In the process of setting everything back to normal post-sale, I raised the prices of all of my full-length ebooks a tad: $4.99 US or the equivalents that the storefronts calculated. The print books are the same as they were.
What brought this on: I haven’t made spreadsheets about it or anything, but I had noticed lately that my prices were a lot lower than other indie books, especially outside of Amazon. When other folks are opting for something like $7, I’m not helping anyone by sticking all the way down at $2.99 or $3.99. It doesn’t help the ecosystem to seemingly undercut everyone else, and it doesn’t help me, either. Now, this is just one rationale; some people do believe in pricing much lower, especially the first book in a series. Many authors even make the first book free. There are a lot of different strategies out there.
But I’m aiming to a) value my work a little more and b) try to be more in line with the rest of the field. To be honest, it’s still a little low. Eventually, I’ll probably take a deep breath and raise it a little more. We’ll see.
Now, if you want to try one of my books but that (or any future price) seems too high, here are my suggestions.
- Pirating is for assholes. We’re all reasonable people here, so obviously you’re not doing that.
- I plan to keep running sales a few times a year. I don’t know yet what sales I’ll be accepted to or what I’m running, but that’s the plan. I’ll always include news about upcoming sales on the mailing list, and I’ll probably post about them here and on social media as well.
- Most of my books are available on Hoopla, Overdrive, and/or other legit library/borrowing systems. I haven’t been able to add everything to Hoopla — some seem to be stuck in limbo? — but I’ve tried, and I’ll add them wherever I can. The landing pages for each book include the links to those as well. Libraries are great. Not everyone has access to them, sure, but I support them.
- I’m considering adding Community Copies to itch, which is an option for limited free or reduced-price copies of works on that store. I’ll have to make sure I understand the process and decide how many I want to do.
- If you’re still interested, you’re not just being cheap (you know those types), and none of those work for you, email or message me. It’s really not a big deal.