E-self-publishing guru Joe Konrath recently had a guest post on his blog, by Elle Lothlorien, concerning pricing for self-published e-books. Elle recommends higher prices for self-published e-books than has been the conventional wisdom in the community. Joe has recommended $2.99; Elle recommends closer to $4.99. Joe responded by saying he’s starting to agree with that sentiment, and is raising some of his prices accordingly. The comments to the post seem to favor the higher prices.

But at a higher price, won’t they sell fewer books? Maybe. But people, i.e. Americans, also have a perception about price and value being linked. Something that is terribly inexpensive, well below the going value, will be seen to be cheap and thought to be of a lesser quality. Think yard sales and thrift shops. While some good quality bargains can be had, these generally have heavily used merchandise of inferior quality. You’ll find better stuff at consignment shops, but still not of the quality as at stores that sell new stuff.

So I began thinking about the price of Documenting America. I initially set it at $1.25, as an introductory price, thinking if sales took off I could raise it some. It’s not a long book at 196 pages, so I wanted to keep the price attractive. Why then $1.25 and not $0.99? Only because those .99 prices always seem cheesy to me, gimicky. I’d rather pay $1.00 than $0.99. So I set the price at $1.25. But when I listed the book on Smashwords, they only allow prices that end in $0.99. Since Amazon doesn’t allow you to list it for less at any other place, I set the Smashwords price at $1.99. At that price I have one sale, via the Barnes & Noble Nook store.

Several people have told me that the book was way under-priced at $1.25, suggesting something like $3.99 would be better. The print version sells for $10.00, which will net me $0.58 per sale at Amazon, about $2.58 at CreateSpace, and almost $4.00 on self-sales. So I pondered whether I should raise my price, despite lack of sales.

Today I decided to raise the price. Although I don’t like x.99 pricing, if people expect that, I’ll give it to them. So the new price of Documenting America is now $1.99—or it will be as soon as it makes its way through the Kindle approval system.

Now, I’m not naive enough to think that a simple price chage, especially an increase, will suddenly spur sales. But maybe some people looked at the lower price and said, “I’m not buying something that cheap,” or “That guy must be desperate for sales.”  $1.99 doesn’t imply much more value than does $1.25. It is, however, a more expected price in the American market. “Meet expectations” is a good marketing mantra, I think. We’ll see what happens.

Tomorrow I’m going to post my sales graph and let the world see how little I’ve sold and how little I make.