How To Price A Self-Published Book

In this article, you’ll learn how to Price a Self-Published Book

Making the decision to write your own book, whether it be a novel or a non-fiction piece, can be a fulfilling and rewarding one.

However, once you’ve done all the hard work, there are many logistical aspects of the self-publishing process that need to be managed so that you can get your book out into the world and, hopefully, profit from it.

One of the most common questions that is asked by new or prospective authors is, how much do I sell my self-published book for?

What should I be asking readers to pay? Let’s take an in-depth look at how much you should be pricing your self-published book for and all of the factors that go into that calculation!

Editor’s note: If you want to learn more about how to publish a book on Amazon read this article HERE

Understanding Value, Setting Goals, and Deciding How to Publish

The three items in this section are often the most important when it comes to establishing a price tag for your novel.

While they’re three distinct factors, they also impact one another, which is why it’s so important to look at them together.

Let’s break this down by section to get a better overview of each.

Understanding the value of your self-published book.

Value is going to be a very subjective factor and one that’s highly dependent on the type of book that you aim to publish.

Let’s imagine, for example, that you’ve decided to write a self-help book.

Doing so is going to offer an inherent value to the person reading it.

After all, they will be choosing your book because they believe its contents are going to provide tangible results in their lives.

The more value that your book has to offer, the more that you might wish to charge for it to demonstrate that it will indeed produce the intended results.

Of course, this won’t apply to everything. A fiction novel might be a bit more difficult to price because of the fact that it’s a fiction story meant to be enjoyed.

In this case, you can’t necessarily put a price on it based on its perceived value. So, what should you do to figure out how to price your book?

The best way to properly price your book if it’s fiction is to see what other authors in the same genre are pricing their books for. Make sure to pay close attention to how long their books are, how popular the author is, and other factors that can impact price.

The way that you publish your book will also impact how much you should charge, but we’ll dive into that in greater depth later on in this guide.

Setting earnings goals for your finished self-published book.

If you’re like most authors, the joy of writing and putting your artwork out into the world is exciting.

However, this excitement won’t pay the bills or compensate you for all of the hard work that you’ve put into your book.

In order to do that, you have to make sure that you’re establishing financial goals to make sure that your efforts aren’t going unrewarded.

Financial goals in regards to self-publishing can be a little tricky.

Ultimately, your audience determines how much you earn based on your level of success. You can’t control how well your book will be received, especially if you’re a new author.

What you can control are the factors that might contribute to sales. But what are these?

• Platform-Relevant Pricing: This entire guide is about pricing, so discussing pricing here might seem nonsensical. However, the success of your book can be impacted by whether or not you’re pricing it appropriately for your publishing method of choice. Let’s imagine that you decide to publish your book as a paperback or hardcover. Because these are physical books and there’s a lot that goes into their production, they’re naturally going to be priced higher than other published formats. But if you decide to publish your book solely as an e-book, you’re going to have to price it lower in order to compete with other books on these platforms. That’s not to say that you can’t price it however you like. But if you want to be able to make money and reach your income goals, you need to price your book appropriately.

• Estimated Returns Based on Analytics: Hopefully, you’ve been marketing your book and getting people excited about its release up to this point. The various marketing channels that you’ve used thus far will help you get a better idea as to how many might be buying it when it finally comes out. For example, if you’ve been advertising on your website and encouraging your audience to sign up for your newsletter so they know once your book has been published, you might have a good idea as to how many sales you will already have once you finally advertise that your book is ready to buy. This will allow you to set more realistic financial goals rather than setting an amount you may or may not reach.

• Overall Reach and Exposure: Speaking of reach, it’s important to see how well the news of your book is being received as well. Alongside your website (if you have one), you might be advertising your book on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. How many people are your marketing posts reaching? What does your overall engagement look like? Are you getting a lot of great feedback and comments that indicate people want to read your book? Determining your overall and exposure and reach can be an excellent way to see how many people just might want to read your book, especially as you build up to the launch.

Setting financial goals can be tricky, and this may be something that you revise several times as you work towards publishing your book. Make sure to review these factors as you move forward so that you have realistic financial goals and can price your self-published book appropriately.

