How to Price Your Self-Published Book

One important part of marketing your book is pricing. Some self-published books have really taken off, and sometimes a good pricing strategy is part of the reason. As an indie author, your book could very well be just as big of a success as those by authors who are published via traditional means.

Target Price For Your Self-Published Book
As an author, undoubtedly you are concerned about how to price your self-published title to enhance sales. An industry survey revealed that in 2013 the preferred self-published book price was $2.99. In 2012, the most favored price was 99 cents! Luckily, authors, like yourself, immediately caught-on that pricing books so low undervalued their book content and began pricing books higher, mainly because readers were prepared to pay more. It’s good to know that it is not required to “price yourself under the table” in order to sell your book on the market. Price does play an important role; however, superb content and giving the public what they crave counts even more.  

Pricing High or Low
An interesting discovery from the same survey mentioned earlier is that on average books priced at $3.99 sell more units than those priced at $2.99. This is more than any other price point outside of free downloads! Therefore, if you price your book below $3.99 you may be selling yourself short because readers respond well to the $3.99 price point for self-published books.  

Naturally, it seems to make more sense that cheaper books sell more, but $3.99 seems to be an optimal point, on average. At this price point, for a typical book, your revenue is 55% above the average of all price points.

Keep in mind that every author has a different sales approach. Nevertheless, the shared strategy is to start low and afterwards increase the price after discovering your market.

There’s room to be optimistic! There are many self-published authors who are actually earning a living from their book sales. Self-publishing isn't exactly something new, it’s just that today you have more opportunities to have your voice heard.

New FAA Rules are a Big Win for Indie Authors

Have you ever wondered if your electronic device really interferes with an aircraft’s flight equipment?

The Babelcube team is excited to learn that ebooks can be read safely throughout a passenger’s time on a plane. Soon electronic devices will not need to be turned off, providing they are in “airplane mode.” This eliminates one of biggest hurdles some readers had to switching from paper books to ebooks. We expect that this change will accelerate the already rapid adoption of ebooks.

A few days ago the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) announced that electronic devices can be kept on for uses such as reading ebooks, playing games, and listening to music. Texting and voice calls will remain prohibited. Airlines are expected to review the new guidelines and submit their plans shortly. The industry expects that multiple airlines will allow eBooks to be read at any point in the flight as early as the end of 2013.

You can watch the FAA announcement here.

While the new rules are for United States airlines, the European Aviation Safety Agency participated in the FAA’s review and plans to consider amending their regulations for electronic devices upon an aircraft.