E-book prices can range wildly depending on the genre of writing and venues of purchase points. Most e-books that offer information, such as how to earn online opportunities, will range in price from $ 9.95 to $ 79.95.
What about fiction e-books?
Pricing is one of the biggest decisions a self-publishing fiction writer has to face. The natural inclination is to figure in time, effort, and possible fee if the story is licensed to a magazine or literary website.
An important point to remember, when self-publishing fiction e-books is that the higher the price, the less chance of sales occurring. People just don't see fiction e-books as worth the same prices as a physical copy they can keep on their shelves at home.
With e-books, you need to think quantity of sales over making a quick buck. Would you rather sell 2 copies at $25 each, or 100 copies at $ 3.25 each?
Lower prices will normally result in more sales. More sales will result in word of mouth, or viral, advertising. Which means more sales, with less self-promotional efforts required by the author.
Self-promotion is another article, by the way.
So, how do you decide what price to set for your e-books? Research.
There are hundreds of small, online publishing companies that sell e-books from the stables of authors they have. Don't worry, I've been looking into the matter to decide on the right prices for my own e-books, so I've done the research for you.
This is where the importance of the word count of your finished work comes in!
Your word count should be JUST the number of words in your story. Don't include title, dedication, preface, author, copyright statement or table of content pages. Also, don't include your chapter titles. Just the actual words of the story itself are all that you should use when determining your book's final word count. What do you use in order to get that count? I prefer MS Word. You just copy and paste the story words only into a blank document, and when finished, you'll have your final word count. Make a note of it - I keep a list of my finished titles and their word counts for my records.
This is the pricing list, based on word counts and averaged out prices from researching a few dozen small, online publishing presses:
Type of Book: Word Count: Price:
- Installments 5,000 - 6,000 $ 1.75
- Chapter Books 6,001 - 8,000 $ 2.00
- Short Stories 10,000 - 15,000 $ 3.25
- Novellas 15,001 - 30,000 $ 4.75
- Category Novels 30,001 - 45,000 $ 5.25
- Novels 45,001 - 70,000 $ 5.75
- Plus Novels 70,001 - 100,000 $ 5.95
- Super Novels 100,001 - UP! $ 7.99
I hope this list proves useful to other self-publishing fiction writers wanting to sell their works as e-books, and to those who are thinking of jumping into writing and looking at self-publishing.