What self-publishing route will you be pursuing for your new book?

The final (and arguably most important) factor here that will determine how you price your book is the type of publishing method that you choose.

There are several options, and you may even pursue all of them to get your book out into the world in every format.

• E-Books: E-books are among the easiest formats to release. While there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that they’re ready for reading on the various devices people can use today for digital books, there’s no having to deal with managing physical copies or having to worry about shipping and delivery. However, that doesn’t always mean that pricing them is easy. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. While there are a lot of e-books out there today that sell for relatively low prices, some are priced higher. In order to make sure that you’re making money and pricing your e-books appropriately, you need to have a deep understanding of the market, your book’s value, and other factors that will go into properly pricing your book.

• Paperbacks: Paperbacks are the middle ground between e-books and hardcovers. Priced below their harder counterparts but generally higher than e-books, paperbacks are a favourite among readers that want to have a physical copy of the book given that they’re often quite affordable. As such, you can price them a bit higher than e-books and make more money in the process (unless you’re doing a lot of the self-publishing work without the support of a platform, in which case you might need to price them even higher to compensate for the costs of production and shipping). The only thing to be careful about is to understand how books might translate if you’re starting with e-books and then turning your focus over to paperbacks. The last thing that you want to do is end up accidentally formatting your paperbacks wrong and delivering a product that readers are not expecting. Taking great care during the self-publishing process will make a world of difference in how readers receive your books.

• Hardcovers: Hardcover books are the most expensive version of your book. Why? The first reason why you can charge more for hardcovers is that they’re more expensive to manufacture. They require higher quality materials. However, it’s also a matter of what people are looking to buy. If you’re selling print books, you want to make sure there’s an option for those who are looking to spend within their budget and those who want a higher-quality book that they can preserve on their bookshelf for years to come. Additionally, diversifying by offering both types of books will make it so that you can improve your chances of driving more sales once your books are published.

The format that you choose will ultimately depend on your situation. For example, if you’re a business owner writing an e-book to attract prospective clients, you will easily be able to produce and publish an e-book on your website without having to worry about a lot of additional factors that will play into pricing or production.

Meanwhile, if you’re a fiction writer wanting to publish your book in additional formats, there are several considerations you will have to make as a result. Keep all of the above in mind for pricing and beyond!

Conduct Deep Competitor Research to Understand What You Can Expect to Charge

As with any industry, your competition will play a role in how much you charge. True, you have to charge what you think your book is worthwhile also charging enough to make a profit and recoup any costs related to self-publishing (if applicable).

However, if you overcharge, you run the risk of driving potential readers away. After all, if they don’t believe that your book is worth as much as you’re pricing it for, they’re not going to invest in your book if they believe that they can find something equally engaging for a lesser price.

So, what exactly should you be looking for when you’re doing research into competitors who will tell you what the average price range for the type of book that you plan on publishing? Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• What genre is your book?
• How many words is your book?
• How popular are you as a writer (do you already have an audience and have you been published before)?
• What type of formats are you publishing?
• What kind of value would you give your book (low value, medium, high value)?

Once you have answers to all of the questions above, you can then evaluate publishers with similar characteristics to see how much they’re charging for their work. This will then give you a better idea of how you should price your book once you finally print it or publish it online.

Keep this guide on you as you move forward with your career as well. As factors change or as you become a more popular author, you’re likely going to be able to charge more for your work regardless of the format you end up selecting!

Average Sales Prices By Publishing Format

The guidance above is great for better understanding the factors behind setting a price and why you might even want to lower it or raise it in the future.

However, they don’t actually illustrate what certain types of formats might be priced. For those who are self-publishing their first book, having an accurate price range for each format can be a great way to establish a baseline for your pricing.

With respect to the price ranges calculated below, we’re going to be illustrating the average price range for books published via Kindle Direct Publishing. Why? Kindle Direct Publishing is very beginner-user friendly.

They handle all of the aspects of printing and shipping for you, and they make it easy to publish e-books that readers can enjoy on Kindle. Pricing may vary if you decide to publish on another platform or even by yourself. Keep this in mind!

