I fear that writers are becoming like the red headed stepchild of the artistic world. I was watching Exit Through the Gift Shop the other night. Great movie, quicker and interesting and I loved the glimpse we got of Banksy. What a great guy and true artist.
Some of you may know that I paint with colours as well as words. But what that movie got me thinking about was the insane money that people will spend on a piece of art. And a piece of junk too (watch the movie and you’ll probably guess what I’m talking about). But this guy made like over a million dollars in practically a weekend because he had his products (paintings) hyped up ahead of time.
And, pardon my French, but they’re crap hackneyed rip offs. Nevertheless he sold a ton and made a bit of a name for himself though I have no idea how well he is doing currently.
That’s not important. And this is certainly not a Stuart Smalley positive affirmations type of quote either:
This is not about manifesting good and positive things, it’s just about valuing our gifts and talents appropriately. It astonishes me that so many people will so quickly and easily give away there talents for free. A quick search on Amazon or Smashwords will show literally thousands of ebooks that are available for free. I just did this on Amazon. I searched for “free ebooks” and there are literally over 90,000 results! Shameful 
Writers aren’t saints and neither should be become them. We’re artists trying to make a living who deserve to be given a fair shake and make a decent living off of their gifts. We need something similar to the Writer’s Guild that mandates what the minimum publishing price should be for a book. I’m only half kidding.
By the way, if you’ve ever read the fine print on Amazon publishing or Kindle Direct Publishing, you’ll have noticed that Amazon reserves the right to sell your book for $0. That’s right, if they want to, they can give your book away for free and there ain’t sweet Fanny Adams you can do about it.
It saddens me folks and it depresses me to see so many of us giving away our books for free. I think it cheapens the value of all books in the eyes of readers when so many become available at giveaway or $2.99 prices.
I’ve written before about pricing your ebook cheaply but now I think better of it. There is no reason for it, and some folks are having better sales with higher prices. My recommendation is a minimum of $4.99 for ebooks and perhaps even $9.99 and above.
People are happy to drop $10 or more for a movie and I don’t see why that shouldn’t become an expected price point for ebooks either. Yeah I know there is a lot of junk out there and that’s what customer reviews are for as well as previews. On Smashwords I give readers access to one third of my ebook. If they can’t figure out reading dozens of pages of a book whether or not that book is well written or has a story that interests them, they have no business getting upset when they buy my ebook and don’t like it.
All of my ebook novels are now $4.99 and it hasn’t hampered my sales. Now I’m not selling a ton so perhaps I’m not the best one to take advice from. But I will tell you that I will shortly be upping my ebooks list price to $9.99. Earning a roughly $7 royalty per book seems fair for the year or more it takes for me to write and publish it. Besides, 7 is a holy number init?
I’m also involved in Internet Marketing quite a bit and I can tell you that you won’t find many best selling ebooks in the Internet Marketing niche that are selling for less than $37 or $47. And these are thin 60 to 100 page PDFs. Not robust novels with great ebook cover designs and terrific formatting.
In fact I could slap up an ebook on weight loss or investing and sell it easily at $47 and it only need be 60 or more pages. People buy them often and easily. Furthermore they don’t offer any “look inside” features either. You’ll get a hyped up sales page that tells you what you’ll get. Or rather teases you with what you’ll get.
Why is a Rolls Royce worth 3 to 5 times more than a Lexus with similar features? They’re both cars and they both get you from A to Z in very luxurious style. The reason being because Rolls Royce has greater perceived value. Are they more reliable than Lexus, probably not. But it is the perception that allows RR to charge the premiums they do.
Books are not cars and aren’t really products in the traditional sense like that, but the perception of value comes into play. Value yourself accordingly and price your ebooks higher. I bet you’ll do better and have greater profits and feel more legitimate. I know I already do.
What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~John Updike
There’s a premium on breathing rooms for spirits. Charge appropriately
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