How should I price my eBook?
By Alain Thibault, Tuesday 12 December 2006 on 11:35 :: eBook Marketing :: #3 :: rss
It can be difficult to decide the sale price of an eBook. Since there are no printing and distribution costs, should an eBook cost less than a paperback book? How will I know how much my potential clients will want to pay for my eBook?
These are some of the questions you will want to find an answer for when you'll want to start selling your eBook. Basically, your eBook content will decide its price. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much it cost you to produce your eBook.
To answer one of the above questions: no rule is saying that an eBook should cost less than a paperback book. To find out the right price for your eBook you will first have to look at following elements: content value and competition.
Content value
How valuable your content is to your readers is the main element that will influence your pricing. And remember: we're not talking about how you value your content. We're talking about how your customers evaluate the benefits provided by your content. And these benefits can be related to any field: financial, health, career, technical, etc.
If your content provides a technical solution to a problem involving significant money loss, your potential customers will immediately see the benefits of your content. They will put a higher value on your content if they know they will rapidly get a return on their investment.
The benefits provided by your content will also have a different effect on your pricing depending if it can be easily reproduced or not.
The more research was required to build the solution provided by your content, the more difficult it will be to reproduce and the more valuable your content will be. Effectively, your customers will be more willing to pay a higher price for your content if they know it would require a lot a time in to come up with a solution similar to the one proposed in your eBook. That will also often influence the number of competitors offering similar solutions on the market.
That brings us to the second element that will affect your eBook pricing: the competition.
Competition
Once you will have figured out your content's value, you will have to do some research in order to find competitors selling eBooks talking about similar subject. You will have to know how they priced their eBooks. For each competitor your find, you will have to choose if your content is more or less valuable than its content in order to decide if your eBook should be priced higher or lower than this competitor. And again remember, you don't want to know if you would put a higher value on your content - you want to know if your potential customers will put a higher or lower value on your content.
So take the time to search the Web to find your competitors out there. And for each of them, ask yourself if your clients would pay more or less for your eBook. Are the benefits provided by your content more or less valuable than those offered by your competitor? Looking at as many competitors as possible will help you fine-tune your pricing.
But even after all that work, you will still need to test your pricing. Because before testing it, your will never be sure if you evaluated your content as your customers would have done.
Testing your pricing
First, take the pricing you chose from your previous analysis and start selling your eBook at that price. To avoid frustration if you eventually wish to raise your price, you could show your price as a special launch promotional price. That way, if you find that much more customers are purchasing your eBook at your starting price, you will be able to raise your pricing without causing too much frustrations to those who didn't purchase your eBook before the price was raised.
The other way to avoid frustrations is to offer a free bonus as part of your launch promotion. This way, if you eventually find out your potential customers seem to find that your price is too high, you will be able to lower it and - by removing your free bonus at the same time - clients who previously purchased your eBook at a higher price will be much less frustrated.
After your eBook launches, it would be a good idea to offer other time or quantity limited promotions, until your are satisfied with your pricing. This will help you to fine-tune your pricing even more.
The right price for higher sales
Fine-tuning your pricing will require a lot of work but, once achieved correctly, it will also make you get the most sales out of your eBook. Not taking the time to do so can only result in less sales for you.
Remember: you will have to be patient. Don't change your pricing again prematurely before knowing exactly what effect your previous price change had. Sometimes, it takes days or weeks before being able to properly evaluate the effects of a price change.
---
Alain Thibault
www.secure-ebook.com
Comments
1. On Thursday 14 December 2006 at 08:48, by John
All good points and clearly put. I particularly like the suggestions for keeping price flexibility early in the sales cycle.
Thanks
John
2. On Saturday 6 January 2007 at 00:14, by AJAY SHARMA :: site
The manuscript of my book is ready. I wish to publish it as eBook. Kindly help me in this regard.
ajay sharma
3. On Sunday 4 February 2007 at 13:36, by Katharina Gutsche :: site
Feb.4th, 2007
Dear Mr. Thibault,
Thank you for your very considerate words in the section "contents".
Just a few add-ons:
The value for the customer is also high when it comes to translations
(as is the case in my writings),
when time consuming translation of highly scientific texts is needed because running translation machines all over them would only yield major rubbish, because the inner systems of the two languages involved are so very different.
"How will I know how much my potential clients will want to pay for my eBook?"
~~~Especially in e-business, it also depends on ethics:
some would not want to pay an old English copper Farthing, sometimes for ideological reasons,
whereas some honor the lifetime of other people, and their skills, and work, and are willing to pay a fair price, with the benevolent aim to sustain a good source.
"no printing and distribution costs"
~~~May I, please, doubt that? To sell one copy costs one dollar each, in the beginner's category,
And may I ask the percentage of income tax we have to pay for each printed ebook we might sell? I hope people are not going to wring my neck for asking this particular question.....
Sincerely,
Katharina
4. On Monday 5 February 2007 at 08:24, by Katharina Gutsche :: site
Good fences make good neighbors.
End User License Agreement vs. Info through preliminary emails by employees
Dear Mr. Thibault,
I have gone to and fro reading and comparing,
I am taking this very serious,
and a few things are bewildering me:
In your letter you told me that all the authors' rights stay with the author,
whereas in your End User License Agreement it is written that
"Any rights not expressly granted by this Agreement are reserved to Novisoft.",
and the authors' rights are addressed Nowhere in the License agreement,
plus
"ADVICE AND INFORMATION PROVIDED BY NOVISOFT OR ITS REPRESENTATIVES, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, WILL NOT CREATE ANY REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY OR CONDITION OR VARY OR AMEND THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING THE ABOVE DISCLAIMER, LIABILITY EXCLUSION, LIABILITY LIMITATION, RELEASE AND INDEMNITY PROVISIONS, AND YOU MAY NOT RELY UPON ANY SUCH ADVICE OR INFORMATION."
herein it is explicitly denied that any info you gave me in an email would be valid and binding to your company.
plus
in the License Agreement it is also written
"The provisions of this Agreement will ensure to the benefit of and be binding upon each of Novisoft and each of their respective successors and assigns and related persons, and you and your heirs, ..."
even my "heirs"? This aims explicitly at authors' rights which are personality rights that can be enherited.
Please, specify on this. It might be of general interest to those planning to make business with you.
One more thing I want to pronounce:
I find it very fair, and open, and courageous, to offer space to such discussion of pros and cons in these touchy matters.
My compliments!
Katharina
5. On Tuesday 13 February 2007 at 03:38, by Naison Moyo
I have my novels ready to be published on eBook, could you kindly give me a step by step initiative. Thank you
6. On Friday 16 February 2007 at 11:35, by Alain Thibault :: site
We receive many questions about what would be the steps to publish an eBook. We will soon post new articles on the subject. We will try to answer questions such as those posted by Ajay Sharma and Naison Moyo.
A good start could be to take a look at the following article: I have my eBook ready. Now what?.
7. On Friday 16 February 2007 at 11:55, by Alain Thibault :: site
Thank you for your comments Katharina.
Our License Agreement only applies to the Secure-eBook and Novisoft properties. This includes the Secure-eBook Web site, its content and the code developed behind. It also includes the downloadable Secure-eBook Packager.
I think what must have confused you is that you were under the impression that Secure-eBook was publishing its clients' eBooks. At the moment, this is not the case.
In fact, Secure-eBook offers a way to prevent eBooks piracy while facilitating the whole purchase process. But at the end, authors and publishers publish their secured eBooks themselves and the revenues go straight into their bank account.
Maybe we could eventually offer a publishing service, if we find there is a demand for it.
Add a comment