• E-Books (Self-Published on Website): If you plan on publishing your own book via your website, you have a lot more control and a lot less to consider. There’s no worry about printing, and there’s no concern about how much you make after the platform takes a cut or other associated fees. As long as you understand the value that your book has to offer, how much your consumer is willing to pay, and how to generate hype around your book, you should be fine!

• E-Books (Self-Published on Platforms): The average price for e-books is anywhere from $0.99 and $9.99. Because these are digital books, consumers expect these to be priced more affordably (especially because there are no manufacturing costs, shipping costs, and so on). Anywhere from $0.99 to $3.99 is considered to be relatively cheap. If you’re a new author writing a fiction book and trying to get exposure, this price range might be for you. However, if you’re writing a non-fiction book and you want to appear more credible to your audience, you’re likely going to want to price your book higher. An average range is about $4.99 to $6.99, with books priced from $7.99 to $9.99 being considered more high-end.

• Paperbacks: Paperback books will be a bit more than e-books, even if they’re on the lower end of the quality spectrum. It’s important to remember that while there are several fees associated with using KDP to publish and sell e-books (we’ll talk more about this later), the cost of publishing printed books is going to be more. This is due to the cost of production as well as the cost of physically shipping the books. So, what’s the average price range for paperback books? At the lowest, paperbacks are priced at around $7.99. At the highest, you’ll see paperbacks selling for $19.99. It all depends on how much the fees are, how much you value your book, and what your income goals are. Just make sure that you price it appropriately and you don’t overprice it as paperbacks tend to be the more affordable options for those who aren’t interested in purchasing hardcovers!

• Hardcovers: Hardcover books are going to be priced the most, and this is due to the quality materials needed for the manufacturing process. That being said, some of the lowest-priced hardcovers aren’t actually much more than the cheapest paperbacks. In fact, some of the cheapest hardcovers run around $12.99. Expensive hardcovers aren’t too bad either, with these top prices running around $27.99. But while it can be tempting to go with the top price, there are factors that impact how much you will actually be making from those sales. That’s exactly what we’re going to cover in the section below!

Most books are relatively cheap, even if you’re selling printed versions of your book. Armed with a better understanding of how much different formats are priced at and how much your competitors are charging, you’re almost ready to begin selling your books. Now, we just have to take a look at some of the different variables that will inevitably affect the price as well!

Additional Considerations to Make That Will Affect Self-Published Book Prices

Your book price is not something that you just want to set based on a range. If you’re looking to maximize your sales, you need to be savvy about how you set your prices. But what exactly do you need to consider when you’re figuring out how to price your books? What considerations will you have to make the most from your work?

Royalties and Additional Fees.

Regardless of whether you’re selling e-books or you’re selling physical copies of your books, you’re going to have to deal with royalties and fees. If you’re selling e-books, there’s a minor delivery fee per MB ($0.15 per MB for books ranging from $2.99 to $9.99) of your book as well as royalties. There are two types of royalties for Amazon e-books.

The first is a 35% royalty for books priced below $2.99 and above $9.99. The second is a 70% royalty for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Knowing these royalties will allow you to price your e-book in a way that benefits you the most.

But what about physical copies? The first thing to know about is the printing fees. The formula that Amazon KDP uses for paperbacks is Fixed cost + (page count * per page cost) = printing cost. You can learn more about the fixed costs for various types of paperbacks here.

Looking to sell hardcovers as well? The same formula applies to hardcovers, and you can learn more about fixed costs for hardcovers here. If you’re planning on selling on different marketplaces across the globe, that comes with its own set of considerations as well.

One additional cost that will affect how much you make is value added tax, which will apply to certain sales outside of the U.S. You may also set a different price for each marketplace, so it’s important to take your time and understand the process as well as the different factors that will come into play when you sell you book globally. Otherwise, selling it domestically either as an e-book or a physical book is relatively easy.

Value Over Time.

If you’ve worked hard to craft a stunning work of fiction, it’s important not to price it too low. Why? When it comes to books, they lose value over time. What you price it as today is not going to stay the same price moving forward.

