Publishing E-Books For Dummies

Pricing Your E-Book As a Self-Publisher

Whenever an author signs a book contract with a traditional publisher, the publisher sets the price of the book. Examine a few book jackets in a nearby bricks-and-mortar store, and you can see a lack of pricing variety (except in some specialized cases, such as textbooks). You can expect a typical genre paperback, for example, to be priced around $14 to $16 — you won’t find a thriller paperback priced at $3.99 or $29.99.

As a self-publisher, you have full control over every aspect of your e-book, including its price. Of course, selling your e-book only via specific stores is limiting (for example, the minimum price allowed at Amazon is 99 cents), but you can sell your e-book exclusively from your own site instead and at any price you want.

Charging what you want (or nothing at all)

No legal standard exists for setting the price of an e-book — you can let readers download your e-book for free or for hundreds or thousands of dollars (which likely isn’t the best strategy for attracting sales).

Many authors, particularly of nonfiction, use free e-books to entice potential customers to join their e-mail lists. This strategy draws in customers and helps build strong relationships with them, especially when working on a specialized e-book that will command a high price when it’s published.

You can list your e-book for free on sites such as Smashwords, which acts as a distributor for most major e-bookstores, with the exception of Amazon. ...