How to price an e book in the kindle age

HOW TO PRICE AN EBOOK IN THE
KINDLE AGE

by PAUL WOLFE
www.onespoonatatime.com

How To Price An eBook In The Kindle Age

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Back in the day – when Kindle was just a gleam in Jeff Bezos’s eyes – writing
eBooks to sell from your website was a great way to create a revenue stream
for your business.

And it was commonplace for eBooks to be priced at higher prices than the
‘regular’ books that you might buy from Amazon. $27 was a common eBook
price. As was $37. And $47. And I’ve seen eBooks at $67 and $97.

And I’ve got no problem with these prices – I believe the way books are priced
is based on a model that’s no longer relevant in the 21st Century. I think
that the price of something should be determined by the value it provides to
the buyer – not by an artificial model imposed by a tradition bound industry
that’s not essentially changed in 50 years or more.

For a few years – say from around 2003 to 2009 – you could create an eBook
and set the price yourself. And benefit both from charging for the value that
you provided to your buyers AND from actually earning the majority of the
price that you set.

The rise of the Kindle has moved the boundaries though.

| © Paul Wolfe www.onespoonatatime.com


The Kindle Age

Before we move on I want to tell you that whoever came up with the concept
of the Kindle is a genius. And that whoever at Amazon worked out the mar-
keting plan for the Kindle is also a certifiable genius.

And I also believe that the ease of self-publishing to the Kindle is game
changing in its potential scope for writers.

But there’s a downside to this – and that downside is that although Amazon
now have the clout to move away from the business and pricing models that
the Publishing Industry try and impose, they’re still playing the game by
these rules.

So if you self publish to the Kindle, you earn the highest royalty rate if you
price your book in the $2.99 to $9.99 range. The author royalty in this range
is 70% - which is staggering by the way. If you published a book through tra-
ditional channels the figures I’ve seen quoted are that you’d receive around
$0.50 to $0.75 per copy IF – and for most writers this is a big IF – you sell
enough copies to earn the advance back.

Now that the Kindle has quietly established itself as a mainstream player the
majority of the Kindle books are being priced in this $2.99 to $9.99 range.

The problem with this price range is that Kindle books are effectively eBooks
– and the prices being charged for them make the ‘traditional’ eBook pricing
models look expensive and potentially deter purchasers.

So how do you price your eBook? Can you still charge $37 for an eBook or
more? Let’s look at 3 ways you can use to determine what price you are going
to charge.

How To Price An eBook 1 – The Kindle Price Model

The path of least resistance pricing model is this one. Amazon.com are start-
ing to flex their muscles – mostly in a good way – and it’s entirely possible
that Amazon will drive the future of the Publishing Industry.



To price your eBook using this model you literally go to the Kindle store, com-
pare what comparable books are selling for, and use that as your price point.

Advantages: Potential buyers won’t balk on the basis of price. You’ll be
charging what’s perceived as the ‘market rate’ for your eBook.

Disadvantages: You’re pricing your eBook at the lowest price point. If your
eBook offers great value or great information – and EVERY eBook you write
should offer great value – then you’re not getting the return that’s warranted
from the writing of your eBook.

How To Price An eBook 2 – The ‘Bit More Than Kindle’ Price Model

This model reflects the reality that Kindle is the driving force in the eBook
market for most potential buyers. There are a lot of buyers who’ve NEVER
bought an eBook in PDF form from Click Bank or from your website – and it’s
a big step for them to be presented with an eBook for $37 or $47.

But adding a few dollars to the $9.99 price range is NOT such a big step. A
price point of $14 or $17 is more expensive than a Kindle book – but not
THAT much more expensive. If the information in your eBook solves a press-
ing problem, there’s a good chance that potential buyers will not be con-
cerned with the differential between these price points and typical Kindle
book prices.

Advantages: Using this model you generate greater revenues than the previ-
ous model – and the additional cost probably won’t deter the majority of pro-
spective customers. Especially if you’ve built an audience via your website or
blog and you’re primarily selling your eBook to that audience.

Disadvantages: Using this model you’re still not generating the full revenue
that a valuable eBook deserves. Pricing should be based on the value you’re
offering to customers, not on the archaic publishing model that Amazon has
incorporated into Kindle pricing.



How To Price An eBook 3 – The Stacking Value Price Model

This is the pricing model I prefer. Done right, you not only get to price your
eBook based on the value it’s delivering – but potential customers also don’t
feel that they are paying over the odds and are getting value for money.

This ‘model’ is based on how companies like Warner Bros and Sony ‘justified’
the greater cost of DVDs back in the day when few people had DVD players
and most of us used VHS.

If memory serves, a VHS of a film used to be about £10 and the correspond-
ing DVD would be around £18. To justify the differential in price, the DVDs
would contain bonuses.

