Don't we all deserve a little Brucie bonus?
Think of all the free content you’ve put on your blog over your writing career. Thousands of little golden nuggets of information and advice. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get people to pay you for all that imparted wisdom?
It would be nice. Which is why more and more bloggers are updating and improving their articles, finding a coherent narrative and dropping them into easy-to-digest ebooks that they can then sell on for a small profit.
Or a not-so-small profit, if you look and see what people are charging. There seems to be a very definite split between those that leave their ebooks to be bought on impulse for a few quid a copy, and those that build huge, sprawling marketing campaigns for PDFs that explain all the mysteries of the universe for £30.
And there’s very little middle ground.
So here’s the question. You’ve got your ebook in front of you. Now it’s just a matter of putting a price tag on it. Now do you go higher or lower?
Higher!
Price Bracket: £15-30
Pros: Look at that price tag. If you can get someone to buy your ebook for £30, you’ll make more money per copy than JK Rowling did with Harry Potter. And she’s a multi-millionaire. Obviously that means you’ll be a millionaire too!
Cons: You’re going to have to really sell a £30 ebook. It’s going to have to contain every bit of marketing advice you can muster, the combined wisdom of every conversation you’ve ever had, and a handy map to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.
And if your £30 ebook isn't the Holy Grail, flesh wounds await...
Lower!
Price Bracket: £1-3
Pros: Ahh, the good old impulse purchase bracket. People will pay a quid for pretty much anything. They’ll pay a pound for a lottery ticket, and your ebook will make them far more money than that billion-to-one gamble will. This means less time marketing, and being able to sell a much shorter book – leaving more time for a follow-up.
Cons: You’ll need to sell an impulse ebook in huge amounts to make any money from it. Even if you only spend a few hours putting the ebook together from mainly existing material, you’ll need to sell hundreds of copies to make the whole exercise worth your while.
Which Price Is Right?
Personally, I’ll buy almost any ebook priced at £3.00 or less. And there’s no chance I’ll drop £15 on a marketing PDF or pamphlet when I picked up actual dead tree books by Ogilvy and Andrew Maslen for around half the price.
But I’m just one potential customer. So what I really want to know is this. How much would you pay for a blogger’s ebook?
3 comments
Jen Phillips says:
Jun 8, 2012
My husband writes ebooks. They’re on a totally different subject (military history) but I’m sure a lot of his experience is transferable. His books are short and under £5. He does it that way because it’s quick and easy to get it researhed, written and published so he starts making money straight away. Once it’s up and running he largely leaves it alone, so every sale after the first few is easy money. The other benefit is that if a book flops he hasn’t wasted much time on it.
Gareth Millward says:
Jun 8, 2012
There’s another downside to pricing yourself too low – people will think the price reflects the quality. Then there’s the problem that if you sell a book for £2 and it’s a rip-roaring success it will be difficult to sell your next one for £10, even if it’s (subjectively speaking) “worth it”.
Personally, I’m a fan of the middle ground – around £6-£10 – providing that I trust the person writing it and the potential quality of the product. The people who regularly read your stuff and want to support you will easily pay that much – then you just need to do some marketing to convince the floaters.
It gives you more flexibility for the future (your analogy of Brucie is quite apt here, actually), and it says to the world – “look – I’m a serious author, but I’m not a mercenary.”
Providing you perhaps add a few sweeteners to the book (perhaps some exclusive follow-up content; a webinar to discuss it, etc.) then £10 is a good base point, I think. But that’s just my take on it.
Tom Albrighton says:
Jun 14, 2012
Well, all I can say is that relatively few people have bought my ebook (for £10). It’s nice to get cash for ‘doing nothing’, but in fact the work I put into creating the book and setting up the purchase process almost certainly meant the whole project was loss-making (or at least, less lucrative than ‘normal work’). As a result I’m considering making it free to download – the links I’d get from doing so would probably be worth more to me than the money. The cash I’ve got just sits there in PayPal and I’ve actually ended up giving most of it to people doing sponsored runs and stuff.
Sorry if that sounds like a downer. I guess what I’m saying is: take a proper look at the money you could realistically get, and consider how best to ‘leverage’ your ‘content’ for the benefits you most want.
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