By Zaak OConan
You've written and compiled an ebook. Now you have to decide howmuch to charge for it. Finding the right price is essential tothe success of your product. If you charge too little, peoplewill think it's of little value, and they won't purchase it, oreven it they do buy your book, you will have to sell thousandsof copies to get to the point where you can begin to see aprofit. If you price it too high when compared with yourcompetition, you will find yourself steadily lowering the price,which will cause you all kinds of new problems in the future.For example, if you sell your ebook at first for $39.99, andlater reduce it to $24.95, don't you think the people who boughtit for $39.99 are going to be PISSED?
Choosing the right price for your ebook is one of the mostcritical parts of the marketing process. The first rule ofpricing ebooks is to never underprice. Determine the highestprice your audience can afford, and then if you find your bookisn?t selling, you can always reduce the price. Before you takethat step, make sure you are promoting your book like crazy onthe Internet and on websites. The price should be aimed atbringing in profits, but you should never forget that price isone of the factors that people use in judging the value of yourebook ? before they buy it. So always start with the highestprice, and then launch a mega-marketing campaign.
Pricing an ebook is particularly difficult because ebooks are afairly new commodity. Since they are digital, the value of anebook is as confusing as the understanding of what digitalactually is to the average layperson. This means that we mustlook at ebooks in a different light in order to determine theiractual worth in this brave, new cyber world.
Let's look at the difference between a book in print and anebook. A printed book is an object you can hold in your hand,store on your bookshelf, even hand down to the next generation.It is priced on factors such as paper stock, design andproduction costs, and marketing.
But the fact that unites ebooks and print books is that they arecomposed of ideas. It is the ideas in these books that have theability to change, or possibly transform, people's lives.
What do you think an idea is worth when evaluated against thecost of paper and ink?
It is the IDEAS that are valuable! That is how you determine thecost of your ebook.
What should I charge for my ideas?
There are all different formulas and methods for determining thecorrect price for your ebook. Let's begin with honing in on yourultimate goals.
Decide if your goal is to get wide distribution and maximumexposure. This goal is aimed at drawing customers to yourbusiness or service, or to establishing the credibility of yourreputation. If this is your main goal, you should aim to keepyour price on the low side. Some authors have even priced theirebooks at a profit loss to draw a high number of new customers.The key is to find a price that maximizes your profits and thenumber of books you sell.
This is an excellent pricing strategy if you are looking toacquire long-term customers. Long-term customers are extremelylikely to buy from you again and again ? as long as the firstebook they buy is of exceptional quality and beneficial to thecustomer.
However, if your book contains valuable ? and more importantlyNEW information, references, or techniques ? then you should aimto price it on the high end.
After you figure out your goal, you must figure out what youraudience's need is for your ebook. For example, does your booksolve a particular problem? If it does, and solves it in a waythat hasn't been written about in one hundred other ebooks, youwill be able to achieve high sales at a high price. If your booksolves a problem or answers questions in a new and unique way,you should price your book as high as you can go. You willachieve larger profits this way, but bring in fewer customers.Just make sure the question or problem that your book solves isone that is important and relevant to the majority of yourmarket audience. If your ideas are not common knowledge, or youare presenting a brand new technique, you will be able to sellbooks at a high price. Just be prepared for your competition toundercut you on price as soon as they hear about your book.
Keep in mind that the above pricing strategy is temporary.Eventually, you will cease to sell books at this high price. Sofigure out in advance how long you plan to offer your ebook atthis high price, and when that time is up, change your pricingstrategy.
If you want to see large profits over customer draw, aim for anaudience that is looking for easy solutions to their problems ata low price. If your book is aimed at solving one particularproblem rather than general advice, then you can charge more.Start at the highest price the market will bear to bring in thelargest profits, and plan to discount the book a number of timesthroughout the year.
Marketing Strategies
The key that unlocks the sales potential of your ebook is tofind a single sentence that becomes your selling handle. Thissentence states what question or problem your book answers andthe benefits your ebook can provide. Then be sure to use thatsentence in every piece of sales and promotional material, andevery time anyone asks you about your ebook.
Besides promoting your books assiduously online, there areseveral other strategies that can help you sell more books.
One is to give something away for free with your book, such as avaluable bonus item. Or bundle several ebooks under one price,which lowers the price for each ebook if they were soldseparately.
An effective technique for figuring out a price is to send out asurvey to your current customers. If these customers havealready bought an ebook from you, ask for their opinion in termsof price. Do this by creating a sales page for the new book, butdon't include a price on that page. Instead, add a number oflinks to survey questions that ask pointed questions to aid youin assigning a price to your ebook.
Another strategy is to test out prices by creating a number ofduplicate sales pages with different prices on each page. Makesure your sales copy is exactly the same on every page, andincludes your selling-handle sentence. Then figure out for eachpage the conversion ratio between visitors to your site andsales of your book. This will tell you what your optimum priceis.
Ultimately, if you've written a book that solves a problem orpresents a new technique, your book will bring in both trafficand profits. So be sure to write that selling-handle sentencethat sums up what problem your book solves and what the benefitsof your book will be to the customers who purchase it. And thenwatch your market come to you
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