Setting the right price

Hi folks – what’s a book worth?

I had planned to write posts on editing and ARC outreach before this one, but since things were a little out of order for me, it seemed fitting to have the blog do the same. I’m not done unpacking my own editing experience and haven’t yet reached out to advance readers that I don’t know personally, but the first book is out now, so this topic is top of mind.

Figuring out how to price my book was surprisingly difficult. This is another area in which The Checklist is sparse, and their only linked resource is from 2018. I found that one mostly unhelpful, and at the time I bounced between trying to fund publication of the next series and wanting to give it away for free. I’ve also always dreamed of an audiobook for accessibility, but those are extremely expensive.  I’m not trying to do this full time, so I’m grateful to not have that added pressure when doing this accounting, but it still wasn’t easy.

There are all kinds of legal concerns about free books (at least initially), and the old $0.99 eBook has such a stigma around it in these dark days of AI generated slop, so I really struggled to settle on a price that was accessible but made me appear legitimate. My mental health at this time being what it was, ultimately I left it up to my wife and publishing partner, and we set the eBook at $6 and the paperback at $18. She also loved the numerological significance (read the books to find out why having all the prices divisible by six is meaningful).

After the release, I went searching elsewhere to write this post. Unfortunately, Amazon’s recent royalty changes dominate the more recent blogs, and since that’s the one platform I’m avoiding, I had to sift through a lot of irrelevant information. In general, the blogs I found all agree on a few simple points for self-published authors:

• eBooks should cost ~$4
• Paperbacks should cost ~$12
• All prices should end in .99
• Reference your comps in genre and binding, then price lower

Four strikes (though some platforms don’t even allow me to price at a whole number)! This puts my current pricing near the high end of the ranges, but with a profit that will get me to an audiobook this century. Barnes & Noble royalties at those rates come out to ~$4 on either format. For the signed copies and those I buy for events, they charge me $7 (+shipping) per book, which I then sell at the same $18, so better margins on that, but only slightly once accounting for time and travel.

I also offer a personalized signed copy on my site, and that’s $24 to account for shipping a copy to me, signing, fancy wrapping, and then $11 more to ship it to the reader in a flat rate box.

At this point, I’m still a little uncomfortable with how high the book is priced. Even writing this, I’m fighting against my own insecurities and trying to avoid the undervaluing of art in capitalism. To help assuage these feelings, I’ve also done all that’s necessary to make it available in libraries. I hope that for any potential reader for which price is a barrier, that will be an option soon (ask your library to add Stolen Ghost!).

For now, funding the audiobook is the goal! I’m considering displaying some kind of online progress tracker, since I want to be as transparent as possible about where these profits are going. Perhaps even some crowdfunding options (e.g. preorder waaaay in advance, donation page)? Stay tuned!