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I read an article on Just Publishing Advice recently that suggested self-published authors raise the price of their cheap ebooks closer to the price of their paperbacks to increase sales. The idea is that very cheap ebooks (e.g. 99c/99p) may be viewed as poor quality and a somewhat higher price as better quality. Also, the same article suggested that traditional publishers do not like ebooks and so price their ebooks at a higher price to encourage people to buy the paperback or hardback instead.

I suppose my question is did anyone else read the article or know about any of this, and has it/would it affect how you price your ebooks?

I haven't read the specific article but I've read something else on that matter (as per group rules, I won't link the work). In a model case of a paperback costing $10, around $5 are print-specific costs (printing, storage, transport). Price-matching e-books with print while not sharing these costs is a d*ck move on the publisher's side.

So, about indie pricing: I think $1 is too low (unless it's a short story) but the usual price range I see on full-scale novels ($3-$6) is completely okay.

As for why the publishers do it, there are some theories:
- encouraging to buy the paperback/hardback, as you said. That's their main business, the stuff they understand. Yes, they might not be fond of e-books for various reasons but they don't even understand some aspects of it, shown by their insistence on DRM (for example).
- making up for losses of poorly-selling books (I've seen a guesstimate that one of five books that are accepted the traditional way is a success, two break even and two fail)
- filling their pockets (of the extra $5, the author gets minimum, if anything)
I'd personally say it's a mix of all of the above.

I've encountered a lot of opinions (mostly from members of this group) on the subject of pricing our books. Some believe we should keep them cheap. Some say we should never give away books for free as it cheapens our work. Some say we should price according to similar traditionally published books. And so on.

All I can say is mess with your pricing. Try different things. Give away free stuff for a few months. Price high for a few months. If you find something that works for you, stick with it. When it no longer works, try something else. A couple years ago, I stopped giving anything away and my sales went up. A few months later, the sales stopped. I lowered the prices. The sales went up for a while, then stopped. I dropped the prices. The sales went up...

And on and on and on.

I echo what Dwayne says. It's important to try things for months rather than weeks.

I've had my works out there for dirt cheap and for cheap-ish (I've only done ebooks so far) and basically no one buys them either way. Hehe. (I basically hate/suck at marketing.)

All I know is that eBooks priced over $8 (I see many at $11 to $15) is ridiculous. I'm right there with Thomas on this one: $3 - $6 is about right for eBooks from Indies. You can go over that, no doubt, if/when you've got a large fan base and name recognition. But I don't know many who would pay more for an unknown author.

Micah wrote: "I'm right there with Thomas on this one: $3 - $6 is about right for eBooks from Indies. "

Generally, I agree with this. Although, I did just raise the price of my second novel to seven dollars. It was selling here and there at the old price and I want to see what it does at a higher price. The reason I went so high is the sucker is over eight hundred pages, compared to the usual two to five hundred pages I see on most Indie novels.

According to all the experts, you put out a teaser/free/cheap book to get them to sign up for your email by offering a freebie or other incentive. For a launch, you would price it cheap to get immediate sales then up the price to $4.99 or less. The $3.99-$4.99 seems to be a sweet spot for most e-books. The teaser should be a prequel, at novella, or even a few chapters of the book (which I totally dislike.) An email list is a must if you market, then there is AMS ads, various other places to do ads which are in another folders. It's called practicing until you find what works for you, but from everyone I've been in contact with, that email list is the most important.

Valerie wrote: "I read an article on Just Publishing Advice recently that suggested self-published authors raise the price of their cheap ebooks closer to the price of their paperbacks to increase sales. ..."

I price my eBooks significantly less than the paperback versions. I started off pricing the paperbacks at what I thought the market would bear compared to other similar books. I found that paperback mysteries are typically priced at about $10 USD so I priced my first few novels at $9.50. That price meant that I received about $2.40 in royalties for every book sold. I thought I should make about the same in royalties for the eBook version which caused me to sell it for $3.50.

Thus, the eBook version is significantly cheaper than the paperback version but I make about the same amount for each sale.

I never put the paperback versions on sale but I've tried numerous pricing strategies for the eBook versions, none of which worked for me. I've tried pricing them for 99 cents which didn't trigger any additional sales. I've also run a few promotions where I've given the eBook version away for free for up to 5 days, but all it did was result in free downloads and no additional paid sales.

To Micah and Wayne: Yeah, the $3 - $6 range is what I see for the usual 200-500 pages range. Longer books make sense to cost more. My WIP is currently at ~185k words (around 600 pages, I guess?) and in the early drafts was reaching as high as 240k - for which staying forever at $3 seems like undervaluing my own 'work'. The metalhead in me is still tempted to price it at $6.66 at some point as an experiment, though I know I'll start at the base $3 for the launch month at least.

Wow, I really started a big discussion! Which is great, actually, because I was hoping to see lots of different opinions - thanks to everyone who has jumped in on this :)

Dwayne wrote: "Some say we should never give away books for free as it cheapens our work..."
Dwayne wrote: "All I can say is mess with your pricing. Try different things..."

I'm completely onboard with not giving anything away for free, but was always afraid of pricing too high. However, I like your idea of just playing around with the prices and seeing what happens. I suppose if you're not selling a book at a lower price, there's no harm trying a higher one - you can't get lower than zero sales! lol

Micah wrote: "(I basically hate/suck at marketing.)"

Oh, good, not just me then ;)

Definitely not just you which is why it is so good to belong to a community where little nuggets of wisdom, experience and results of trials and tribulations being shared is valued very highly.

I suppose another way of doing it would be to calculate what it costs you to produce (book cover, editing, etc.) and market a book, and then set a sales target of the # of books to sell before you break even and set your price accordingly.

I'm pretty sure I've never actually broken even on a book yet.

If you're an unknown indie author, you have to price low. It amazes me when I see indie authors pricing their eBooks at $9.99 with no reviews. It stops me from buying. Sales should dictate your price. If you have a series, it helps to do a freebie on the first book now and then. I don't like permafree.