If you follow my doings on Facebook, Twitter, or Amazon, you may have noticed that I recently put an end to what was essentially long-term promotional pricing for both my currently published books. (The Marriage Pact had long been at the entry-level price of $0.99 and is now resting at $2.99, with Regrets Only at a still-affordable $3.99). Why? I realized that entry-level pricing was no longer giving me the bang for the buck (bang for the 99 cents, technically) that it once had.

It’s hard to say how many 99 cent books are available on amazon.com, but at the time of this writing my search for “99 cent kindle books” produced 444 results. That doesn’t include books that are free on amazon, either those public domain works made available by Amazon themselves, or books being promoted for free by authors (like me!) through the KDP select program. If you’re worried about finding those 99 cent or free books, don’t. There are countless social network sites and services available to help readers stay on top of freebies and cheapies [often funded from the hopeful pockets of the very authors giving their work away].

That’s a lot of  inexpensive reading material; and lots of hours and dollars being shelled out by aspiring authors to create and promote it. And with instant downloads, it’s easy for readers to get a Kindle-ful of verbiage for next-to-nothing. Some of it is well-written, some of it not. This is great, if you are stocking up on options for your trip to the beach, or if you’re the kind of person who blows through two or three books a week.

It’s a mixed bag if you are a reader looking for high quality at an affordable price, or if you tend (as I do) to download anything that looks remotely interesting when it’s free, and then find that you have no idea how to prioritize your glutted Kindle when you do finally sit down to read. “Now wait, did I buy this because it was highly rated, or because the guy giving it away had a cute picture of his cat on Twitter? Is this the five-star adventure someone highly recommended, or the one by my step-brother’s girlfriend’s cousin*?”

The situation is even worse if you’re an indie author waiting for someone to wade through their Kindle content to get to your book (so they will love it and buy another one, obviously). Every time you see another author posting about how their free book is ranked so highly on Amazon, you think: “Oh, good. I’m SO happy that the Kindle puts the LATEST downloads in front.” [<– sarcasm]. I love that my books have enjoyed well over 100,000 downloads, but I do want people to read them, too.

And as for the publishing companies, well, they are none too pleased about any of this.  The big-six publishers are obviously not so thrilled that scrappy, opinionated little authors like me can provide great content with minimal overhead and beat the pants (panties, in the case of my contemporary romances) off their pricing structure. Of course, before I can compete with big publishers in earnest, I have to be able to compete with their marketing efforts, which is nearly impossible to do at $0.99 or even $2.99 a book, especially when one of the best strategies to get books into readers’ hands is to give them away.

The big publishing companies are sticking together and digging in their heels, with the landscape of the publishing industry, brick and mortar bookstores, and many authors’ livelihoods at stake. And despite all my indie author smack-talk, I am not really sure who to root for anymore. I like big publishers to fear me, but I don’t actually want them to go down. I’m grateful to Amazon for giving me a platform to publish, but I don’t want them to be the only game in town. That would benefit no one. But I digress…

Indie authors are divided about the low-price strategy when it comes to establishing a name for oneself and getting a ‘foot in the door’ with your target market of readers. I invite you to read author Joanna Penn’s dated but excellent summary of the 99-cent strategy employed by so many authors, including myself until recently, and Melissa Foster’s cogent caution about rock-bottom pricing.

At the end of the publishing day, the tension comes from these three paradoxical facts: 1. When it comes to unknown/indie authors, readers seem to be price-sensitive. They will try something new about three times as often for under a dollar than for under three dollars. 2. Authors cannot realistically sustain themselves for long on $0.99 Kindle books, even with the relatively generous 35% royalty structure amazon provides at that price point, especially after paying editors, proofreaders, web designers, cover artists, etc.,  and 3. There will always be newbie authors of all skill levels willing to try the low-price strategy to get their books into the hands of readers, so 99 cent eBooks are not going away any time soon.

