The 0.99 Cent eBook Pricing Strategy

Pricing your ebook is one of the most divisive issues among ebook creators. There are those that disparage or are even angry at authors who sell their ebooks at 0.99 cents. There are also those people that champion authors who sell their ebooks at 0.99 cents.

Let me warn you beforehand. Though I will try to make an unbiased review of the 0.99 cent pricing model, I will more likely give praises to the 0.99 cent pricing model than throw negative comments on it.

This is because I have found very successful authors who succeeded using the 0.99 cent pricing model. Andy Weir author of the runaway bestseller and movie box office hit, The Martian is one such author. I will discuss him more later in this article.

Perhaps this is one of the most difficult decision an author of an eBook has to make. We all know that thanks to digitization technology, making an eBook can be almost made entirely cost free.

All you need is a computer, and any computer will do. Even the most cheapest and arguably an old computer will do. Next, you need a word processing program. Nowadays, you need a fairly new or updated word processing program to create a file that can be converted to an eBook format.

Once you have created your eBook or word processor file which has the contents of your book, the next thing you need is an internet connection to upload your word processor file. After this is done, your eBook is already published for the world to buy and read.

Of course you also need a graphics creation program to create your eBook covers. There are many free and paid graphics creation program that you can use. Many of them are available online. If you have the budget, you can even hire a graphics artist cheaply.

As can be seen, due to the relative cheapness of creating eBooks, a lot of authors can now price their eBooks cheaply if they want to. Many authors are even giving away their eBooks for free.

This creates a dilemma for many eBook authors, especially those who spend good money to create their eBooks. Writing eBooks could be considered an art, but it is also a business. Many eBook authors need money to support themselves.

This is the reason why even though authors can price the eBooks they write very cheaply, they may not do so because this could mean that they would have none or little profit when writing eBooks.

There are many comments online on the cons of pricing a book at 0.99 cents. The number one comment I see online is about how an eBook would be perceived if it is priced at 0.99 cents. Another popular comment would be the little profit authors make with 0.99 cent eBooks.

The Author’s eBook Being Perceived As Of Low Quality:

Just like buying between an expensive pair of shoes and a cheap pair of shoes that are similar, buyers tend to psychologically think that the more expensive pair of shoes is the superior one in terms of quality.

This way of thinking is the dominant way of thinking in any products that are produced. This includes eBooks. Many readers are wary of eBooks that are priced cheaply. Many think that eBooks priced cheaply are made in a short time only without careful thought.

Of course for authors who actually write books, they know that the length of time writing a book is not the determining factor in the quality of a book. There are many books that were written in days only but became runaway bestsellers.

Famous mystery author, Agatha Christie, for example wrote her book titled “Absent In The Spring” in two days only. This is proof that you don’t need to spend a lot of time writing a book for it to become a success.

There Is Little Profit From 0.99 Cent Priced eBooks:

Consumer sentiment is very hard to assess and predict. There are entire courses both online and in universities especially dedicated to it. But to this date, there has never been anyone who can proudly proclaim that they have broken the consumer sentiment code.

What pricing model works for one author may not work for another author. An author may have a dedicated small following already that even if they sell a small volume of their eBooks at a higher price, they will still make a profit

Then there is the big market for voracious but cheap readers. There are many readers who read for readings sake, they are more concerned with reading a large amount of eBook content with less regard for anything else.

Usually, these readers treat eBooks like food or cigarettes. eBooks are just consumables to them. And just like consumables, authors who target this market should price them like any other consumables.

This means that authors who write for this market should price their eBook at an affordable and even very cheap price to attract voracious but cheap eBook readers. There is nothing wrong with the readers in this market, this is just how they perceive books, as consumables.

This is why if you are targeting this market, consider the price and the format of the books you would sell. I have met a few voracious readers in my life. They have been the very first adaptors of eBooks.

Most of the voracious readers I know don’t buy physical books anymore, they are even not that interested in audiobooks which are much more expensive than eBooks. Their objective is to consume as much reading material as they can get.

I might have given one of the best advantages of pricing an eBook at about 0.99 cents. That is, the pricing attracts the voracious eBook readers who are more interested in consuming eBooks like food or cigarettes.

Another advantage of pricing eBooks at about 0.99 cents is that you are always in promotional mode. The word “sale” is a tried and tested strategy by many retailers that if before there were only yearly sales, now there are almost monthly sales on all products.

Attracting Consumer Readers:

Consumer readers are voracious readers. They are a big market for eBooks. eBooks are the perfect products for readers who want to read a lot of content but want to do it in a cheap way.

This is why despite the derogatory comments of many critics of 0.99 cent eBook authors, many of these authors continue to churn these usually short story books. There are many readers who simply don’t have the time to dedicate to long books.

These type of consumers want to read and finish a book while they are traveling to and from work or during their lunch break. These people simply want an entertaining book to pass the time by while they have the time in their busy schedules.

Always In Promotional Mode:

Another advantage of pricing your eBook at the range of 0.99 cents is that you are always in promotional mode as far as pricing goes. The concept of Impulse Buying is firmly ingrained in the mind of consumers.

