Sunday, May 22, 2011

Indie-Authors: How Much Should You Charge for Your Book?

I'm still not sure of the answer to this one. 

Every day, I check my sales 3 to 4 times.  It's like being a kid on Christmas morning.  I am obsessed with checking my numbers and when it's gone up a lot, I jump up and down.  When it hasn't moved at all, I am kicking myself and wondering what I can do that I haven't already done.  I always feel like I've missed a trick.  So let's explore what I did, what worked, and what didn't.

1.  The 2.99 Book:  This is the price I started at because I worked hard on this book and feel like 2.99 is even kind of low, but I didn't sell very many at this price.  With so many cheap books out there, people are hesitant to pay this much for someone they've never heard of.

2.  The 0.99 Book:  When I took my book to Amazon, I put it up for this much.  Then I had to drop the price at Smashwords to match.  Sales have been pretty good at Amazon without me even telling people where to find it. 

3.  The Free Book:  No big surprise here.  This kind of book has sold more copies than any other.  I have given away books at Goodreads in exchange for reviews, given away books on book blogs, and basically given them away anywhere and everywhere that I can in the hope that these people will love it so much that they'll spread the word and buy the next book.

Well, that's how it is so far with sales.  I seem to learn something new every day.  Sometimes I find new sites to try.  If you know of any I haven't heard of, please let me know.

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