how to price your ebook

you've written and compiled an ebook. Now you have todecide how much to charge for it. Finding the rightprice is essential to the success of your product. If you charge too little, people will think it's ofl ittle value, and they won't purchase it, or even itthey do buy your book, you will have to sell thousandsof copies to get to the point where you can begin to see a profit.

If you price it too high when compared with your competition, you will find yourself steadilyl owering the price, which will cause you all kinds ofnew problems in the future. For example, if you sell your ebook at first for $39.99, and later reduce it to $24.95, don't you think the people who bought it for$39.99 are going to be PISSED?

Choosing the right price for your ebook is one of the most critical parts of the marketing process. The first rule of pricing ebooks is to never underprice.Determine the highest price your audience can afford,and then if you find your book isn?t selling, you can always reduce the price. Before you take that step,make sure you are promoting your book like crazy onthe Internet and on websites.

The price should be aimed at bringing in profits, but you should never forget that price is one of the factors that peopleuse in judging the value of your ebook ? before theybuy it. So always start with the highest price, and then launch a mega-marketing campaign.

Pricing an ebook is particularly difficult because ebooks are a fairly new commodity. Since they are digital, the value of an ebook is as confusing as the understanding of what digital actually is to the average lay person. This means that we must look at ebooks in a different light in order to determine their actual worth in this brave, new cyber world.

Let's look at the difference between a book in print and an ebook. A printed book is an object you can holdin your hand, store on your bookshelf, even hand down to the next generation. It is priced on factors such as paper stock, design and production costs, and marketing.

But the fact that unites ebooks and print books isthat they are composed of ideas. It is the ideas in these books that have the ability to change, or possibly transform, people's lives.

What do you think an idea is worth when evaluated against the cost of paper and ink?
It is the IDEAS that are valuable! That is how youdetermine the cost of your ebook.

What should I charge for my ideas?

There are all different formulas and methods fordetermining the correct price for your ebook. Let's begin with honing in on your ultimate goals.
Decide if your goal is to get wide distribution and maximum exposure. This goal is aimed at drawing customers to your business or service, or to establishing the credibility of your reputation.

If this is your main goal, you should aim to keep yourprice on the low side. Some authors have even priced their ebooks at a profit loss to draw a high number of new customers. The key is to find a price that maximizes your profits and the number of books you sell.

This is an excellent pricing strategy if you arelooking to acquire long-term customers. Long-termcustomers are extremely likely to buy from you again and again ? as long as the first ebook they buy is of exceptional quality and beneficial to the customer.

However, if your book contains valuable ? and moreimportantly NEW information, references, or techniques? then you should aim to price it on the high end.
After you figure out your goal, you must figure out what your audience's need is for your ebook.

For example, does your book solve a particular problem? If it does, and solves it in a way that hasn't beenwritten about in one hundred other ebooks, you will be able to achieve high sales at a high price. If your book solves a problem or answers questions in a new and unique way, you should price your book as high as you can go. You will achieve larger profits this way,but bring in fewer customers.

Just make sure thequestion or problem that your book solves is one thatis important and relevant to the majority of your market audience. If your ideas are not common knowledge, or you are presenting a brand new technique, you will be able to sell books at a high price. Just be prepared for your competition toundercut you on price as soon as they hear about yourbook.

Keep in mind that the above pricing strategy is temporary. Eventually, you will cease to sell books atthis high price. So figure out in advance how long youplan to offer your ebook at this high price, and when that time is up, change your pricing strategy.

If you want to see large profits over customer draw,aim for an audience that is looking for easy solutions to their problems at a low price. If your book isaimed at solving one particular problem rather than general advice, then you can charge more. Start at thehighest price the market will bear to bring in thelargest profits, and plan to discount the book anumber of times throughout the year.
Marketing Strategies

The key that unlocks the sales potential of your ebookis to find a single sentence that becomes your selling handle. This sentence states what question or problemyour book answers and the benefits your ebook can provide. Then be sure to use that sentence in every piece of sales and promotional material, and everytime anyone asks you about your ebook.

Besides promoting your books assiduously online, thereare several other strategies that can help you sell more books.
One is to give something away for free with your book,such as a valuable bonus item. Or bundle several ebooks under one price, which lowers the price foreach ebook if they were sold separately.

An effective technique for figuring out a price is tosend out a survey to your current customers. If thesecustomers have already bought an ebook from you, askfor their opinion in terms of price. Do this by creating a sales page for the new book, but don't include a price on that page. Instead, add a number oflinks to survey questions that ask pointed questionsto aid you in assigning a price to your ebook.

Another strategy is to test out prices by creating anumber of duplicate sales pages with different priceson each page. Make sure your sales copy is exactly thesame on every page, and includes your selling-handle sentence. Then figure out for each page the conversionratio between visitors to your site and sales of yourbook. This will tell you what your optimum price is.

Ultimately, if you've written a book that solves aproblem or presents a new technique, your book willbring in both traffic and profits. So be sure to write that selling-handle sentence that sums up what problemyour book solves and what the benefits of your book will be to the customers who purchase it. And thenwatch your market come to you!