99 priced books will get you 70 percent of the sale and $10 to $100 will take you back down to 35 percent of royalty.
To all those thinking, Amazon really takes all the profit, it is true to some extent but publishing on Amazon benefits a writer immensely.
You get to sell your book to a well-known and credible platform, as well as your book, is available to millions.
But there are tons of better options than Amazon that let you have the 40 – 45 percent royalty as well. Because not all writers can afford amazon and get satisfied with 35 percent royalty.
With the printing costs, you will get very little royalty by publishing on Amazon.
When making a settlement on the price with an online retailer, think and consider all the extra expenses, like that of printing and shipping.
The point to remember is that no matter which retailer you are selling your book to, be it Amazon or iBooks, your selling rate will stay the same. You can’t charge less or more depending on the retailer to retailer.
What Are The Average Book Prices 2023
The average price of books varied from fiction to nonfiction and ebooks. All have different pricing strategies.
- Price Of A Fiction Book
Most paperback novels with a considerable size range from $13.95 to $17.95. So if your novel has 365 pages, it is completely okay to set a price around $16.96.
The range applies to most of the books but not all. This being said, to set a price that is best for your novel, always do the research over the market prices going on for novels similar to yours.
Don’t be too confident and overestimate your book, because overly inflated prices take the book to be kept at the back and most upper-level parts of shelves in libraries and bookstores.
- Pricing Your Ebook
There are several factors that majorly impact the prices of ebooks. From quality to royalty percentages and length of the book.
You need to consider your royalties by keeping in mind the expenses of printing and shipping. Choose your online retailer wisely to get the utmost profit possible.
- Non-Fiction Novel Prices
A book representing and showcasing, a considerable amount of background research, additional notes, and charts, and other graphic details, it is obvious that the price of that book will be higher.
The more unique the book is, the higher the price. The price also depends on the trim size and number of pages of the book.
These are the factors and tips to consider before pricing your book. But above all consider what message your price of the book is sending.
The topic is much more complicated than summarizing in two lines so without further ado, let’s look at it more closely.
Message The Price Is Sending
Let’s figure out what the price of the book says about you in 2023.
- Low Price: Cheap Content?
If you have written a book with a substantial number of pages and you have set a very low price as compared to the competitors. This low price might be sending an image to the buyer or reader that your book is not of premium quality that is why the price is so low, it does not merit a higher price.
You should research how books are priced that are similar tours and are paying off. Be realistic about your prices and refrain from fixing a price without a competitor research
- High Price Setting High Expectations
Sometimes, a high value of a thing that doesn’t cost too much may build up an impression of that 5thing being unique, high in quality, and bringing something new. Customers are more attracted to that high price thing.
The case is similar when it comes to books and sometimes setting a high book cost really pays off.
In the end, it’s all about background research and if you set a price a tad little higher than your competitor, the risk is there but if done properly, you can have gold profits coming your way.
Bringing It All Together
Pricing a book is surely a daunting task and if not done properly, you might see all your efforts going in vain.
This book pricing guide can help you a lot but if you still are not clear with what you want or need and are still confused about setting a price for your book.
If you still have questions regarding how much does a book cost then Mczell Book Writing offers you a platform where you can publish your book as well as take help regarding book prices.
Reach out to us now and let us solve all your problems related to publishing and pricing a book.
Accord us all your book-related problems and live a stress-free life as a writer!