If you put these three facts in a bowl and swish them around, you get a confusing gray mass that looks and smells like it could be damaging to indie authors and discriminating readers alike. In the current state of eBook sales, the free + 99-cent strategy can work in the short term as a tool for indie authors to introduce themselves to readers, and you might even eek out a small profit. That taste of success is encouraging, but it’s certainly not sustainable in the long run. If readers get so used to 99 cents or even $2.99 as a price point for indie eBooks that they refuse to pay more than that, there will pretty much be two kinds of digital books available: established, traditional authors at anywhere from $12.99 to $19.99 for the digital versions; and desperate, green authors with nothing to lose and minimal editing, hawking books for $1 or $3, waiting for their big break.

I’m not disparaging those folks, because I’m one of them. I’m also looking for a job doing something else so that I can afford to keep writing on the side.  Until my writing reaches enough people, who enjoy it enough, to pay $4-$8 per eBook; I can’t make it my only job. So my task as an author is to write stories that are so compelling, that readers who are introduced to them will not only be willing to shell out $5 or more to read the next one, they will also recommend their friends do the same.

Which brings us back to the title question. What is a ‘fair’ price for an eBook? For fiction, at least, the answer might be as simple as the supply and demand curve: it’s that sweet spot where what you (the reader) are willing to pay meets what I (the writer) can afford to make it worth my time. For some of us that might be in the $3-7 range for a well-edited, well-received novel of average length, for others it will be higher or lower.

Can you expect there to always be eBooks available at 99 cents and $2.99? Yes, I think so, until Amazon changes those bottom levels (if they ever do). Will those books be worth reading? Some of them, certainly. Will authors worth reading keep writing at those price points year after year, book after book? My prediction: not so much.

Maybe the question should not be ‘what’s a fair price for AN eBook?’ but  rather, ‘what’s a fair price for THIS eBook?‘  Books are not commodities – you cannot sub in M.J. Pullen for Helen Fielding or Nora Roberts (someday, perhaps!) as though they were interchangeable sacks of grain. And just because there are 444 books for a dollar, or thousands at $2.99, doesn’t mean those are the ‘right’ prices.

The value of each book goes up or down based on the quality of the writing, the relevance of the story, the creativity of the presentation, emotionality, reader ratings, critical acclaim and many other factors. Perhaps the hardest of these to pinpoint is each reader’s subjective experience, which can be partially captured by reviews but not entirely. Purchasing a book – paperback, digital, indie, traditional – always includes a certain amount of risk. You may find a 5-star book with a Pulitzer prize that you hate, or a 3-star story with sloppy grammar that you simply adore.

In my never-humble opinion, authors must be willing to price their books based on an as-objective-as-possible assessment of their story and craft, allow for experimentation, and adjust based on feedback and reviews. Maybe it’s not always so, but it does seem in general that a 4 or 5 star book with 100+ reviews has more standing to command a higher price than a book with lower or fewer ratings. For readers, a high volume of good ratings lessens the risk of it being riddled with typos, or just plain terrible; that should be worth something.

The readers’ job in this system, then, is to provide objective feedback in the form of honest ratings and reviews; to be ambassadors for their favorite authors if they feel inspired to do so; and to understand that good authors can only continue to write, improve, and write again, when they can afford to pay their rent. If you only buy books at bottom-barrel prices, eventually you will have only bottom-barrel books from which to choose. I guess I’m saying it’s about managing expectations for what your dollar should buy.

When I came out last week and raised my prices to less self-deprecating levels, I hope what readers heard me say is, “Yes! The votes have been counted, the reviews are in, and this eBook is worth (at least) a $3 or $4 investment. I hope you’ll agree!” I also hope that readers who choose to make that investment have taken the time to read the summary and a few reviews so they will know what they’re getting into with my books. I think it’s actually more enjoyable to read something you chose thoughtfully as a good fit for you, rather than something that just happened to be in the bargain bin when you walked by.

What do you think? Does price impact your impressions of a book’s quality? Are you more likely to read and review something you’ve paid for than a freebie? For my author friends, how do you set your pricing?

*If I am anyone’s step-brother’s girlfriend’s cousin, would you please comment and tell me so? Because that would be awesome.

MJ Pullen

M.J. Pullen is a distracted writer and the mom of two boys in Roswell, Georgia, where she is absolutely late for something important right now. Her books include quirky romantic comedies and playful women's fiction. She blogs erratically with writing advice, random observations, and reflections on raising very loud kids and dogs. Join her Distracted Readers newsletter list for updates, free content, giveaways and more.