These bonuses would be additional features like commentaries, deleted
scenes, alternate endings, production drawings, interviews with the technical
team, stunt analysis, etc etc.

Now, these features are standard on DVDs – but notice even now that you can
often buy Single Disc versions of a film or versions with an additional disc
and extra features for a slightly higher price – but back in the day they were
revolutionary.

And often persuaded people not just to buy the DVD, but to take the plunge
and buy a DVD player too.

You can do this with your eBook as well – and stack value onto your eBook so
that you can charge $37. Or $47. Or even more.

Here’s how you do it:

(i)Record the eBook in Audio Format

The first way to add value is to create an MP3 version that people can put
onto their iPods, iPads or iPhones. Or whatever MP3 player they use.

Or they can burn the MP3 files to a CD and play it in their car.



Professional quality microphones are relatively cheap these days ($250 or
so) – and so is the recording software that you need to record and edit your
sound files.

The learning curve to record and edit your own material isn’t steep – so add-
ing audio is a great way to add perceived value to your eBook package. Plus
there may be people who buy your package purely because of the audio ele-
ment.

(ii) Add A ‘Work Book’ or ‘Action Plan’ To Your eBook

One of the biggest faults with most commercial books is that they’re heavy on
ideas, but short on systems. Whatever topic you’re teaching/talking about in
your eBook, another easy way to add perceived value is to create a step-by-
step system to actually implement the information you’re providing.

Workbooks are often just a few pages long, but can greatly enhance the cus-
tomer experience of your eBook. As an additional bonus, a workbook makes
implementation of your material that much easier for customers – if that
implementation delivers the results that you’ve promised to customers then
their opinion of you as an ‘expert’ in your field will raise. And it will be that
much easier to get them to buy your next eBook.

(iii) Add Check Lists

Check Lists again are simple to put together and provide more value for the
customer. These check lists – in conjunction with the workbooks – really help
the customer’s implementation of your information.

(iv) Add Related Reports

Short reports on related topics are another great way of stacking value to your
eBook package. For example, if you had written an eBook on how to build an
audience via video marketing, you could stack value to that eBook by adding
a report on how to correctly set up a YouTube channel page.

Another example, I wrote a book of bass exercises called Bass Hanon. There
were 240 exercises in that book (20 exercises in 12 keys) and I stacked value to
that package with a report called Hanon Variations – which showed 30 ways


to vary each and every one of those 240 exercises.

(v) Resources

Add a short report with detailed resources that relate to your eBook. In the
video marketing example above, a detailed list of Video Aggregator sites with
a brief description of each would make a great Resources Report.

(vi) Expert Interviews

If there’s a known player in the subject area of your eBook, and you can get
that known player to agree to an interview, then this is another great way of
stacking value. Especially as you can include the interview in audio format
AND get it transcribed and present it in PDF format.

Advantages: The obvious advantage of this pricing model is that you can
charge higher prices for your eBook package. As the majority of the price is
profit, this obviously generates higher revenues for your business.

Disadvantages: The obvious disadvantage is that creating the extra value
requires the investment of extra time and energy. Often writing an eBook
is hard enough – adding these Value Stackers on top increases the effort re-
quired.

There will still be people who balk at paying $37 or $47 for an eBook – despite
the amount of additionally value that you’re providing.

There is a way of getting them onboard though:

Getting The Best of Both Worlds – Kindle Pricing Combined With An
UpSell

If you’ve chosen to use Model 3 and stack value to your eBook package so
that you can charge $37 or $47 or more, my advice is that you should also
publish just the eBook to Kindle and use Kindle pricing. But then in the in-
troduction to the book you should make the purchasers aware that of the
extra value you’re providing with reports, interviews etc.



And give them the option of contacting you with their Amazon purchase
number to get an upsell offer to purchase the items that you used to stack
value to your package.

Not every Kindle purchaser will take up your upsell offer – but if you’ve pro-
vided great additional value some will. As these are people who’ve probably
found you via Amazon rather than via your website, then this is a win-win
scenario for both of you (You generate extra revenue, they get extra value).

Summary

Back in the day you could create an eBook and charge $37, $47 or more for it.
And people would buy.

But along came Kindle – and the majority of Kindle eBooks are priced below
$10. That makes an eBook priced at $37 look expensive.

Your pricing options are:

(i) Sell at Kindle prices
(ii)Sell at just above Kindle prices
(iii)Sell at ‘traditional’ eBook prices – but ‘justify’ this price point by
stacking value.

My advice is to stack value to allow you charge higher prices – AND publish
just the eBook to Kindle at normal Kindle prices, and upsell the rest of your
value package in the Kindle eBook itself.


If you enjoyed this report, you’ll love my FREE 10 Module course on how to
write an eBook:

How to price an e book in the kindle age

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