Johnny, this hit me right between the creative ribs—in the best way.
You’re speaking from a place of experience and confidence, and it’s something I think a lot of us indie or artisan authors need to hear more often. Not from a place of ego, but from alignment.
For me, I’ve typically priced my books to match titles from the big publishers. It felt like the “safe” spot—what readers expected. But the truth is, that mindset can unintentionally frame the work as “comparable” rather than distinct. And if we’re putting our hearts into creating not just a story, but an experience—then yeah, it makes sense to frame that value accordingly.
What I’ve tried to do instead is lean into value-add.
Not discounts, but meaningful extras—personalization, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive art, maps, audio, lore, the kinds of things that pull readers deeper into the world. Not because they’re gimmicks, but because they enhance the bond between the story and the reader.
It’s about saying:
“You didn’t just buy a book. You joined the adventure.”
Still, I’ve held back on higher pricing—not because I don’t believe in the worth, but because, honestly, I want my books in people’s hands. I want access. But what your post really reinforces is that access and sustainability aren’t mutually exclusive. The right readers will invest in what they love… especially if it’s authentic, and built with care.
So thank you for the reminder—and the challenge.
I think it’s time to look at pricing not as a hurdle…
…but as part of the story we tell about the worth of what we create.
Lovely comment! Your strategy about add-ons is how I view Kickstarter. I can charge more because the books I sell there are early access, but only up to a point. To fund what I'm doing, I tend to add extras like you describe, to justify a higher price.
I do think we should be reasonable. As I said in another comment, I think traditional publishers price too high for ebooks (because they're trying to force us into paperbacks and/or earn as much as possible on ebooks if they're forced to sell them), so I'm not planning to match them any time soon. It's not because I think my books are worth less than trad books; it's because I think trad ebooks are absurdly priced to begin with. What's the justification for pricing an ebook nearly as high as the paperback? The paperback has hard costs that justify the higher price, but raising an ebook price to almost that much just feels like a manipulative asshole move to me.
At a certain point, price does matter, but for different reasons. I think of this as "The Panera Mac and Cheese Effect." My kids like Panera Mac and cheese, but I hate buying it because a little cup of it is $8. Can I easily afford $8? Yes. Do I think ANY Mac and cheese is worth $8? No. IT'S FUCKING MAC AND CHEESE. When a plain old ebook (i.e., not a collection or omnibus) goes above $10, my gullible radar starts pinging. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay that much; it's that I feel like a sucker doing so ... or that the company selling it to me has successfully gotten me to go along with their abjectly greedy bullshit.
One of the great benefits of being an indie back around 2010 was that we could operate more lean than big publishers, without all that infrastructure, and therefore could easily afford to price our ebooks in a way that offered a benefit to the buyer while still protecting our profit. So while trad publishers were stumbling around like fools and asking $15 for an ebook, we could offer it for $5-7 and everyone would win. So I don't think we should throw that baby out with the bathwater. Let's price FAIR, not HIGH. Right now, we're pricing in a way that's unfair to us, and unfair to the buyers who want to support us.
Johnny, YES—I’m totally with you on this, and just to clarify my earlier comment: when I said I price to match Big 5, I was only referring to paperbacks and hardcovers. I absolutely do not match their eBook pricing.
Like you, I think the way trad pubs price digital books is… let’s just say, deeply suspect. 😅
I follow a similar approach to yours: paperbacks and hardbacks are placed on Amazon and other platforms at a slightly elevated price to account for their physical nature and platform costs. Then, on my own site, I can offer those same formats but with extras (I'm starting to experiment with 'bundles')—signed copies, exclusive downloads, lore content, behind-the-scenes artwork—because I want readers to feel like the best value always comes from buying direct.
It’s not just about supporting me as a creator; it’s about giving readers a richer experience.
And eBooks? Yeah, $5–$7 is my sweet spot too, but I have exceptions depending on size -- but never over $9.99 unless it's non-fiction. Feels fair to everyone, and like you said—keeps the spirit of what made indie publishing great in the first place: lean, direct, and reader-centered.
I love the way you put it: price FAIR, not HIGH.
That’s the target.
Always.
Oh, before I forget -- I wanted to bring up another point to back your article with personal experience.