Your book will naturally lose value over time. Start with a reasonable price so that it doesn’t stay stuck at the same price (such as $0.99 cents for an e-book that will stay $0.99 for years to come) and won’t lose value rapidly. Remember too that if you decide to continue writing or you create an entire series, the value of your books will likely go up as you become better and gain more exposure!

Initial Investment.

The biggest investment that you’re going to sink into your e-books is an investment of time. Writing a book takes a long time. There’s the planning process, the outline, the first draft, several rounds of edits, and so on before it becomes ready for publication. This is the most important thing to consider when you’re figuring out how much to price your book for. Of course, an investment of time isn’t the only investment that you might make. If you’re self-publishing all on your own, you might be paying for printing, shipping, and beyond. If you’re outsourcing some of your needs, you might be paying for graphic design support or editing services. All of these investments inevitably take a chunk out of your overall profits. Consider every investment made and how to price your book to make the most of your efforts.

Reviews.

We spoke about the importance of pricing your book properly so as to not drive away potential readers. This is critical to maximizing your sales. However, there’s another thing that will play a role in whether or not your book sells and what you will have to price it at: reviews. The reality is that critical reception will determine whether or not a piece of work thrives.

If you publish your book and you receive bad reviews, it can quickly devalue your work and force you to try to sell it for less. Now, it’s not always going to be easy to determine whether or not your book is going to be received as anticipated.

For example, a fiction book may be well-written, but you can only do so much to persuade people to enjoy your storyline.

If, on the other hand, you’re writing a non-fiction book, you can try to improve the quality by making it more engaging, ensuring that it offers plenty of value, and writing in a style that’s more entertaining without taking away from the non-fiction content.

Additionally, as long as reviews are relatively high, you’re going to want to ask readers to post reviews to give you a more accurate score.

If you have only had two people review your book and one gives it the most stars while others only give it one star, you’re going to have a score that falls somewhere in the middle.

Whether people buy is not only a matter of price but a matter of what others have to say about your book as well.

Promotions or Sales.

If someone is on the fence about buying your book, running promotions or sales can be a great way to get these prospective readers to make the leap. Amazon KDP makes it really easy to run promotional deals right from your dashboard so that you can market the promotion to your interested audience, make the price change on your account dashboard, and watch the sales roll in.

Consumer Psychology.

The psychology of consumers is going to play a major role in how you price your books. One excellent example of this is the difference between a price like $9.99 and $10.

Even though this is a difference of only one cent, consumers tend to spring for those prices with odd numbers because it can actually drive sales, encouraging them to go for the book that’s only a cent less since they believe that they’re getting a better deal.

It’s a weird phenomenon, but it’s definitely one to leverage if you want to know how to properly price your books and see more sales!

Pricing an e-book can be a complicated endeavour. However, all the information above should provide you with everything you need to know to competitively price your book and ensure that you’re making money after everything has been finalized and published on the platform of your choice.

Okay, So I Know How to Price My Book… How Do I Boost Sales?

Now that you have everything you need to price your book, you might still be looking for some strategies to ensure that it sells. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of information out there on boosting e-book sales. Let’s take a look at a few notable ones to help you get off to a great start as an author!

People Judge a Book By Its Cover. Make It Look Great!

Everyone says not to judge a book by its cover, but very few people actually take that advice. The cover of your book is what first catches a reader’s eye. If it looks like it’s poorly designed, there’s a good chance that readers are going to gloss over it and choose a different book that looks great and sounds like an awesome read.

If you have the graphic design skills necessary to design book covers, make sure you create a concept and take your time developing your cover. If you don’t, you can always outsource your graphic design needs to a professional designer.

Craft a book description that really sells your book.

Your cover is not the only aspect of your book that prospective buyers are going to judge. Your summary will play a role in whether or not they decide to read it as well.

Think of your summary as a sales pitch. It’s a brief window that gives the reader enough to get hooked without giving away everything about your book. Your summary should include a brief blurb that describes the main plot and the characters and really hooks your reader into wanting to know more (this is different for non-fiction, where you will want to describe what the book is about and why it’s exciting or adds value).

