How to Price Your Book
Whatever amount you come up with for the price of your book, remember that advertising expense will usually take 50% to 60% of your selling price if you are to promote your book properly and get into the mass market. This only leaves 40% to 50% of the sales proceeds for all your other expenses and a reasonable profit for your efforts. And don't forget "all other expenses" include not only the cost of typesetting, printing, mailing and other direct expenses, but also includes numerous variable and indirect expenses; such as auto, depreciation, insurance, and all the other "general overhead", even if you only work part-time from your home. Then you must have enough left over to "pay yourself" a reasonable draw for your time, effort and risk!
Failure to understand the "Mathematics of Mail Order" is the basic reason most people do not succeed when trying to sell books by mail.
One of the most important points to learn about mail-order mathematics is just exactly where your break-even point is. This varies drastically depending on the total units produced and sold. The more units sold the less the cost per unit. In other words, the more you sell the more flexible you can be in pricing your product.
Never price a publication at less than total cost, just to increase sales, unless you have computed correctly that the increased sales will reduce you unit cost sufficiently to overcome any potential loss.
On the other side of the "coin", if the price of your publications is too high, you could be in a worse position than if selling for only half the price. Maybe a price reduction of 50% will get you 500% more sales thus lowering your variable costs per unit sufficiently. The loser is immediately turned into a blockbuster! Only tests will tell!
Related Articles
How to Write a Folio
Today, there are hundreds of enterprising men and women who write simple research papers (known in the mail order trade as FOLIOS) and sell them by mail. In the pages that follow, I will show you how you can do the same.
How to Write Money-Making "How-to" Reports
This is the "real" Money Maker in the Mail Order business - the basic "How To" Report. It's something anyone can produce, and with all the proper ingredients at the right time, you can become independently wealthy!
How to Make Big Money Selling Simple Informational Reports
The all-time best selling product in the mail order industry is the simple two to three page "How To Succeed" reports such as this one. Most of the time these reports are priced at $2 each and offered as series or packages of reports.
How to Write Almost Anything and Get Paid for It
Have you ever heard the expression, "everyone has a book in them that's trying to get out?" What does this really mean? Not everyone writes books, do they?
How to Become a Printing Broker
Everyone in any business, especially mail order, needs printing. But being a printer takes huge, expensive printing presses, long hours and messy work, right? WRONG! YOU can make money without the mess and expense by being a PRINTING BROKER.
$40,000 a Year in "Editorial Services"
When I started out as a freelance writer the market for such services was a bit different than today. Most freelance writing then was "on spec" - you wrote something, a story or an article, then peddled it.
How to Achieve Success with Your Own Money-Making Newsletter
Writing and publishing a successful newsletter is perhaps the most competitive of all the different areas of mail order and direct marketing.
How to Survive as a Freelance Writer
Everybody wants to be a writer - to write best-selling books - and to become famous as well as rich.
How to Self-Publish Your Own Books Manuals, Reports, or Newsletters
You can make a lot of money by writing and self-publishing your own material, if you are willing to write the books, manuals, reports or newsletters that millions of people across the United States, and throughout the world for that matter, despe...
How to Publish Your Own Newsletter
With the expansion and diversion of businesses, manufacturers, and even hobbyists into more and more specialized areas of endeavor, there is an increasing need for more information.