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Pricing - Newbie Question

by Geolina
11 replies
Ever since I got started in IM I have been wondering about how to set the prices of my products. And today when I was reading the thread about how long it takes to create a product, I started thinking again.

I have written two "real" books and they retail for 25 € (in Germany). They are between 550 and 600 pages, some photos, but mainly information (both books are travelguides).

Now I have written four ebooks in different niches, between 40 and 100 pages. I know they are not too crappy and i took me about a month to write each (I would love to be able to crank out a product in one weekend!!!). On the other hand it took me more than a year two write each of my books. And I have to update them on a regular basis.

Now I feel bad about charging 27 or 47 dollars for something that took so much less efford in creating it AND is not a tangible product. How do you justify those prices?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

By he way, I just love this forum: thanks for all the input, I might have learned more from reading the posts here than all the ebooks I have purchased!
#newbie #pricing #question
  • Profile picture of the author MaskedMarketer
    What people really want is access to the information you have. Just because its an ebook form and took you only a month to create does not mean it is not worth "xx". You should not feel bad about that.

    However, if you are feeling bad about charging such price, maybe your ebook is just not worth that price (information wise). You described your product as "not too crappy".

    Having said this, I would think you should improve the product, information wise to justify the price. Doesn't matter about how long it took you to create it or that its not tangible ( you can make it so if you want), but you want to at least have a product thats worth MORE than the price paid.

    Does that make sense?
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    • Profile picture of the author Geolina
      Yes, it sure does make sense, thank you! That is what I was thinking as well, that the information has to be worth the price. But it is kind of hard to decide if it is. Quite a few of the ebooks I bought certainly disappointed me...

      But I guess you just have to be very critical with yourself. When you are publishing a book, your publisher will tell you if your text is not good enough. When producing an ebook you have to be your own quality management, I guess.

      Thank you for your thoughts!
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
        Hi Geolina,

        The other part of it is being able to convince potential buyers that it worth the price you are charging. Yes, the information still needs to be worth it, but if you write poor sales copy you'll have a hard time even giving it away.

        As far as whether or not your writing is good enough, that's easy. Offer a few review copies to people in exchange for an honest critique. You are sure to find some people right here at the forum. This takes the place of one publisher and replaces it with the opinions of several people who are interested in the topic.

        ~Michael
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        • Profile picture of the author Geolina
          Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

          Hi Geolina,

          The other part of it is being able to convince potential buyers that it worth the price you are charging. Yes, the information still needs to be worth it, but if you write poor sales copy you'll have a hard time even giving it away.

          As far as whether or not your writing is good enough, that's easy. Offer a few review copies to people in exchange for an honest critique. You are sure to find some people right here at the forum. This takes the place of one publisher and replaces it with the opinions of several people who are interested in the topic.

          ~Michael
          Hi Michael,

          thank you for your input! I am well aware of the fact that you have to write a great salescopy in order to sell. I have come across quite a few salescopies that were really promising and the product didn't really match the expectations I had after reading the salesletter. I think that might be a general problem in IM, but it is certainly true for the German market.

          The idea to have people review my texts is good, but I do things in German and Spanish, so I try to find people locally, although they don't have a clue of my niches. The feedback is good, and I know that writing is my strong point (don't jugde me because of my posts, English is not my language:-) I really enjoy it and my books do well, so I guess I am not doing too bad. I hate writing salescopies though, but that is another topic...

          The concept that you sell a great idea is interesting. And I guess if an idea is really helping me to break into a market or something similar it is worth a relatively high price. After some thinking about this point I decided to keep he low price on two of my products and rise the price of the third, that really has an original idea in it. The other ones are more self help, how-to type of books.

          So thank you everybody very much for your help!
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          • Profile picture of the author Geolina
            Thank you Ken, as well - I will have to think a little bit about your answer, these ideas are really new to me. I think if I would buy a book about pricing adn would find this kind of information I really would be happy with it! So, thank you again!
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            • Profile picture of the author Chris_Willow
              you can put the price WHATEVER you want, it's your stuff, your business...
              ...as long as you can justify the price to the prospects, so they feel they are getting a bargain.