If this is the first time that you’re writing a summary for a book, the best way to make sure that you’re on the right track is to see what others in your genre have written for their book summary. You can use this as inspiration to draw in readers. Just make sure you’re not outright copying it!

Leverage SEO to boost visibility on Amazon KDP (or beyond).

This is a bit of an advanced strategy, but it can mean the difference between receiving little engagement outside of marketing and boosting your visibility so that you’re driving more potential readers to your book. This strategy is search engine optimization (SEO).

Put simply, SEO is the practice of optimizing text in order to satisfy a search engine’s needs and help it get your content in front of more people.

Using certain keywords makes it easier for a search engine to promote your content to relevant searches. It turns out that, while SEO is often used for search engines like Google, it can help you better promote your content on Amazon KDP.

This might be something worth researching further to see if you can apply it yourself. You may also want to reach out for professional help if you’re setting up websites to sell your e-book as well.

Make Sure That You’re Formatting Your Books As Instructed by Amazon KDP

Formatting can be a major pain point for prospective authors. Not only do you have to make sure that you’re formatting your e-book files but your paperback and hardcover versions as well.

There’s a wide range of specifics that platforms like KDP focus if you want to get listed.

Of course, how well you format it will also make or break the reading experience for your buyers, thereby impacting your sales. Here are a few key areas that you will need to look into as you navigate the publishing process.

• Setting your trim size and margins.
• Making sure that your e-book file format is compatible with KDP.
• Creating essential parts of your book like the copyright page, the back of the book, etc.
• Creating a table of contents that links to each chapter of your book (for easy navigation for e-book users).
• Formatting images.
• Choosing the right fonts.
• Looking for errors with text boxes and hidden characters.
• And more…

This isn’t just essential to getting your book published, but it’s also essential to making sure that everything translates well to the published electronic or printed product. Should there be formatting errors, missing texts, improperly inserted images, or other issues, this could easily translate to bad book reviews that impact whether or not you make money from your book.

Market, market, market!

You can’t simply write a book, publish it, and hope that people come to read it. Marketing is an essential aspect of writing. The good news? There are a host of ways to market a book. Make sure that you market it as soon as you begin the writing process.

Getting people excited about the concept of your book, keeping them updated with your progress, and even letting them see the process is what’s going to garner interest and help you boost your book sales.

But where do you market your book?

The best place to start is on social media. Whether you use Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, or beyond, there are a ton of free social media platforms out there for you to take advantage of.

Of course, it can also be helpful to build a website for your e-book.

This will keep users updated about release dates, fun insights, and other aspects of your book. The more you work on promoting your book, the greater the likelihood that you’re going to see the purchases you want when it finally comes time for the launch.

Editor’s note: If you want to learn more about Bookfunnels click HERE

Don’t be afraid to follow the trends.

Now, this might not apply to your current book.

What you’ve written is definitely worth publishing. However, if you’re a dedicated longtime author, you might get started on your next book right away. If you’re trying to make sure that all of your projects earn you something, you should make sure that you’re following the trends. But what does this mean?

Take, for example, a few years ago when YA post-apocalyptic novels were all the rage.

You had books like The Hunger Games and Divergent that not only went on to garner a massive fan base but become successful movie franchises as well.

There’s money to be made in trends. If you’re a writer who likes to join in on the fun and come up with similar concepts that are in the mainstream, doing so might be able to make you more money and increase your sales.

That being said, you should never feel pressured to follow trends or engage in work that you don’t love.

Writing is all about passion, and readers will see that you’re truly passionate about your work when the outcome is a product of your love for the genre and the stories that you’ve weaved.

Last Thoughts On How To Price Your Self-Published Book

There’s a lot that goes into writing and self-publishing a book, and pricing your book correctly is just one of those things that you have to learn in order to make sure that you’re making money from your work. Pricing a book is a complex task on its own, but it’s much more digestible when you have all the information in front of you.

If you recently worked on your own book and you’re ready to publish, refer to the guide above for all of the information you need to know on how to price a self-published book. If you write a book in the future, you’ll still have all the foundational knowledge you need to reassess your book and career and set a more relevant price!