.............. I'm asking, because I don't know either. That's because pricing was not what was letting me get to less or more people. My pricing wasn't opening gateways or tapping into people. I pretty much made the same amount of money from .99 cent books as I did pricing at $6.99.
But along the way, I learned how I was going to price my work and how I will ALWAYS price my work when I go to events and online.
If you check my Amazon Author Page, you'll see a pattern:
Novels: $4.99
Collections $3.99
Poetry: $2.99
How did I magically arrive to these numbers?
For indie authors, if you price something at $2.98 or less, you earn 35% on every sale. If you price it at $2.99 or more, you earn 70%. I write poetry, collections, and novels, so that's three price tiers in my mind because I think a more complex the work shouldn't be priced identically to something that was quicker to produce. So basically the lowest I can price it is $2.99 and I work from that.
At events, my pricing is as follows:
Novels: $20.00
Collections $15.00
Poetry: $10.00
- Blanc Comics - Event exclusive $3.00
The price hike is significant, but there's also a few reasons for this. The cost per impression of each book is taken into account as is shipping. Last year I spent hundreds of dollars on printing and shipping, and luckily I was able to recover it and start to see some profit in this event. I used earnings to pay for my 2017 booth at the Puerto Rico Comic Con and I was able to recover what I pay to the artists for my book covers. A cover can range from $200-$400 with the people whose work I trust and I will not cut corners.
Last year, a young man asked me if I'd give him a deal since it was the last day of the event. I apologized and said that I was not able to do that because it would be unfair to people who paid full price and even visited me all three days. I will say though, sometimes I make an exception. A lovely reader who had visited last year and came back this year had purchased 4 of my books between both years and was torn between which to get for the 5th book. I gave her a complimentary copy because to know someone would read 6 of my works is touching to such a level. But I won't haggle or lower pricing just for the sake of that. In the case of the Blanc Comics, $3 is as low as I can price them without losing money.
When I do online sales, I do price my books at .99 cents but I do that because I do the sales in the hope of also raising awareness for a cause I believe in, like what I did for #WritesForLife (all proceeds went to the American Cancer Society in the hopes of raising awareness of a good organization that DOES use money donated correctly).
So as you can see, this has been SUPER researched... or not so much. What ended up being the reason for my pricing is what do I feel Ok in pricing, and when I found this "formula" I stuck with it and will always do so.
What about you though? Do you think my pricing is fair? If you're an author, how did you decide on your pricing?
Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
For now though,
Peace, love, and maki rolls
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