Self-Published Book Pricing Thoughts
I finished writing a book last week. In theory, and in the past, I’ve done what every internet guy turned self-published author has done; I’ve gone under the impression the best thing you can do is throw your book up for $5 or whatever on Kindle, and then maybe stick it on Nook or Kobo or wherever. (After all, I’m not a fan of Kindle Unlimited.)
Of course, this is not a professional (or smart way) to really do this sort of thing.
Also, I wanted a paperback because it’s getting pretty difficult to explain to certain people in my life how I can be a writer without any “real books.” Again, I could just throw it on CreateSpace and hope for the best, but that’s not really thinking long term.
What Is Long Term For A Book?
Providing you don’t sell your rights to a publisher, your book is a piece of intellectual property that can earn you money for your entire lifetime plus seventy years. Technically, if you write a book, your Grandkids could be making money from it.
When I think of it in those terms, I feel really stupid for throwing my books up and forgetting about them.
Self-Publishing Like A Pro: The Basics
You don’t sell the book; you license the intellectual property. You own the words, in whatever form they come. Michael Crichton made a ton of money off Jurassic Park. Hardly any of that figure was from the actual physical hardback.
However, this involves one thing: You need to be the publisher. Most people who go through Createspace don’t bother paying the extra $7 for a custom imprint. Do this.
This option isn’t available in the UK, where you’ll have to buy your own IBSN and go through a rather expensive and Draconian process.
Still, you want to be the publisher on record. Get an ISBN – it’ll cost you a few dollars and can make all the difference
Pricing
Your pricing should be worked out based on the market value: Internet guys who sell their books for $0.99 do themselves a massive disservice, and to be honest, people like me who have sold ebooks for $2.99 are also doing themselves a disservice.
If professional outlets sell their books for $9.99 and you are going cheaper, you really need to think why you’re selling your book for a lot less. There’s a reason why books cost as much as they do.
Print Book Pricing
The holy grail for self-published authors has always been getting their books in a store. This has become a little project of mine for the latest books I’m releasing later this year, hence this topic.
The reason for pricing your books like a professional publishing outlet is because if you want to get your books in a store, you have to sell to that store at a discount. For the biggest outlets, you’re selling to them wholesale at 40% of the retail price.
Essentially, you have to double your price to appeal to the middleman. Let’s look at some figures here:
Printing costs might be $4 for a 200 page paperback book.
You want to sell the book for $6, because that’s the margin you get on your ebooks at $2.99.
Avoid this urge. I know it makes sense.
You see a competitor sells their book for $15, and you can’t understand it when you get the figures above.
If it costs $4 to have the book produced, and you want to get into a bookstore that wants a 50% discount on retail price, then you need to price your book at $8+ to break even.
You obviously don’t want to breakeven, because there’s no point.
Your competitor, who is charging $15, can discount to 50%. If they sell ten copies to an independent bookstore, they make $7.50 and spend $4, which gives them a healthy $35 for the ten copies.
Philosophy
When it comes to succeeding as a self-published author, you have to be the publisher as well. This means that you need to think of your books as products and licenses.
If you were selling bars of soap, how would you think about your products?
You’d want to get the best margins and deliver them to as many different vendors as possible as well as probably selling them retail yourself, right?
That’s what you should do with your books. If you price your books so that they can only be sold on Amazon, then you’re only going to sell in that one bookstore (it might be huge, but it’s only one store.)
If you only sell in digital form, then you’re only licensing your property once. You should aim to license your property multiple times. You should price it so that you can make it attractive to multiple vendors as well.
One story; multiple formats, multiple stores. That’s the very definition of the self-employed, “multiple streams of revenue” dream – yet most authors don’t do anything remotely resembling this.
Not So Final Thoughts
This topic has been a bit less readable (I think) than my usual articles. That’s because I’m working this out in my head as I’m going along and I’ve still got a lot of work to do before I realise what I’m trying to realise. This is a bullet point version of what I’ll think later.
So this is a “not-really” conclusion, just a closing statement for the thoughts of the day. I’ll return to this later with more useful information.