Calculating My Entreatments AKA Book Pricing Headaches...

Polonius' wisdom is rarely out of my head, and this week is no exception. As I tell myself to 'set my entreatments at a higher rate', I'm reminded this doesn't only apply to being firm in my dealings with Hamlet, but could also determine the price at which I set my new book. I should keep my stock high! I should value my worth! But like Ophelia - with an overbearing father and a boyfriend with his own daddy-issues - it's all a bit much to deal with. Yes, that Shakespearian literary ramble is purely so I can share the headachey stress of pricing my own work. You're welcome!

I don’t want to fleece anyone and take the piss. But, I’ve worked hard. The end result costs money to print, and I’d like to think, my time and effort has a value too. (Check me out, getting big headed!) It’s easy to be self-deprecating and to undervalue hard graft and the finished result. But by under-pricing it, I’m effectively saying that I don’t think it’s good enough to cost any more.

This man taught me everything I know about economics.

Besides, it isn’t purely down to what I feel comfortable charging, randomly off the top of my head. There needs to be some sort of business strategy at play. And as I have zero understanding of business and finance, then this could be a problem. I once heard a famous cake-maker and actress talk on Radio Two about her cake prices during the 80s recession. (I know! Who says Radio One is where the cool kids hang out?) She explained she got through the economic madness by putting her prices up. She said it was a policy that kept her solvent when all around her were going bust. I have no idea if she was talking rubbish, or if she’s an economic genius. But what she said stuck with me. Don't under charge. Make sure your costs are covered.

A dramatic interpretation of the
author of my niche sporting paperback,
counting his cash after selling three books.

Then again, there's always the temptation to charge an exorbitant fee. Just to make a bit of cash. I recently saw a self-published paperback priced at £12.99. It was about a niche sporting event so it had no other literary competition. If I wanted to read about the sports match in question, I had to pay the price. I’m always fascinated by other people’s self-publishing. I want to see how they’ve gone about it. Have they had a cover professionally designed? Do they use a formatted template? What’s their imprint name? This one, however, was basic. The cover looked homemade and there were no professional features such as an ISBN or publishing imprint. I’d guess that about £5 of the price was profit. That's a huge amount of money per book to go the author. I’d love it if that weren’t unusual, but it really is. In my experience, it's less than a pound.

In the end I decided that a bit of market research was in order. To help settle on a price for Leeza McAuliffe Has Something To Say, I searched the Waterstones and Amazon websites. I selected pre-orders for paperback releases, aimed at children aged 9-12. It gave me more of an insight. There was still a bit of scope, but it made things clearer. Both sites' prices mostly ranged from £6.99 to £9.99 depending on the size of book. Also -  interestingly - the non-fiction books seemed to cost a little more than the fiction. I never got round to thinking about why that might be.

It only becomes important years
later when you don't want to have to
pay people 13p to buy your book.

Once I had my ball park figure, I took myself off to the Ingram Spark website. (The Print on Demand publishing company I use.) They have an online calculator to work out the author/publisher compensation. It’s a fun or depressing activity, depending on how much you plan to charge. You type in your book’s details such as trim size, page count, whether it’s black and white or colour, and then add the price you want to charge. When I typed in £6.99 in GB pounds and pressed ‘Calculate’ it instantly told me I would lose 13p per book sold. I'm no Martin Lewis, but that didn't seem like a plan. I played around with prices, cursing myself for having written so many pages, and eventually came up with a price that left me in credit. I won’t be out of pocket for each sale, but I (hopefully) won’t be taking the piss by fleecing anyone, either. 

Just in case people need closure
on the vague Hamlet theme I started with.

Aside from all that, the other take-away piece on info I've learnt about pricing, is that ebooks are much more profitable than physical copies. With no printing, paper, and delivery costs, the author gets a bigger percentage of the sale. I never thought I’d encourage people to download my book rather than buy a pick-up-able version, but it makes me several pence better off if they do. Although to keep all bases covered, I would recommend buying both formats, so you don’t miss out. As Polonius would have undoubtedly said, had he not come a cropper behind the arras, 'Always buy Nicky's books in paperback and ebook formats, and tell your friends to do the same.' Classic Polonius. Good times.

Have a lovely week, folks.