Pricing Your eBook For Profit

So you've done it . . . written your first eBook. Now you have to decide how much to charge for it.

Charge too little and people will think it's of little value and they won't purchase it, or even if they do buy your book, you’ll have to sell thousands of copies to break even after all your hard work.

Price it too high and you’ll end up having to steadily lower the price to get sales.

Every customer has his or her personal price they would be willing to pay for your eBook. Do you know what your customer’s ideal price is? How many would not pay more than $10, $20 or $50 for it?

Finding the right price for your eBook is critical, it can make or break your profit and can mean the difference between double or triple your income.

How to find that price is one of the most challenging pieces to the puzzle for selling your eBooks online. No doubt you have been surfing the web and found eBooks that range in price from $2 up to $200. You’ve probably been told that "How to" eBooks sell for more than fiction so you should be able to charge more if your eBook is a "How To".

BUT HOW MUCH MORE?

Reality is there is a great deal of trial and error to the method for pricing eBooks. An author may choose to price his or her eBook just below a competitive eBook on the basis that the customer will go with the lowest price every time. This has been proven not to be the case. The customer buys also on product quality, brand perception, and many other variables as well.

Then again, an author may price their eBook at the lowest possible price on the basis that millions of people are online so the eBook is bound to sell in the millions of copies. Again a common misconception.

Many online marketing gurus’ advocate testing your product price by selling at a high price initially and eventually lowering it until the floods of sales start coming in. This has a potentially negative impact on your customers. If you had bought a book at $50 to find a week later that it was selling for $29.95 you would not be too happy would you?!

Each of these methods is hit or miss and less than scientific in their approach. Ironically, while there is an amazing amount of information on the Web about all forms of online marketing ... the one subject with very little coverage is pricing.

HOW TO SET A PRICE THAT WILL SELL YOUR EBOOKS

Let's begin with examining your ultimate goals.

If your goal is aimed at drawing customers to your business or service, or establishing the credibility of your reputation, then you should plan to keep your price on the low side. Some authors have even priced their eBooks at a profit loss to draw a high number of new customers.

Why price low? Because of the lifetime value of a customer. An existing customer is more likely to buy from you again. In fact, it is not uncommon for more than 80% of first time customers to buy a second product from the same source as the first. This is especially true if the first product they bought was deemed by them to be of exceptional value.

On the other hand if your goal is primarily profit driven, then your strategy will be to price your eBook on the high priced end of the scale so that every sale brings a much larger profit at the expense of fewer customers, and therefore a smaller market share.

Bear in mind that if you are pricing high on the net your eBook had better be unique and covering a subject that everyone wants to know something about. Even then you are begging for someone to come along and undercut you on price.

The most valid reason for using this strategy is that your eBook covers something new, maybe a new technique for doing something, which is not yet common knowledge.

Planning is especially important if you opt to go with this pricing model because sales will eventually peter out and you'll want to have a strategy in place that will allow you to smoothly switch to a different pricing model.

Reality is that pricing can be challenging to do properly, even for the seasoned professional. Hopefully this article has put you on the right road pointing in the right direction.