I've been wiring this world and story in one from or another online since 2005. I started with selling my books at the same price point as the trad publishers.
Then the whole Amanda Hocking experience hit -- you remember her -- and when she made $2.2M on her own efforts in under a year at $0.99 a download, I second guessed myself.
SO I dropped books to a buck each.
Yes, I had some surges in sales, but they always...ALWAYS died off. Not the steady trickle.
Then my friend Barry Eisler appeared on the scene (he was the first person to give my comic books a review) and started talking Indie shop with Joe Konrath. If you remember any of those talks, they encouraged authors to charge slightly above the $0.99 price point.
SO, I raised my prices a tad.
Again, a fluctuation, but it died off.
It wasn't until I realized I was thinking all wrong and wanted to provide value, be able to live on my sales, and (MOST importantly, to me) be different from others I saw, did I price my books higher...and just left them alone.
Part was a 'take it or leave ot....that's totally okay' and part was, 'give me time and I'll show you why that's a great deal, because I'm gonna become one of your favorite author personalities.'
I think it's working. Not positive, but the sales are better, steady, and I'm happier...so there's that.
I have ZERO knowledge of Kickstarter, Johnny.
When people talk about it, I cringe. Only because I think I'd likely screw it up and fail.
I keep thinking that you, me, Joe, Barry, should all know each other and be having coffee from time to time. With all the books I've read, podcasts I've heard, and our conversations in comment sections, I have to remind myself that you and I have never met.
LOL...so weird.
I just tell myself, "Yeaaaah, Johnny and I are gonna be friends, he just doesn't know it yet."
The cartoonist in the back of my mind imagines you and me having blunt conversations with authors, you say something TOO true (you know what I mean), someone gets pissed off.
I start laughing, they look to me and I whisper, "Take off, Johnny. I'll slash their tires so they can't follow."
....
....uhhhh, that may or may not have happened to me in real life with another author.
I’m just starting out on my author journey (so _Adventure Time_ I guess), I never really knew what to price my novella at so I priced it as cheap as I could on Amazon to still be in the 60% royalty bracket. At the time that probably wasn’t the mistake I can see it is now. I’m actually serialising it on SubStack so technically it’s available for free as I want to build a readership (and will continue to do that). The role of my book(s) has changed and is now the way I’d like my readers to support my substack rather than signing up for a paid subscription, at least for the time being.
Yep -- this is an example of pricing low (or free) with a plan. Respect. I feel you should always get SOMETHING for your hard work, and in this case you are -- just not money.
I don't know what it is about creative types, but so many come with a deep psychological block around pricing. It's as bad as the resistance to self-promotion.
You'd think that some mind-worm from the stars crawled into the collective unconscious of the artist and made it sinful to support yourself with your work.
Yeah, I've thought a lot about that. I think that because our work is personal, it's hard for us to see it objectively. We're like, "This means a lot to me ... can it possibly mean as much to you?"
Just when I think you're done touching nerves and hitting it out of the park (and other random idioms from which I will spare you), along comes another Johnny Truant post where I end up yelling at the screen, "YES! YES! YES!" like I'm Meg Ryan in a diner with Billy Crystal.
Again, as usual, THANK YOU. I used to pride myself on *underselling* all the authors around me, but why am I doing that? Now I can't think of one good reason.
And I am ALL OVER that upcoming Kickstarter. I'm so grateful for your words—both the fiction and the nonfiction. You are a gem.
Thanks again, Linda! I've now got the Meg Ryan visual ... a great counterpoint to another comment I got today via email wherein the comparison was to Ed MacMahon's "YES!" exclamations during a Johnny Carson rant.
Really well written and pertinent article that I think a lot of indie authors need to read. You definitely hit the nail on the noggin when you talked about how true fans are willing to pay any price (well, almost any price) for authors they genuinely like. All the more reason to establish a voice and find a way to reach people with it.
One thing I discovered the hard way, is that there are quite a few people who really enjoy downloading free/$0.99 books ... but don't necessarily see the need to actually read them.
For some people, I think that price is a psychological disconnect. I've only bought a 99 cent book once, and it was doomed before I even opened it. I suppose I thought, "It only costs a buck. It must not be any good." For a lot of readers, I think it sets a negative upfront expectation that the book then has to try to overcome.
