Find the perfect price for your eBook and earn more sales
Follow this step-bystep guide on how to land on the most appropriate price for your ebook as well as three effective strategies to earn more sales.
It's time to get your book published The moment has come to put out your ebook.
It's your day at work, patting yourself on the back for completing the task.
But there's one obstacle you must overcome before making your book available: deciding on a price.
If you combine three additional strategies to increase the worth and value of your ebook further, you'll soon be in the process of being a highly-paid writer.
However, before you can reap the benefits of your work You'll need find out what typical prices in your industry -- let's dig into that now.
How to price your ebook in three steps
Step One: Study competitors' prices
Do not attempt pricing match with your competition in a single cent because it can lead to race-to-the-bottom pricing.
Researching their prices, on the other hand it can provide you with an idea of how much you could reasonably charge for your book.
Check prices of traditional and independent authors to get a fair estimation of how much ebooks you're interested in -- 15 to 20 titles should be a decent sample.
For example, from an online search, I discovered that the top 16 hits for Amazon Kindle books about overcoming procrastination fall between $4 to $15.
Thus, I'd likely make the most sales if I priced my book on procrastination toward the lower end of that range since I'm an unknown author.
However it is possible to lean more toward independent authors rather over those published by publishing house.
The sales of traditionally published ebooks fell by 10% during 2017 as a lot of readers, such as the author Cat Rambo, preferring to purchase ebooks published by independent publishers because of their price.
Therefore, a greater sampling of independently published authors can give you a more accurate picture of the price that people are willing to spend.
If you plan on selling in a marketplace like Amazon, read reviews to find out what people thought about the book in general and whether it's worthy of the cost.
If your competition sells from their own website, see if they have reader reviews or claims like "XX downloads to date!" so you can assess their book's success.
If, for instance, you were publishing a book on the topic of influencer marketing you might come across the experts in influencer marketing Brittany Hennessy 's website. The site states her book has sold over 250,000 copies since the summer of the year 2018.
When you conduct your own research it is possible to find that ebooks can be purchased for cheap prices when compared with other digital items between $10 and $20 is the typical range even for the most successful authors.
But don't let the price tags discourage from pursuing your dream. With revenues from ebook publishing forecast to surpass $5.33 billion by 2022. There's plenty income to go around, especially for authors who are familiar with their audience.
This last aspect of knowing your target audience well -- is the key element to concentrate on. When you've got the price ranges for your industry nailed down, you need to get granular and determine the amount your target audience will ante in.
They're not always the same prices.
Step #2: Study how much your audience will to pay
Consumers can find internal prices on most products.
An Internal reference price is the price customers think the item is worth in light of their experience or their knowledge of a particular item.
In the case of coffee, the majority of consumers are aware that their internal price reference for a cup of coffee probably ranges between $3 and $6. If you were to charge something significantly lower or higher -- say, $0.25 or $12 -will likely discourage most consumers from purchasing.
Studies have suggested that internal reference prices affect the willingness of consumers to pay for something because it requires less cognitive load to rely on the internal price rather than consider and calculate other factors.
How do you find out your clients' price of internal reference in ebooks like yours?
For figuring that answers, make surveys available to your email subscribers as well as social media followers and interview them via video-conferencing.
Similar to what Herman Miller did with their email survey, it is recommended to offer some kind of reward, such as discounts, or a raffle for people to respond.
It is not a bad idea to consider visiting forums to find out the opinions of people about famous eBooks' costs in addition to the prices of highly recommended ebooks, either.
Don't ignore Amazon reviews as a research resource.
For research using Amazon to conduct research, just click the username of customers who've purchased an ebook. look through their reviews record to discover what other books they've read as well as the reviews they've written.
Researching around the 10-15 reviews' comments should give you a clear enough concept of the price the range that you could reasonably value your book within.
In the last step, you must incorporate that size into your pricing model.
Step #3: Determine the pricing structure and your website
There are many factors to determine the price of your ebook however, they boil down to two models.
The second model is a Cost-based pricing (also called"cost plus" or "cost-plus" pricing method) that is based on the amount of time and material required to make your product as well as your preferred profit margin.
The cost-based pricing method isn't an ideal fit for all. One reason is that it could reduce your profits by offering sales or discounts.
The costs involved for creating an ebook can vary heavily, so it's tricky to determine a price that rewards you for your efforts but doesn't give your customers the sticker in the face.
Author Joseph Hogue , at a certain point, said that it took 100 to 200 hours to write every one of his ebooks with 160 pages, and that excluded time spent editing, formatting and selling the ebooks.
With that amount of effort It can be difficult to justify a price for ebooks that is less than three numbers.
To address these and other reasons, business owners should think about the price-based model , where companies determine prices based on what worth that customers think an item has.
Basically, value-based pricing is all about providing your customers with more value so you can earn greater "value" (i.e., the money) in exchange.
If you're among the 80percent of businesses who use the cost-based or competitor pricing models due to obstacles such as poor market segmentation, there's a way you can make use of value-based pricing without complex calculations.
If you think the book isn't really set different from the rest, search for other ways that will increase its value, such as creating a mini-course that is supplementary to your book.
Whatever obstacle you perceive to be keeping you from charging what the book is worth it is possible to increase its actual or perceived worth.
Another aspect to take into consideration when pricing your product -which location you intend to market it seem insignificant, but could determine if you have an enviable or a hefty profit margin.
If you sell on Amazon, you will receive the equivalent of 35% or 70% of the profit of a particular ebook sale, depending on its original price .
This means that, if you sell an ebook for $10, you will only receive $7 when it's listed on Amazon -this is even before you take out taxes as well as expenses.
Additionally, if you decide to market your book on a marketplace it is possible to be cautious about the price they suggest for your book.