You see this tactic being employed everyday. The counters of grocery shops and supermarkets are stocked up with cheap impulse buy products that are meant to tempt consumers with their low price.

This especially works well for new authors who are in need of recognizability more than profit in the initial stages of their careers. A discerning consumer may not buy from an author they might not know about, but the cheap price of the eBook may make them think again.

After all, a 0.99 cent eBook is priced so cheaply that it is even cheaper than the cheapest coffee. A reader might skip on buying their cheap morning coffee in favor of buying your cheap eBook.

A cheap reader then can have a new habit of buying 0.99 cent eBooks instead of buying their morning coffee on their way to work. Incidentally, this reader might just choose to drink the office coffee and buy your eBook instead.

Avoiding Your eBook From Being Counterfeited:

It’s no big secret. Counterfeiters like counterfeiting expensive eBooks. This is because they make a lot of money per unit they counterfeit. Counterfeiters usually cannot resist these big profit margins.

With a cheaply priced eBook, usually one that costs about 0.99 cents, your eBook is most likely to fly under the counterfeiter’s radar. Besides, if readers know that the original eBook is priced the same as the counterfeit eBook, they’re sure to buy the original eBook.

You might earn low per unit of eBook you sell, but you could make it up in numbers. Unfortunately, there are many people who buy counterfeit products especially digital products who mistakenly believe that digital products should be free.

Pricing your eBooks cheap might just persuade these people to change their mind especially if your eBook is less than the price of a cheap cup of coffee or a one way short trip bus fare. This could be a weapon against counterfeiting.

One thing to note is the contentious issue of giving away eBooks for free. There is nothing wrong with giving away eBooks for free just as long as they are just promotional eBooks. I myself is not an expert yet at selling eBooks nor have much real life experience promoting my eBooks.

But one thing many experienced eBook authors and sellers advise is that you must sparingly use free eBooks as a form of advertising your other products. Many experienced authors like to tell of their harrowing experience with abusive eBook readers.

According to these experienced authors, they have come into contact with readers who demand that they continue to write free eBooks. These abusive readers think that just because eBooks can be made very cheaply or even cost free, they should also be given away for free.

Don’t get me wrong. I think giving away free eBooks is an excellent form of promoting yourself especially if you are a new author, just don’t let your readers think that you are in business to give away free eBooks.

There are many authors who have found success in pricing the eBooks they wrote at 0.99 cents. These two authors are not just run of the mill authors, I know that one of them at least is already a millionaire by just selling 0.99 cent priced eBooks.

Andy Weir:

When Andy Weir wrote his science fiction book, “The Martian”, he was just another unknown and struggling author. Like most unknown author, he priced his book at 0.99 cents in the hopes of attracting readers to try out his eBook.

To make a long story short, his book became widely bought and read until it became so famous that it has even been turned into a box office movie hit. Andy Weir then became a celebrated author.

If being famous means that you have to always grant book reader interviews and be a prominent presenter at book reader conferences, then Andy Weir is indeed a success already. And he owes a lot of his success from pricing his eBook at 0.99 cents during the beginning.

Amanda Hocking:

She was just another unknown and struggling author before she became very famous selling millions of books. Struggling could even before be considered an overstatement of her. She has written several books and all have been rejected by traditional publishers.

She says that it was the lowest point of her life when she was penniless and couldn’t even scrape enough money to attend a muppet convention. This muppet convention was the turning point in her life.

She decided to sell her novels as eBooks and price them at 0.99 cents in Amazon. Again, to make a long story short, her cheaply priced eBooks began to sell and soon her loss per eBook unit was made up by very large volume sales per unit.

She has become a millionaire from her humble start of selling her eBooks at 0.99 cents only. She is another proof that the 0.99 cent pricing strategy does work especially for struggling and unknown authors.

At minimum, the 0.99 cent pricing strategy is just an introductory pricing to your eBooks. If you are really not making a living selling your eBooks at just 0.99 cent, consider the issue where you don’t sell any books at all. A little is better than nothing.

You might sell your eBooks at 0.99 cents first and then later, when you become an established author and your eBooks become popular, you can decide if you want to raise your prices. This is a tried and tested strategy.

Or consider the alternative, you sell your eBook at a higher price than 0.99 cents and when they don’t sell, you reduce the price of your eBooks in the hopes that they would sell better. This could have a negative impact on you and your eBooks.

Readers might think the reason that you have lowered the price of your eBooks is because they are not selling. Readers might think that because they don’t sell, they are of low quality. You may not recover from this negative reader perception.

Despite the many negative and downright angry comments from authors who don’t sell their eBooks at 0.99 cents, there are many positives from pricing your eBooks at that range. You attract consumer readers and you attract new readers to read your eBook.

Just because an eBook was made in a short time and is priced very cheaply, it does not mean that it is of low quality. There are many books that have been written and priced cheaply that have become bestsellers and have stood the test of time.

You might also like to read the article:

Who Reads Ebooks?.