At what price should I publish my eBook on Amazon KDP?
Well, I’m a visual person so here’s a comparison chart for Amazon royalty rates vs. some list prices vs. what the author makes. I only ran the numbers out to $14.99 since that’s around where many eBooks I read are selling these days and thus was my target price.
Until I ran the numbers, that is!
Now my “sweet spot” target for the romances I’m writing will probably be $3.99 – $9.99 depending on word count range, just because I’m choosing to price them based on word count*. Dunno how other authors approach pricing though I’d be curious to hear some input as I’m still undecided on pricing for the fantasy and thriller lines, should I even decide to self-publish those.
The 70% vs 35% royalty rates that Amazon offers can have an impact at either end. For instance bumping a product from $0.99 (lowest paid for files under 3MB in size; 35% royalty) to $2.99 (70% royalty) increases your profits** nearly 600%. Then if you go from $9.99 (70% royalty) to $10.99 (back to 35% royalty) your profit decreases by about 55% (and the price would have to be at $19.99 and above to make the same or more profit as with a $9.99 sale).
So it seems kind of mind-boggling, then, to think anyone would set their prices for eBooks at Amazon between $10.00 – $19.98. Except there’s the kicker of reader perception of pricing. There are some that will snap up anything at $2.99, or others who only look at around $12-13-14.99 and up. Either reader might attach an expectation of quality to the pricing structure regardless of reality. It might also depend on who the author thinks their comparables are, and the price at which those books are selling.
Then’s there’s quantity expectations balanced against the price. Will more buy it at $x or $y? Hard to tell until you try it! Maybe you want to set it low and hope to get a large quantity of sales, or set it higher and get more per individual sale, or even higher which might attract a different crowd of reader and / or have more impact on you with a mental warm-and-fuzzy.
All this to say: It depends on you and what you want out of it. :0)
** Added wrinkles: when selling eBooks on Amazon within the 70% royalty price range, keep in mind that (a) they also charge a delivery fee of ~$0.10 per MB of file size, and (b) if you also have a print edition of the same text, the digital edition price must be at least 20% less than the print price (in the 35% percent range, digital just can’t be more than the print price). Amazon’s print-on-demand structure differs in royalty rate and factoring in printing costs so they are not otherwise referenced here, but that runs at a 60% flat royalty rate for Amazon.com market, less printing costs (which can be significant if your publishing a high-page-count color work). All of this is subject to change by Amazon at any time, of course, and all this is only my take on the information and not meant to be in any way authoritative. See KDP help for all the nitty gritty details.