+1 302-298-0035
Determining the cost of the book is as important as writing and editing it because it will set your standard in the market.
If you set the price too high, the book sales will be hurt. And if you price it too low, it will not seem worthy enough for a reader to invest time and money into it.
It is a little tricky to identify the sweet spot for setting the price of your book. Many factors go into determining the appropriate cost and value of your work. It is not straightforward, like doubling or tripling the cost that goes into the entire process of book production.
Page Contents
Factors Influencing Book Pricing
Undoubtedly, the writer is the main force behind writing a book. But more people and industries are involved in book writing, marketing, publishing, advertising, and sales. So, printing costs, market rates, genre, publishing strategy, and many more factors influence the price.
Production Cost
The production cost of a book is determined by the expenses of the entire process of creating a physical book from a Word or PDF document. Following are some variables that every writer should consider in calculating the production cost.
Writing and Editing
Writing and editing time and effort are up to the writers to price entirely. Or if he is hiring the editor, additional costs will be factored in.
Cover Design and Layout
If you hire someone to do all the formatting and layout design, its cost will also be included. The more professional a designer or illustrator is, the more he will charge for his services. Or if you are doing it on your own, you will set the price yourself.
Printing, Binding, and Distribution
These are the main elements that determine the final prices of any book. The number of pages, quality of pages, finishes, and color printing are some variables that will mainly set the prices.
The second significant step is to bind and dispatch the book to the customer. There are drastic differences in price between hardbacks and paperbacks. Even for the same book, the paperback version will always be cheaper than the hardback version.
The final price will also have the costs of logistics, printing, warehousing, and shipping.
Genre and Market Demand
Genre or sub-genre can be a game-changer in determining the price of any book. Moreover, it gives you certain limits you can set the selling price of your book.
Publishers set the prices according to market trends as well. They closely monitor what is trending and what is in demand. They ride the wave and increase the rates of popular genres of books to make some extra profit. But still, they have to keep it in a specific range that people can buy, and it covers the investment simultaneously.
Here are some scenarios that can help you analyze the market and genre to set the prices.
- If you are writing in a popular genre, have an immense social media following, email subscriber lists, and excellent marketing strategies, and have managed to create a strong buzz in the market for your upcoming book, in this case, publishers can set a higher price for your book.
- Secondly, if you are writing in a super-specific niche that caters to a specific audience, for example, academic books, then the prices will be different. As you will have limited sales, you need to determine the price carefully to avoid getting into a loss.
- Thirdly, the geographic location also makes a difference. Some books may do good in some areas or cities, and others would not. It depends on how much any book is relevant to any region, religion, culture, or historical background.
So, it is necessary to analyze the feedback and responses to customize the prices.
Length of Content or Number of Pages
It is the main factor that determines the price of the book. The more you write valuable and well-researched content, the more you will charge for your book. The specialized non-fiction books will be priced much higher than the generic novels or fiction books. It is because credible sources and factual accuracy are often required to write high-quality, niche-specific academic books.
Author Reputation
The popularity, credibility, and fan base are important in determining how much their book will sell. It is where amateur writers or young professionals struggle.
If you have an established writing career and have gathered a dedicated readership, there is a higher chance that your upcoming book will do good. And therefore, you can set the prices higher. The writers who have received prestigious awards, are recommended by other celebrity writers, or have already published hit best-sellers have higher chances of hitting the top spot again. Premium book publishers understand the craze of their fan base and cash it efficiently.
Competition
Study the competitors to analyze what prices others are setting for their work. You will need to check the page count and prices of top-performing books of your genre. If the publishers make book prices less than their competitors, the readers will perceive it as low-quality. Or if it is priced too high, it will not attract potential buyers.
Discounts, deals, and offers also play an active part in book rates and selling. Publishers analyze the competitors to check if they are giving discounts or bundle offers and then adjust their prices accordingly to attract potential buyers.
Pricing and Marketing Strategy
Generally, marketing self-publishing books or traditionally publishing books heavily depends on setting the right price. Some of the strategies for pricing are,
- Setting premium prices for books guaranteed to attract readers and drive sales, written by renowned authors with an immense following and fan base. These books will be for dedicated fans willing to pay the price to be the first to read their favorite book.
- Secondly, when the hype settles, you can reduce the prices to attract more customers.
- Promotional discount offers can attract potential buyers by creating urgency. Publishers use this technique of time-limited discounts to urge readers to buy as many books as possible. It can be on any holiday, special occasion, seasonal, etc.
- Publishers can attract buyers by creating book bundles and additional chapters in some versions of the book.
General Economic Factors
You cannot write and sell a great book if your economy is drowning. Paper materials, binding materials, inks, and printing hardware comes at a cost. And if your country is going through a financial crunch, you cannot help but either lower the quality of books or increase the prices.
Other factors include inflation rate, currency exchange rates, fuel prices, and transportation costs that can alter the prices of books of any genre.
How to Do Pricing of Your Book in 2023?
Following are some parameters to consider when setting the price for your book in 2023.
Identify your writing goals
Your writing goals will identify the sales goals. Think about what you want to achieve. Do you want to get as much profit as possible by writing books? Or do you want to gather a loyal audience or readership through your books and you don’t care about sales at all? Answering these questions will help you set prices and expected sales before its launch.
