What Should You Charge for an Indie eBook?
The short answer to the question in the title is there’s no set answer. Indie book pricing is a tough matter because each book and each genre will sell differently at different price points. A 10,000-word erotica short can actually get away with charging $3.99. A first (non-erotica) novel by a new author generally can’t.
On Reddit, this was a comment on a post by a new author who was struggling how to set price. I argued that he should lower his book to $.99 from $1.99, as he wasn’t selling any books. This was a response:
[…]99c essentially


Tell us something about your book. What is it about?

Approaching Twi-Night by M. Thomas Apple is an eloquent and tender novel about the minor league baseball pitcher, John “Ditch” Klein, and his on-again off-again relationship with the sport of baseball. He’s got a critical manager, critical family members, and his heart’s not entirely into the game. He’s feeling the tug of being a writer as well. This is a quiet novel in terms of scope, but in terms of the power of its sentences, it’s dynamic and moving. Approaching Twi-Night is literary fiction at its best.
The Ocean Spinner (Prodigal Book 1) by cousins Samuel and Jared Perry is a fast-paced young adult fantasy adventure about the nation of Al’Bora, which is on the brink of war, savagely attacked by assassins and a new threat: a powerful mage called the Ocean Spinner who has the power to destroy fleets and affect the tides. Sitor, a knight who’s a bit brutish but good with a sword, is tasked to eradicate the Ocean Spinner along with a a ragtag band of assassins and mages who don’t always see eye to eye, but are driven by the same goal, […]
Icarus Falling: The True Story of a Nightclub Bouncer Who Wanted to Be a F*cking Movie Star But Settled for Being a F*cking Man is the raucous, often hilarious, memoir of Christopher Paul Meyer’s time working as a bouncer in what was then the “most popular nightclub in Los Angeles.” Given the number of bars in L.A. that’s really saying something, so Meyer comes toe to toe, and fist to fist, with an entertaining assortment of drunks, celebrities, homeless people and everything else L.A. has to offer.
Robyn by Glen R. Stott, author of
Vaporized by Victor Levine follows the exploits of up-and-coming/down-and-out musician Jon Cells who’s looking for his big break in the New York music scene of the early eighties. In the meantime, he’s working at a perfume factory, which is under investigation by the FBI for possible drug connections. John Cell gets caught in between the rivalry between two familes, the Iranian Monsouris and Italian Pecorinos, when all that he wants to do is make music.