How to Price Your e-Book

By: Matthew Tibble

You've written and compiled an e-book. Now you have to decide how much to charge for it. Finding the right price is essential to the success of your product. If you charge too little, people will think it's of little value, and they won't purchase it, or even it they do buy your book, you will have to sell thousands of copies to get to the point where you can begin to see a profit. If you price it too high when compared with your competition, you will find yourself steadily lowering the price, which will cause you all kinds of new problems in the future. For example, if you sell your e-book at first for $39.99, and later reduce it to $24.95, don't you think the people who bought it for $39.99 are going to be upset?

Choosing the right price for your e-book is one of the most critical parts of the marketing process. The first rule of pricing e-books is to never underprice.

Determine the highest price your audience can afford, and then if you find your book isn’t selling, you can always reduce the price. Before you take that step, make sure you are promoting your book like crazy on the Internet and on websites. The price should be aimed at bringing in profits, but you should never forget that price is one of the factors that people use in judging the value of your e-book - before they buy it. So always start with the highest price, and then launch a mega-marketing campaign.

Pricing an e-book is particularly difficult because e-books are a fairly new commodity. Since they are digital, the value of an e-book is as confusing as the understanding of what digital actually is to the average layperson. This means that we must look at e-books in a different light in order to determine their actual worth in this brave, new cyber world.

Let's look at the difference between a book in print and an e-book. A printed book is an object you can hold in your hand, store on your bookshelf, even hand down to the next generation. It is priced on factors such as paper stock, design and production costs, and marketing.

But the fact that unites e-books and print books is that they are composed of ideas. It is the ideas in these books that have the ability to change, or possibly transform, people's lives.

What do you think an idea is worth when evaluated against the cost of paper and ink?

It is the IDEAS that are valuable! That is how you determine the cost of your e-book.

What should I charge for my ideas?

There are all different formulas and methods for determining the correct price for your e-book. Let's begin with honing in on your ultimate goals.

Decide if your goal is to get wide distribution and maximum exposure. This goal is aimed at drawing customers to your business or service, or to establishing the credibility of your reputation. If this is your main goal, you should aim to keep your price on the low side. Some authors have even priced their e-books at a profit loss to draw a high number of new customers. The key is to find a price that maximizes your profits and the number of books you sell.

This is an excellent pricing strategy if you are looking to acquire long-term customers. Long-term customers are extremely likely to buy from you again and again - as long as the first e-book they buy is of exceptional quality and beneficial to the customer.

However, if your book contains valuable - and more importantly NEW information, references, or techniques - then you should aim to price it on the high end.

After you figure out your goal, you must figure out what your audience's need is for your e-book. For example, does your book solve a particular problem? If it does, and solves it in a way that hasn't been written about in one hundred other e-books, you will be able to achieve high sales at a high price. If your book solves a problem or answers questions in a new and unique way, you should price your book as high as you can go. You will achieve larger profits this way, but bring in fewer customers. Just make sure the question or problem that your book solves is one that is important and relevant to the majority of your market audience. If your ideas are not common knowledge, or you are presenting a brand new technique, you will be able to sell books at a high price. Just be prepared for your competition to undercut you on price as soon as they hear about your book.

Keep in mind that the above pricing strategy is temporary. Eventually, you will cease to sell books at this high price. So figure out in advance how long you plan to offer your e-book at this high price, and when that time is up, change your pricing strategy.

If you want to see large profits over customer draw, aim for an audience that is looking for easy solutions to their problems at a low price. If your book is aimed at solving one particular problem rather than general advice, then you can charge more. Start at the highest price the market will bear to bring in the largest profits, and plan to discount the book a number of times throughout the year.

Marketing Strategies

The key that unlocks the sales potential of your e-book is to find a single sentence that becomes your selling handle. This sentence states what question or problem your book answers and the benefits your e-book can provide. Then be sure to use that sentence in every piece of sales and promotional material, and every time anyone asks you about your e-book.

Besides promoting your books assiduously online, there are several other strategies that can help you sell more books.

One is to give something away for free with your book, such as a valuable bonus item. Or bundle several e-books under one price, which lowers the price for each e-book if they were sold separately.

An effective technique for figuring out a price is to send out a survey to your current customers. If these customers have already bought an e-book from you, ask for their opinion in terms of price. Do this by creating a sales page for the new book, but don't include a price on that page. Instead, add a number of links to survey questions that ask pointed questions to aid you in assigning a price to your e-book.

Another strategy is to test out prices by creating a number of duplicate sales pages with different prices on each page. Make sure your sales copy is exactly the same on every page, and includes your selling-handle sentence. Then figure out for each page the conversion ratio between visitors to your site and sales of your book. This will tell you what your optimum price is.

Ultimately, if you've written a book that solves a problem or presents a new technique, your book will bring in both traffic and profits. So be sure to write that selling-handle sentence that sums up what problem your book solves and what the benefits of your book will be to the customers who purchase it. And then watch your market come to you!

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About The Author

Matthew Tibble is passionate about helping small businesses achieve online business success. With 10 years experience in sales and marketing, he has developed an enlightened approach to business that combines proven philosophies with practical implementation. For more information, email articleinfo@businessplanningmadeeasy.com, or visit www.businessplanningmadeeasy.com.