There’s been no shortage of opinions offered on the correct price for an e-book. Everywhere you turn (online, anyway) you find another opinion.
Readers think the prices should be low — the lower the better — because…well, mostly because that’s what they want. Don’t we all want a bargain when we’re in buying mode?
Publishers think the prices should be high — as high as they can get away with. After all, they reason, content is king, and the content of the e-book is at least no less than the content of the print edition. And everyone in the value-added chain has to be paid, right?
Authors probably care less about the book’s selling price than they do about what percentage of that price will they be paid in royalties. If their royalties are a percentage of the selling price, they want a high selling price. If, on the other hand, they were paid a set dollar amount per unit sold, they might not care how low that price is set.
So, what is the “right” price for an e-book by, say, a self-published author (or maybe one from a micro-publisher)? Unfortunately, there really is no one “right” price.
If you’re a consultant with clients accustomed to paying serious money for your services, you can probably almost as much for the e-book as for the print edition. Or you might want to offer the e-book for free, assuming that people will then decide your information is so must-have that they will then buy the print edition…or, better yet, sign up for your higher-priced consulting services.
If, on the other hand, this is your first novel and almost nobody has ever heard of you…you may have to price that e-book really low. If you gain a following who gives you plenty of nice reviews, you might be able to price the next one at a higher price.
For most fiction, I believe an e-book should be priced no higher than a comparable mass market paperback novel (even if you aren’t offering a mass market paperback edition). Actually, I think the price should be somewhat lower than a mass market paperback. As I’ve noted in previous posts, there are just so many things you can do while reading a printed book that just can’t be done with an e-book.
But what if you add some of those much-touted bells and whistles (e.g., video or audio clips or maybe links to more in-depth information or background)? Unless those gadgets add something that is truly lacking in the book or you are sure your target audience really wants that kind of stuff, I fail to see how they’re going to improve the reader’s experience or convince a buyer to fork over some hard-earned cash. If your novel really needs that kind of stuff, maybe you should reconsider whether it’s truly ready for the market.
I realize that some people are suckered in…err, lured to buy because of such slick techie stuff, but I’ll bet most readers buy a book because they want to read a book.
So, what’s your opinion?
- What’s the optimum price for an e-book?
- Would you pay more for it if it had techie features that could not be included in the print edition?
- Does your answer to either of those questions depend on the book’s genre or whether it’s fiction or nonfiction?
5 Comments
December 17, 2009 at 9:37 am
Great questions, Walt, and ones I struggle with. I think as an author/publisher I want to keep the percentage of my personal profit equivalent to a paper book. That percentage, if I price the e-book significantly lower, is also going to be a smaller dollar amount than the paperbook, but that’s okay–it is a lot less work for me to sell e-books–no trips to the post office, no time spent packaging, or dealing with printers, and lugging around boxes of books. E-books sales are like gravy to me. So the more I sell the happier I am and I’m content to have my prices be half or less what my paperback books are.
December 18, 2009 at 10:19 am
Thanks for the comments, Tyler.
We are preparing a pricing experiment for e-books that we hope to roll out shortly after New Year’s Day. I’ll be posting the details here as we get closer.
December 23, 2009 at 5:09 am
Well, in general, the price of ebook is lower than a hard copy book. And far as pricing an ebook is concerned, it totally depends upon the content because “Content is King” not “number of pages”. There is no exact rule of pricing an ebook but to analyze its nature, content and market.
December 23, 2009 at 7:38 am
The price of an e-book certainly should be less than the price of a trade paperback, which is less than the price of the hardcover. In fact, I firmly believe that it should be less than the price of a comparable mass market paperback.
“Content is king” is the new mantra from publishers, a mantra that is only true for some niches and some books, certainly not for the majority.
Why? Because e-books are different and limit the ways in which we can use them and what we can do with them when we’re done with them.
However, your last statement is decidedly true — each e-book candidate should be carefully evaluated to determine the most appropriate price for the product in its niche and market. There is no single, knee-jerk answer to the e-book pricing question.
December 23, 2009 at 10:42 am
At the last UPPAA meeting, the two bookstore owners who came in to talk disagreed on this “content is king” idea. One said that people will pay almost anything for a book they really want. He was referring to an expensive two volume local history that continues to sell at near $100 after about 15 years (helped this year by the well-loved local author’s death). So I think Walt is correct here in saying that “content is king” but only in certain niches. I think in the case of rare texts that someone wants to read (and these would be individual buyer’s tastes, not books marketed to a wide audience), this would also be the case, but not with 99% of the books out there.