              Chris
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              • Profile picture of the author Ken Preuss
                Originally Posted by Chris_Willow View Post

                you can put the price WHATEVER you want, it's your stuff, your business...
                ...as long as you can justify the price to the prospects, so they feel they are getting a bargain.

                Chris
                As to the last part of what you said, I disagree. People do *not* care about a bargain if they think you or your product/service will solve their problem. Especially if you can solve it in a WAY that is ideal for them - e.g. with the least possible work or effort required on their part.

                I've sold products for tens of thousands of dollars that could have been explained in a 100-page e-book. Why? Because I positioned the product properly and delivered it in a way that was perfectly in line with not only *what* the customer wanted, but also *how* they wanted it.

                The real study in IM is not mastering an understanding of niches, but mastering an understanding of their customers.

                Ken
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                • Profile picture of the author Ken Leatherman
                  Ken,

                  The real study in IM is not mastering an understanding of niches, but mastering an understanding of their customers.
                  You hit it on the head. That is why 100's of millions of dollars a year are spent by large companies on this very thing.

                  BTW with a name like Ken, you had to be right. LOL

                  Ken
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      • Profile picture of the author Ken Preuss
        A few thoughts about pricing.

        Few people realize that pricing is a fantastic positioning tool. As an example, think about selling an e-book for $300 rather than $27. In that instance people say "holy cow, that's ridiculous, how could an e-book be worth $300??" Yet you are immediately in a league of your own with that price. That said, the product would certainly have to justify it.

        The ability to maximize price has to do with the following:

        1) Behavior of the market

        How hungry is the market? How rabid are they? Is the product similar to other products they are rabidly buying? Very important and usually overlooked.

        2) Quality and depth of the product

        The more completely and directly the product addresses and attempts to "solve" the want/need/problem of the customer, the higher the price you can charge. This is why e-books sell for $27-47, courses sell for $300-1000+, seminars sell for $1000-5000 and mentoring programs sell for $10K+. (See how it's not rocket science?)

        3) Distribution channels/positioning

        This might be the most important. Selling an e-book on a huge e-book listing site might fetch $37 for it, assuming people wanted it over the hundreds of others they could choose from. But selling an e-book to a joint venture list where your offer is delivered by itself and the perceived value can be maximized by the 'referral' nature of the jv....well that could potentially double or triple the amount people will pay for it.

        Hope these thoughts help.

        Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author ctutt
    You're not selling your time or effort. You ARE selling VALUE to your buyer.

    That means that if your one page article is worth $100.00 to someone even though it only took you a few moments to write, then so be it because your thoughts/ideas were the VALUE. The buyer will obviously, realize even greater value from YOUR idea or else they wouldn't have purchased it in the first place.

    Lesson for you: Learn to evaluate the VALUE of your thoughts and ideas. You may be able to "sell" them for far more than you imagined they were worth. :-)
    Charles Tutt
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      One good way to evaluate pricing is to look at other ebooks being sold in your genre, see how big they are, how they handle the topic, and how much they charge. If possible, see how many books they're selling and how long they've been on the market. Google the title and see how many pages you get back to see how popular it is.

      Consider the topic as well. If it requires a lot of research (either by you to write it or by your customers to locate the info themselves), then it will be extremely valuable. In that case, you can charge a higher price.

      Most important is to set your price and then over-deliver.

      In my experience, ebooks seem to average $37, $47 and $67. More technical or specialty info is usually much higher: $97 to $300 or more.

      Keep your reader in mind. You want them to be impressed with the quality and quantity of material they receive for their money. You want to sell them a $97 "value" for $67, for example.

      Value can be tough to lock down. Some products do not have the "perceived" value as other products.

      Hope this helps.

      Sylvia
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