Amazon recommended the author Louis Gudema sell his book for $5.99 as that's what "similar" ebooks cost regardless of the fact that Louis' content-rich ebook likely did not have any serious competition in the marketplace.
Louis was able to decide to sell his novel at $16.95, but his adventures with Amazon did not end there.
Louis found out that the lowest he could cost for printing the printed version of his ebook was $40, of which the author would receive only $0.01 after Amazon received $27.45 to print his book as well as other costs.
Microsoft, for instance, removed ebooks from its Microsoft Store and deleted customers libraries from its catalog in 2019 leaving authors with one less selling platform.
To ensure a consistent customers' experience, and avoiding having to worry about the ever-changing marketplaces' whims and whims of their owners Consider selling digital downloads on your website rather than.
If you don't want to take on that type of upkeep, there's another option that offers the convenience of a platform but not the loss of profit that comes with it: .
You are able to sell an unlimitable amount of ebooks, as well as other digital downloads on your website for no extra charges, and it doesn't require any commissions on sales, neither.
Also the buyer gets to take 100% of your sale, among several other advantages.
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OK, that covers the basics of how you can set your initial price, but what about the actual selling price?
3 ways to make more cash from your ebook
#1. Pre-launch your ebook
It's (probably) likely to not earn a great deal of profits quietly releasing your book waiting for readers to purchase it.
When you advertise your book ahead of time and make pre-sales there's a higher chance you'll earn more in the short as well as long in the long run. Let me explain.
In the end, pre-sales will earn you more through attracting customers before the ebook has been published officially.
In particular, if you provide special discounts for early customers or material, like Jessica in the Kitchen did with the release of their book It is possible attract customers who are price conscious or people who would otherwise not have been able to afford your ebook.
The money could be put into your pocket (and it's not a problem doing that), or you could put it towards additional marketing campaigns that promote your ebook. This will allow you to reach many more readers and potentially bringing higher sales.
Another way that pre-selling could aid in the sale of more ebooks, too. In particular, presales can help you validate your ebook idea.
When you receive customer feedback and validation feedback before the book is published You can cut down on the time you spend writing an ebook that may be launching to crickets, and create the kind of book that your readers can't wait to buy.
Sujan Patel and Rob Wormely, for example, used pre-sales to confirm their book idea before writing it.
They had sold 500 copies of the book at the beginning and then went on to sell more than 40000 copies of their book, 100 Days of Growth.
Additionally, pre-selling your book provides you with a greater possibility than just validation and extra income over the long-term. it provides you with the keystone, an email database and long-term earnings and more.
#2. Leverage your email list
The people who sign up to your email list because they believed that you could have something valuable to offer, whether that's a weekly newsletter or educational email series.
Therefore, why not utilize your list to send them additional information regarding a product that could aid them further (i.e. an ebook)?
As an example of just the impact that promotional emails could be, take this figure: 68% of millennials reported that emails from marketing have influenced their purchasing choices on at least several occasions.
Writer Karen Banes, for example stated that most of her first sales for each of her books came from her email list subscribers .
Likewise, Doug Beney launched to more than 2,500 people and was able to earn more than $1300 on the first day of the book's release.
In spite of these accomplishments despite these successes, just 27percent of customers are happy with the promotional email campaigns.
Put another way it's a matter of room and an opportunity for brands to win over customers with better emails for promotions.
With 68% of Americans claim that exclusive offers have more value than the traditional coupons, selectively giving out discounts can result in higher profits than simply handing them all over will.
Email offers you a chance to send marketing messages subscribers may have otherwise missed, as well as to offer exclusive discount codes to help increase the number of orders and increase order values.
#3. Upsell and cross-sell
The customers you serve have some kind of issue that they wish to resolve -- they need to learn a new skill, want to learn more about the subject, or desire to have fun.
With upselling and cross-selling, you can recommend even more options to assist them in solving the problem they're looking to look into.
Upselling is when you ask your customers to buy a higher-priced but more feature-rich version of your product for example, this site demanded a user if they wanted to upgrade their coffee from a single-pound to a two-pound bag of coffee for just $3.
For an ebook, you can consider selling a different version that comes with additional chapters and exercises.
If you don't have a more enhanced version of your eBook for sale -- or simply in case you'd rather sell other products instead -- you can cross-sell instead.
A customer who is cross-selling receives related items for whatever item they're considering.
For example, when I looked ebooks about whittling, Amazon provided me with similar books within its "customer who purchased this product also purchased" section.
But that's just one way to cross-sell your products. If you offer multiple digital products and know the basics of the email marketing tools, you could learn from Dollar Shave Club 's manual and offer a cross-sell after they've made a purchase.
Basically, increasing your earnings through the sale of an ebook is a matter of taking a proactive approach. As you grow your readership and pursue selling opportunities, the higher the return you will earn.
Price your ebook profitably with just three simple steps
Being a writer You can set the price your ebook is worth -however, you need be aware of ways to boost the worth of your ebook so that customers know its value.
It is possible to price your book profitably and fairly in just three steps. The order in which these steps are performed include:
Examining the prices your competition charges for similar goods, and how those prices differ based on the ebook's size, quality, and the brand's reputation in addition to other variables.
Talking to your customers will help you find out what they are willing to shell out for eBooks within your industry, and what factors would lead them to pay more
What kind of pricing system is most effective for your business and if you're willing accept royalty payments instead of a full commission from your sales
After narrowing your price choices, you may improve the quality of your eBook and cost by:
Pre-launching your ebook to attract reviews and pre-orders to boost sales later on.
Building an email list to the point that you'll have a list of enthusiastic fans ready once you've launched your book
Use your ebook to advertise other items through upselling or cross-selling
Pricing ebooks doesn't have to be difficult. Selling them online doesn't have to be an issue, either.