The pros and cons of the 99p eBook pricing strategy

We've touched on this subject already within the Self Publishing series, but the raging debate about eBook pricing rumbles on and on ... oh ... and on ...!

So here are my pros and cons for your consideration:

PROS

• Readers will take a chance on new authors

• Could be considered an investment in your future writing endeavours

• Great way to gain instant recognition

• Great way to build an initial readership and audience for your work

• The "Impulse buy price" allows your book to get into the hands of many more readers

• Lots of websites promoting bargain priced eBooks with free exposure

• Good promotional or "Sale" tool (rather than a permanent pricing strategy)

CONS

• To some readers an eBook is simply seen as a download like a PDF doc

• The author will need to sell much more just to break even (at 99p an author makes 33p) - after shelling out for cover art, editing and marketing (based on the figures in my Self Publishing Budgeting and Funding post approx £3,000) so let's do the scary maths: £3,000 divided by 33p = 9,091 books to be sold to break even. I won't depress you with the fact that most indie authors only sell about 100 copies of their eBooks!!

• Will be a long time before you can quit the day job - and all the time you're working full time, you can never give writing and promoting yourself your full attention

• Not a good strategy for permanent pricing because you're undervaluing yourself and your work long term

• Even at this cheap price, you still need to market and promote to make the sales. 99p doesn't automatically guarantee sales

• Success with the 99p pricing strategy won't necessarily mean success with a Traditional Publisher. The business models are completely different. The Big 6 publishing houses have a no discount digital pricing model

• Risk the label - "It's too cheap! It must be crap!"

My personal view is, it's ok to sell an informational "How To" eBook at 99p, but maybe for a novel the price needs to better reflect the time and energy that went into producing the book. Unfortunately for newbies, the price still needs to be attractive and competitive so people will "take a chance", but we all have to start somewhere, right. Personally I'm thinking about pricing my novel at £2.99 so that I can get the 70% royalties from Amazon and break even faster. This way I can also lower to 99p if sales are slow. People pay £2.99 for a Costa coffee and just think how much more work went into the story. In conclusion, I believe the 99p pricing model needs to be a part of of your overall promotional and marketing formula because as a standalone element, it will cause problems for the serious author further down the line.