Tips for Self Promotion, Sales, and Advertising discussion

I have two contemporary romance books (a four part series) available for sale currently.

Book sizes are 5x8. Both are around 300 pages. The cost to print these books for amazon.com is $7.34.

I currently have them for sale at $7.99 leaving me to make only .39 per book.

I don't get a lot of paperback sales since I'm an indie author. Most of my sales are digital.

I've had four sales in the last day and I've made a whopping $1.70.

I've spend a lot of time & effort into making my covers, writing my books. etc... But, these books will be out there floating around forever.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Jill, I'm surprised it costs so much to print your books. Do your books contain pictures?

I have 1 book for sale at Createspace, and it only costs $2.60 to print. Its size is also 5x8, and although it's only 148 pages, I'm still surprised your printing costs are so high.

If I were you I'd price my book a little higher because, as you said, you put a lot of time and effort into creating it.

Hi Alex,

No, no pictures. Just Creativespace saying...
Minimum list price for this title is...

I know this is after their cuts, etc...



Alex wrote: "Jill, I'm surprised it costs so much to print your books. Do your books contain pictures?

I have 1 book for sale at Createspace, and it only costs $2.60 to print. Its size is also 5x8, and althou..."

I was shocked at the minimum price of my children's book on CreateSpace too. It is 300-odd pages, mainly because my bookstore- worker daughter advised me to use a larger font. Parents often reject books instire because the writing is too small for their child.

I think we need to write shorter books, aimed at people with great vision!

I know what you mean Michelle. :)

Michelle wrote: "I was shocked at the minimum price of my children's book on CreateSpace too. It is 300-odd pages, mainly because my bookstore- worker daughter advised me to use a larger font. Parents often reject ..."

It's weird ... I sold 55 6x9 print CreatesSpace books in two months, but only five ebooks in the same period of time. Granted it was only Kindle because I was stupid to sign up for their Kindle whatsit program. I tried all different pricing, nothing. June 27 it goes on Nook with my sequel, which now isn't selling at all. It's enough to make you cry. ~ Helen

Edit: And yes, Amazon prices depend on number of pages. I have one at 268 pages with a minimum selling price of $10.50, the second at 304 pages minimum $11.14. You *can* lower the min. price by limiting the market, mainly to Amazon.com, because a lower price in some markets overseas would give you negative royalties. Fool around with it, see what works. But at .79 profit, I would go a different direction. Try a larger-size book like 6x9. Slightly more expensive, but far fewer pages more than make up the difference. And you can charge more for a trade-size softcover. I wouldn't recommend it for 150 pages, but more, sure. Also, if you pay the $25 for expanded distribution, Amazon will almost always eventually discount your book 15-40%, but you receive the same royalties.

So far I've published 4 books with Createspace and have priced them all differently. I've priced them at 7.99, 8.99, 9.99 and 10.99. I didn't do this intentionally but did it as the price I set I felt was reasonable for people to buy and reasonable in giving me a good amount of royalties. A good thing is I can always go in and change it but as of right now I feel my books are priced fairly.

Updating my latest thoughts on this. When setting the price for your book you need to keep two things in mind:
1. A price that's not too low and readers will find reasonable
2. A price that gives you a decent amount in royalties

You don't want to low ball yourself and make your book cheap. You want to make it above $5.99 at least and make your kindle either half of your paperback of $3.99 and lower (I think 2.99 is a perfect price for an e-book).

Also you want to receive a good portion of royalties from your book $2.75-4.00 is good so if you can calculate your books price based off you receiving royalties within that range then your set.