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.

I don’t like it, but I’m doing it. Promotion, that is. Of Documenting America. I describes some of my efforts in my last post, and the difficulty I’m having accepting the unnatural role of promoter.

Today I took another small step. On the way to my writers group I stopped by the Bentonville Public LIbrary and gave them a copy of the book. Thus it is out before the public now—or will be as soon as they log it in, categorize it as to Dewey Decimal numbers, and get it on the shelf. I suppose I’ll go there in about a week and see if I can find it in the catalogue and on the shelf, or better yet, learn it’s been checked out.

One other piece of promotion shows some hope, if not yet sales. I sent a notice to the URI alumni magazine to go in the Class Notes section. One of the staffers e-mailed me, saying that they thought an engineer with literary aspirations was an interesting story, that they’d like to do a feature story on me for the spring issue, and that a certain freelancer will contact me.

Will this actually happen? Will someone ever contact me? Will they actually write the story and print it? And if they do, will it generate any sales? I don’t know those answers, but I do know this: If they print it, it can’t hurt.

As I mentioned in the last couple of posts, last weekend I finished proof-reading the proof copy of Documenting America, and began the process of making the minor changes and uploading it to Kindle, Smashwords, and CreateSpace. For each of these, a review by the distributor organization was required before it would be listed. Those reviews have been completed, and all three distributors have it for sale. Through Smashwords, this includes Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and some others.

I also have for sale paper copies I order from CreateSpace. I haven’t ordered any yet. I was planning on deciding this week how many the initial order should be. I have one sold already, to a man who used to work at CEI, with whom I’m Facebook friends. He saw my notice and said he would buy a copy. That tells me maybe I can sell some. That also tells me I’d better find out what I need to do about sales tax.

But the bigger thing to figure out is: Now what?

I’ve been holding off marketing Documenting America, either as an e-book or paper book, because I was waiting on the paper book, and on correcting a couple of typos I knew of. All that’s done, and it’s time to get marketing. An occasional shameless self-promotion on Facebook is probably okay, not more often than once a month. But I need to do more. Here’s some of the things I’m thinking about doing.

• dropping copies off at local coffee houses, designating them as copies to stay in the coffee house.
• seeing if I could give a few to the nearby Barnes & Noble. Let them make the sale and keep the entire proceeds. Then, if those sold, maybe they would order a bunch from CreateSpace. Or course, if they agree to take them, I might steer a few buyers their way.
• see if I could speak at some local civic groups: Kiwanis, Lions, Civitians, Rotary. Those that meet weekly are always looking for speakers. I have in mind a presentation I would make of the material, which could tie in nicely with the book, but not just be about the book.
• research blogs and see if I can organize a blog tour for the book. Blogs about history or politics are where I’d go to. This is a key way for many authors to promote their books. Having never done it, I suspect just the research of what blogs to target and how to contact the owners and scheduling and follow-up, etc.
• drop off paper copies at two or three local libraries.
• then, after a couple of months, maybe see about some radio programs.

I’ve been thinking about the marketing aspects of this for a long time, and have blogged on it before. None of this is new. What is new is the feeling I have. It’s a whole new world now. My book is out, fully out. The time to plan my marketing is over. Time simply to do.