Ya know, the only caption I see is "Anyone who can name the parody here gets a virtual cookie." And I completely blanked on anything that made sense. And of course the unicorn just reminds me of Unicorn Western.
Apparently you're just too smart for us (or, at least, me). :)
My paperbacks have increased in price from $12.00 for the first book I published to $17.00 for the latest. I've been wondering if I should start pricing my ebooks at the same rate as my print books. After all, it's the same book; one is digital, the other print. I can't think of a reason why they shouldn't be priced the same.
And by the way, the reason traditional publishers price their ebooks so high (too high, in my opinion) isn't because it's the right price for the market. It's because they're actively trying to encourage paperback sales. They're artificially increasing ebook prices to make them undesirable. They know that people will think, "Well, it's only a few dollars more for the paperback and then at least I get something real, so I'll get that."
Or, in my case, I actually DO tend to balk at this point. Instead of thinking "I might as well get the paperback," I usually think, "Look at these pompous fuckers, thinking I don't see exactly what they're doing" and then I don't buy at all. I know I said in the post that the right readers will buy the book they want instead of walking away if the price seems too high, but I assumed we were being reasonable. When I see a $13.99 ebook, my resentment overpowers my fandom. I care MORE about not falling for their bullshit than I care about the book at that point.
I'm with Jon on this one. In my mind "pricing what you're worth" means setting a sensible price for that format in whatever circumstances and market you're in ... and in my opinion, ebooks priced TOO high feels like a dick move, almost arrogant. Paperbacks SHOULD be priced higher than their ebook counterparts because they consume real supplies, need to be printed and shipped, etc. So the customer logic feels right to me: electronic version + costs = lower price.
So if you invert that, then paperback - hard costs = lower price. Violating THAT feels as wrong as pricing your book at virtually nothing to begin with. It just doesn't make market sense.
I've worked in prepress for more than thirty years. A print edition of a book takes a lot more time since formatting is more of an art than strictly a science. And of course, paper and print costs, along with postage/shipping all add up. Formatting an e-book can take under an hour. Formatting a print edition can take weeks.
One big reason I find high e-book prices annoying is that I cannot lend an e-book to anyone. And I can't get the author to autograph them. (Well, I COULD ask an author to autograph my Kindle, but then it gets harder to read other books on the screen.) :)
As a tech savvy consumer I always balk at the sight of ebooks being priced the same as (or even higher) as their physical counterparts. I don’t buy into the convenience argument as a way to justify the extra price when the physical copy has to take production, storage and shipping costs into account- but that’s just my $0.02
Johnny, this hit me right between the creative ribs—in the best way.
You’re speaking from a place of experience and confidence, and it’s something I think a lot of us indie or artisan authors need to hear more often. Not from a place of ego, but from alignment.
For me, I’ve typically priced my books to match titles from the big publishers. It felt like the “safe” spot—what readers expected. But the truth is, that mindset can unintentionally frame the work as “comparable” rather than distinct. And if we’re putting our hearts into creating not just a story, but an experience—then yeah, it makes sense to frame that value accordingly.
What I’ve tried to do instead is lean into value-add.
Not discounts, but meaningful extras—personalization, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive art, maps, audio, lore, the kinds of things that pull readers deeper into the world. Not because they’re gimmicks, but because they enhance the bond between the story and the reader.
It’s about saying:
“You didn’t just buy a book. You joined the adventure.”
Still, I’ve held back on higher pricing—not because I don’t believe in the worth, but because, honestly, I want my books in people’s hands. I want access. But what your post really reinforces is that access and sustainability aren’t mutually exclusive. The right readers will invest in what they love… especially if it’s authentic, and built with care.
So thank you for the reminder—and the challenge.
I think it’s time to look at pricing not as a hurdle…
…but as part of the story we tell about the worth of what we create.
Lovely comment! Your strategy about add-ons is how I view Kickstarter. I can charge more because the books I sell there are early access, but only up to a point. To fund what I'm doing, I tend to add extras like you describe, to justify a higher price.