Once you pinpoint what you want from writing and publishing a book, you can identify how to price it, build the brand, generate sales, and get revenue from it.
Research the genre
There are different pricing patterns for every genre. So you will have to study the trend and pricing of your genre or sub-genre to set the price of your own book that seems sensible and competitive.
Another factor you need to weigh in is your own level of fame as an author. Are you a professional author? Or is it your debut novel or book? Where you solace yourself on the scale of professionalism will determine how much your work will hold value.
Consider royalties
As a professional writer, you should understand the publishing models to fix your royalty rates correctly. If you do not know how much you should demand, analyze the competitors of your genre and check what their standard is.
Evaluate how much your time and efforts are invested in the project and then set its price accordingly. If you did not hire anyone and did all the work solely, you will be eligible to get a higher royalty. Otherwise, you will distribute it among all the contributors of the book.
Assess production cost
The production cost includes designing, formatting, printing, binding, marketing, etc. Analyzing these expenses will give you an idea of what the price of your book should be and how much revenue you should generate from each one.
Revise and adjust the prices later
The prices of your books can never be stagnant. You may have to reconsider them later to remain relevant to the industry. To keep up with the emerging trends, evaluate the feedback, prices of other titles in your genre, market changes, and any new competition that may arise over this period.
Investing time in optimizing the prices will give you an edge over others and keep your work alive in the new market.
Select Best Suitable Pricing Strategies
Depending upon your standing as a writer, the genre you are writing in, the number of pages of your book, and many other factors, there will be different pricing strategies.
Below are some famous ones used by many publishers.
Setting the prices according to the market
Doing the necessary market analysis will give an idea about the prices of the books of your genre. Consider the binding quality, number of pages, and other factors when researching competitors. Set your prices in between this range. Or if you are a renowned writer doing big in the industry or got recommended by some other great writer of your genre, you can price your work much higher than your competitors.
You can check out how other publishers are pricing books or check the Amazon marketplace to study your competitors.
Setting Price According to the Value You Are Providing
The second way is to analyze how much value your work is providing to the readers. If you have written a highly-researched non-fiction book on a technical or academic topic, it will be priced higher because it is providing immense value. Or if you have written a low-effort fiction piece or a novel, it will be priced much lower because it is only for entertainment purposes.
If your work has been awarded, appreciated by experts, or nominated for top awards, consider those factors when evaluating the quality and value of your work. In that case, you can set the price irrespective of the market trends.
Setting Prices According to the Cost
It is a widely used pricing strategy that is not for just books. In this strategy, the cost of expenses is determined first, and then the pre-decided profit margin is added to set the final price of the book.
The formula is,
Price = Total Production Costs + (Total Production Costs × Profit Margin).
The answer you will get is the minimum price you should set to gain revenue and cover the expenses. Also, market trends, interests, and all other elements must be considered when deciding the final rates for your book.
Some Bonus Pricing Strategies You Can Employ
There are several other tactics for self-publishing book marketing and pricing that authors and traditional publishers use to drive more sales and create a buzz about titles in the market.
Pre-order Pricing
Offering some discount to the early birds can create an urgency in the audience to get their hands on your book early. Plus, it generates more sales in the first phase of the book launch when you incentivize the audience.
Bundle Offers
If you have some best-sellers and some books that did not generate good sales, you can bundle them together at a low or discounted price.
Membership Discounts
If you have an online following and social media presence, you can urge the readers to subscribe to the membership option to enjoy discounts and exclusive materials. It will bring in new potential buyers, build a sense of community, and make your fanbase much stronger.
Flash Sales or Other Time-limited Pricing Techniques
Readers love to get books on sale. When you time-limit the discounts, it prompts people to decide sooner and buy their favorite books for less.
Freemium Model of Pricing
This strategy works best for non-fiction. You provide free seminars, workshops, manuals, courses, and other helpful guides to attract potential readers and then offer them your book at significantly reduced prices.
Pricing Varies in Different Book Formats
Based on how you like to print your book mainly determines its price. So, the cheapest is an Ebook, paperbacks are much higher, and hardbacks are the most expensive books. Following is a brief guide to prices of different book formats.
Hardcover Books
Because hardcover books require extra effort and expertise in printing and binding, they are priced much higher than others. Initially, you will calculate the production cost, including any premium materials used in binding, then study market trends to understand what others are charging. Plus, you will need to evaluate the targeted spending power of the audience to judge whether they are willing to pay for a premium edition of the book.
Paperback Books
Although paperbacks cost much less than hardcovers, they still require publishing. To analyze the prices of paperbacks, research the market trends thoroughly and check how much people are willing to spend on these books. Paperbacks are generally affordable. So you may come across a diverse customer base.
Ebooks
Since no traditional publishing is involved in the production of Ebooks, their prices are comparatively lower than the others. Include the editing, cover design, formatting, illustrations, or artwork you have hired experts for. Evaluate the public demand, market trends, and other factors to set the final price.
Conclusion:
Pricing books is not less than science. It requires proper research and analysis. You will consider factors; like market trends, consumer behavior, feedback, and other data points to decide your books’ prices.
McZell Book Writing company can assist you in self-publishing your books so you can become a published writer without any hassle. Get assistance from industry experts and professionals to write, edit and publish your best seller.
