How to price your ebook so that it sells and still makes a profit!
by Greg Spence
(c) 2000 Greg Spence.


INTRODUCTION

So you have written your book, converted it into an ebook
ready to sell from your website. But hang on a minute....

....how much do you charge for it!

Too much and it won't sell, too little and you will have to
sell thousands of copies just to break even.

Wouldn't it be great if you could arrive at a price that is
right for your customers, so right in fact that they buy
your book in droves whilst making you a handsome profit.

Every customer has his or her personal price for your ebook,
the price they would be willing to pay. Do you know what
your customers ideal price is? Do you know how many would
not pay more than $10, $20 or $50 for it?

Better still would you like to know how many consider $30 to
be a fair price?

If the answer is yes, then this article will be of interest
to you because I am going to explain how you can arrive at a
price that will make your ebook sell.

I will also mention at the end a unique product I found that
will do all this for you automatically!


A CRASH COURSE IN PRICING

Finding the right price for your ebook is critical, it can
make or break your profit and can mean the difference
between double or triple your income.

How to find that price is one of the most difficult aspects
to selling your ebooks online.

Know doubt you have been surfing the web and found ebooks
that range in price from $2 up to $200. You are told that
"How to" ebooks sell for more than fiction so you should be
able to charge more if your ebook is a "How to".

But how much more?

Typically the way ebooks (and most products online for that
matter) are priced is by trial and error. If the author
finds a competitive ebook he/she will price just below it on
the basis that the customer will go with the lowest price
every time. This has been proven not to be the case. The
customer buys also on product quality, brand perception, and
many other variables as well.

Alternatively the author will price the ebook at the lowest
possible price on the basis that millions of people are
online so the ebook is bound to sell in the millions of
copies. Again a common misconception. Ebook purchasing is
still in its infancy.

Many online marketing guru's advocate testing your product
price by selling at a high price initially and eventually
lowering it until the floods of sales start coming in.

This has a potentially negative impact on your customers. If
you had bought a book at $50 to find a week later that it
was selling for $29.95 you would not be too happy would you!

All of these methods are hit and miss and less than
scientific in their approach.

There is an amazing amount of information on the Web about
all forms of online marketing. The one subject they do not
cover is pricing.


HOW TO SET A PRICE THAT WILL SELL YOUR EBOOKS

Before you set your exact price you must decide upon a
suitable pricing model. There are two basic models in
existence today.

1. Price to Penetrate. Here your goal is to penetrate the
market by selling your ebooks in volume. This means you
should price your product low compared to the competition.
The balance here is to find a price that maximizes profits
AND number of ebooks sold.

Use this strategy to acquire as many customers as possible.
Some authors even price their ebooks at a loss to get a high
number of customers.

Why? Because they understand the lifetime value of a
customer. An existing customer is more likely to buy from
you again. In fact, it is not uncommon for more than 80% of
first time customers to buy a second product from the same
source as the first. This is especially true if the first
product they bought was deemed by them to be of exceptional
value.

If you want to establish market dominance with your ebook
then pricing to penetrate is a good strategy although your
profit level will be low at the expense of acquiring a large
number of customers.

2. Premium pricing - price to skim. With this strategy you
price your ebook high and every sale brings a much larger
profit at the expense of fewer customers, and therefore a
smaller market share.

If you are pricing high on the net your ebook had better be
unique and covering a subject that everyone wants to know
something about. Even then you are begging for someone to
come along and undercut you on price.

The most valid reason for using this strategy is that your
ebook covers something new, maybe a new technique for doing
something, which is not yet common knowledge.

Don't stick with this skimming strategy forever as your
ebook sales will eventually peter out to nothing. It is
important you determine in advance how long you will use
this strategy before you switch to a different pricing
model.


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRICING

Setting the right price is also a matter of psychology.
There are several well established "rules", which pricing
should follow to be successful, as follows:

a) End your price with a 5, 7, 8 or 9. NEVER end in a 0 or
1. Doesn't $19.99 sound better than $20? Isn't 99 cents much
cheaper than a $1?

Don't forget humans buy on emotion first and then justify
that buying decision with a rational explanation afterwards!

b) Something for nothing. We all love to get something for
free. Many times on the Web you will see free bonuses
offered with an ebook.

If you have purchased my latest ebook "How to Search the
Internet" (from http://www.search-help.net) you will have
received free bonuses to the value of $148!

Other ways of building in perceived value is to bundle
several ebooks together for a single price. This price must
be lower than the price of all ebooks added together. For
example if you offer two ebooks that normally sell for $19
each, selling them together for $29 would make them a
perceived bargain and more attractive to a customer.


IN SUMMARY

I have only scratched the surface of the ins and outs of
pricing. Unfortunately pricing can be something of a black
art and very difficult to do properly. Hopefully this
article has put you on the right road pointing in the right
direction.

Whilst I was researching this article I came across a unique
product that takes all the mystical properties of pricing
away. It is called "Make Your Price Sell" and I am now using
it to price all of my books and services.

If you want to take a look at it and try it for FREE go on
over to http://www.getpub.com/myps/ . You will not find
anything else on the net that does this.

Greg Spence
Get Published! Online Website

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