Now, as I mentioned earlier today, in the last three weeks I have sold more books than in the last year and a half. Some may see this statement as bragging, but when the sum total of books you’ve sold is sitting at a number less than ten in the last year and a half, it’s just a statement of fact.

Anyway, what did I do differently between then and three weeks ago? Three things: pricing, advertising, availability.

The first thing I want to talk about is pricing. I had set it at 10.99 when I first published it. The first couple months sold a few copies, but then I ran out of friends with available funds. I also then promptly got caught up in dissertation writing and few things garnered my attention, but more on that in tomorrow’s post. I want to focus on pricing.

First things first: why was it set at 10.99? That is expensive for a paperback, even now, and especially (in my mind, anyway) for one that was only 160 pages. However, when createspace started up, there was very little other option for me if I wanted to sell it on amazon and make more than a nickel a copy (which would not make it very much worth my time). When all was said and done, I seem to remember the 10.99 giving me a royalty payment of $1.

Now, of course, the plan was never to get rich on this book. It was to raise awareness, to try something new, and to pave the way for a sequel (THAT’S where I’ll get rich, heh heh heh!). So a dollar royalty struck me as relatively reasonable. Of course, at that time the price that they were charging was a bit astronomical per copy of book and 10.99 is where it sat.

Then in class in December, one of my students noticed the book and told me he was going to order it. I told him to hold off, because I wanted to see if I could lower the price a bit (hey, I remember being broke). So, for the first time in about a year, I went in to check the options.

Now, I knew createspace and pumped me up to the pro-plan, but I didn’t realize how much had changed in the pricing options since I had first heard they did that. I went in and noticed that I could lower the price of the book to 8.99 (about an 18% decrease). Since then, I’ve sold three books.

Now, it may be too early to assume that the drop in price was the reason for all three of those sales, but it certainly contributed. This is something to think about for self-publishing: measure how much the author thinks his/her time is worth versus how much the author thinks people will pay for the book. For me, it’s always been about the one dollar mark for this book. I think that is a good return for the work I’ve done on the book, and a good way to get into the market. I could be wrong, and to try and sell more, I may be forced to lose even more if I crunch the numbers again (which I will be doing monthly now).

And that’s just me. I worry about some people who think “hey I can make money!” with their writing, but then overprice the book and nothing sells…then they stop writing. This is a mistake. I’ve been writing for the last 6 years on a blog for free. Actually for negative numbers, since I’ve paid hosting on the thing. That may also inform my thoughts on getting paid for writing, and the fact I’m sharing my advice for relatively free: I’m used to it.

But that’s the long and short of it on pricing: balance the concept of what the work is worth against the concept of what the readers will pay for it. And honestly, maybe I haven’t found the magic balance point yet…but that’s the plus of what Createspace is giving me: a control over things like that where I can keep trying to find it with minimal loss of cash on either their end or on mine.

Something to ponder for your own writing.

That’s all for now, you keep on writing!