Weekend Wrap-up May 20: Print Book Prices

The news that has been rippling through the indie author community about Amazon’s decision to raise the printing costs, eating away at the royalties. I understand that with inflation, costs for everything are going up, so I’m not surprised. C’mon, poor Amazon needs to make money, right?

I don’t sell many physical copies of my books; most of my sales are for the Kindle version, followed my Kindle Unlimited reads. I order author copies to give away to friends and family, and to have a copy for myself.

I price my paperbacks pretty low. I know that most people keep a tight reign on spending, and physical books are a somewhat luxury item. I looked at what other authors charge from indie authors to bigger names, and it was anywhere from $6.99 to $15.99 for a novella length book.

I have always balked at the prices for print books (in Canada, they are a few dollars higher compared to the US price), so I struggled with what I should sell my books for, a comparable book is To be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers, which goes for $13.99. Keeping in mind I am a new author, I shouldn’t expect readers to pay that much for one of my books, right?

Or should I? It is a luxury item, and if readers can afford it they will buy at a higher price.

One marketing site suggests adding $7 -$10 to the eBook price, which would make any of my paperbacks around $10. Ten dollars? That’s not unreasonable, and if I only sell a few, it makes a decent royalty.

So after much debate, I am going to raise my print prices, not due to Amazon doing so, but to reflect the value my creation has to me. Before that happens, though, I do want to purchase a complete set of my finally finished science fiction trilogy for my own book shelf, and because I can, I’ll be dropping the price for the next month to $5.99, which only makes me a few cents royalty.

It will take a few days for the price to change on Amazon, so I’ll keep you updated.

-Leon

On my blog this week:

Free Book Friday May 19: 13 Days – Until …?
Thursday Thoughts: Success – How do you define it?
Weird Wednesday May 17th: Cartoons
Music Monday May 15: Ruby Waters
Happy Mother’s Day!

Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, and a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words.

My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/