How Should You Price Your Writing?

This is the first in a series introducing the basics of how to get paid to write.

D. recently asked: How do you feel about the .99 and 2.99 pricing model?

Ev: I haven't ever priced my work as low as $.99 or $2.99. It's hard for me to imagine making much money at that price point as a writer.

I can see how some writers have been able to make it work. I heard that one author has been able to sell a million books at $.99 on Amazon. The trouble with that is just that: you need to sell millions of books.

If I priced my work at $2.99, I'd need to sell 33,333 books to make $100,000. If I priced my work at $.99, I'd need to sell 100,000.

The number of people reading our work isn't getting bigger, it's getting smaller. The television era, with Oprah and other giants selling massive amounts of books with their captive televisions audiences is over.

What's left when huge television audiences are gone? A small number of people paying a little more than the cost of one hardcover book monthly to support the work of authors who they truly enjoy.

Maybe Seth Godin is right, we are all weird, strange and different.

Selling a million books at $.99 to me seems unachievable.

Inviting 333 people to join me in an intimate space at $25 a month? That sounds like a dream that I live in.