Are Lower eBook Prices Making You Rethink Your Writing Career?

Prices for ebooks have been steadily declining over the past year. Some of this is due to the publishers' settlement with Amazon. Although this affects books by the major publishers the fallout affects prices for self-published books, too. If you self-publish, you can set the price for any amount you want with certain minor restrictions. However, if best sellers are selling for $7.00 and some as low as $.99 it doesn't make sense to price yourself out of the market.

If you want to make money, you have to follow the price trends. This means most self-published books should be priced no higher than $3.99, unless you have a niche market that guarantees sales. The problem is that if you price your books between $3.99 and $.99 you have to sell a lot of books to make any money at all. Unfortunately, although there are some best-selling self-published authors, most of us are not in that category.

Most self-published authors don't make much money from their books even with higher prices, so the question is why do you write. In today's market, more of us can become published authors, but very few of us will become rich. For me, this issue is: how much do you love writing? If it's something you have to do to make yourself happy, it's easy. You keep writing no matter what the prices are and even whether you get published. If you want fame and fortune, in today's market you may be better off trying to get on Survivor. For me, I'll keep writing. I treasure the people who buy my books, and I will keep trying to do my best for them . . . no matter what the price, or how much money I make. It's the psychic rewards that are important.