I do think we should be reasonable. As I said in another comment, I think traditional publishers price too high for ebooks (because they're trying to force us into paperbacks and/or earn as much as possible on ebooks if they're forced to sell them), so I'm not planning to match them any time soon. It's not because I think my books are worth less than trad books; it's because I think trad ebooks are absurdly priced to begin with. What's the justification for pricing an ebook nearly as high as the paperback? The paperback has hard costs that justify the higher price, but raising an ebook price to almost that much just feels like a manipulative asshole move to me.
At a certain point, price does matter, but for different reasons. I think of this as "The Panera Mac and Cheese Effect." My kids like Panera Mac and cheese, but I hate buying it because a little cup of it is $8. Can I easily afford $8? Yes. Do I think ANY Mac and cheese is worth $8? No. IT'S FUCKING MAC AND CHEESE. When a plain old ebook (i.e., not a collection or omnibus) goes above $10, my gullible radar starts pinging. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay that much; it's that I feel like a sucker doing so ... or that the company selling it to me has successfully gotten me to go along with their abjectly greedy bullshit.
One of the great benefits of being an indie back around 2010 was that we could operate more lean than big publishers, without all that infrastructure, and therefore could easily afford to price our ebooks in a way that offered a benefit to the buyer while still protecting our profit. So while trad publishers were stumbling around like fools and asking $15 for an ebook, we could offer it for $5-7 and everyone would win. So I don't think we should throw that baby out with the bathwater. Let's price FAIR, not HIGH. Right now, we're pricing in a way that's unfair to us, and unfair to the buyers who want to support us.
Johnny, YES—I’m totally with you on this, and just to clarify my earlier comment: when I said I price to match Big 5, I was only referring to paperbacks and hardcovers. I absolutely do not match their eBook pricing.
Like you, I think the way trad pubs price digital books is… let’s just say, deeply suspect. 😅
I follow a similar approach to yours: paperbacks and hardbacks are placed on Amazon and other platforms at a slightly elevated price to account for their physical nature and platform costs. Then, on my own site, I can offer those same formats but with extras (I'm starting to experiment with 'bundles')—signed copies, exclusive downloads, lore content, behind-the-scenes artwork—because I want readers to feel like the best value always comes from buying direct.
It’s not just about supporting me as a creator; it’s about giving readers a richer experience.
And eBooks? Yeah, $5–$7 is my sweet spot too, but I have exceptions depending on size -- but never over $9.99 unless it's non-fiction. Feels fair to everyone, and like you said—keeps the spirit of what made indie publishing great in the first place: lean, direct, and reader-centered.
I love the way you put it: price FAIR, not HIGH.
That’s the target.
Always.
Oh, before I forget -- I wanted to bring up another point to back your article with personal experience.
I've been wiring this world and story in one from or another online since 2005. I started with selling my books at the same price point as the trad publishers.
Then the whole Amanda Hocking experience hit -- you remember her -- and when she made $2.2M on her own efforts in under a year at $0.99 a download, I second guessed myself.
SO I dropped books to a buck each.
Yes, I had some surges in sales, but they always...ALWAYS died off. Not the steady trickle.
Then my friend Barry Eisler appeared on the scene (he was the first person to give my comic books a review) and started talking Indie shop with Joe Konrath. If you remember any of those talks, they encouraged authors to charge slightly above the $0.99 price point.
SO, I raised my prices a tad.
Again, a fluctuation, but it died off.
It wasn't until I realized I was thinking all wrong and wanted to provide value, be able to live on my sales, and (MOST importantly, to me) be different from others I saw, did I price my books higher...and just left them alone.
Part was a 'take it or leave ot....that's totally okay' and part was, 'give me time and I'll show you why that's a great deal, because I'm gonna become one of your favorite author personalities.'
I think it's working. Not positive, but the sales are better, steady, and I'm happier...so there's that.
I have ZERO knowledge of Kickstarter, Johnny.
When people talk about it, I cringe. Only because I think I'd likely screw it up and fail.
Such a trip back through time. I used to read Joe Konrath!
That's the thing that feels...odd.
I keep thinking that you, me, Joe, Barry, should all know each other and be having coffee from time to time. With all the books I've read, podcasts I've heard, and our conversations in comment sections, I have to remind myself that you and I have never met.
LOL...so weird.
I just tell myself, "Yeaaaah, Johnny and I are gonna be friends, he just doesn't know it yet."
The cartoonist in the back of my mind imagines you and me having blunt conversations with authors, you say something TOO true (you know what I mean), someone gets pissed off.
I start laughing, they look to me and I whisper, "Take off, Johnny. I'll slash their tires so they can't follow."
....
....uhhhh, that may or may not have happened to me in real life with another author.
Writing conventions can be weird places.
I’m just starting out on my author journey (so _Adventure Time_ I guess), I never really knew what to price my novella at so I priced it as cheap as I could on Amazon to still be in the 60% royalty bracket. At the time that probably wasn’t the mistake I can see it is now. I’m actually serialising it on SubStack so technically it’s available for free as I want to build a readership (and will continue to do that). The role of my book(s) has changed and is now the way I’d like my readers to support my substack rather than signing up for a paid subscription, at least for the time being.
Yep -- this is an example of pricing low (or free) with a plan. Respect. I feel you should always get SOMETHING for your hard work, and in this case you are -- just not money.
I think that's a good plan, Jon.
Great article/chapter.
I don't know what it is about creative types, but so many come with a deep psychological block around pricing. It's as bad as the resistance to self-promotion.
You'd think that some mind-worm from the stars crawled into the collective unconscious of the artist and made it sinful to support yourself with your work.
Yeah, I've thought a lot about that. I think that because our work is personal, it's hard for us to see it objectively. We're like, "This means a lot to me ... can it possibly mean as much to you?"
Just when I think you're done touching nerves and hitting it out of the park (and other random idioms from which I will spare you), along comes another Johnny Truant post where I end up yelling at the screen, "YES! YES! YES!" like I'm Meg Ryan in a diner with Billy Crystal.
Again, as usual, THANK YOU. I used to pride myself on *underselling* all the authors around me, but why am I doing that? Now I can't think of one good reason.
And I am ALL OVER that upcoming Kickstarter. I'm so grateful for your words—both the fiction and the nonfiction. You are a gem.
Thanks again, Linda! I've now got the Meg Ryan visual ... a great counterpoint to another comment I got today via email wherein the comparison was to Ed MacMahon's "YES!" exclamations during a Johnny Carson rant.
Thank you. Really. Can't wait to read the new book.
❤️ thank you for this
Really well written and pertinent article that I think a lot of indie authors need to read. You definitely hit the nail on the noggin when you talked about how true fans are willing to pay any price (well, almost any price) for authors they genuinely like. All the more reason to establish a voice and find a way to reach people with it.
One thing I discovered the hard way, is that there are quite a few people who really enjoy downloading free/$0.99 books ... but don't necessarily see the need to actually read them.
For some people, I think that price is a psychological disconnect. I've only bought a 99 cent book once, and it was doomed before I even opened it. I suppose I thought, "It only costs a buck. It must not be any good." For a lot of readers, I think it sets a negative upfront expectation that the book then has to try to overcome.
I agree %100.
Unfortunately, I think many indie authors still believe they must sell their works at such prices, or else they will be unable to compete.
I can't believe nobody is getting the parody mentioned in the caption of the top image.
Ya know, the only caption I see is "Anyone who can name the parody here gets a virtual cookie." And I completely blanked on anything that made sense. And of course the unicorn just reminds me of Unicorn Western.
Apparently you're just too smart for us (or, at least, me). :)
I have priced all of my ebooks at $5.00.
My paperbacks have increased in price from $12.00 for the first book I published to $17.00 for the latest. I've been wondering if I should start pricing my ebooks at the same rate as my print books. After all, it's the same book; one is digital, the other print. I can't think of a reason why they shouldn't be priced the same.
What do you think?
And by the way, the reason traditional publishers price their ebooks so high (too high, in my opinion) isn't because it's the right price for the market. It's because they're actively trying to encourage paperback sales. They're artificially increasing ebook prices to make them undesirable. They know that people will think, "Well, it's only a few dollars more for the paperback and then at least I get something real, so I'll get that."
Or, in my case, I actually DO tend to balk at this point. Instead of thinking "I might as well get the paperback," I usually think, "Look at these pompous fuckers, thinking I don't see exactly what they're doing" and then I don't buy at all. I know I said in the post that the right readers will buy the book they want instead of walking away if the price seems too high, but I assumed we were being reasonable. When I see a $13.99 ebook, my resentment overpowers my fandom. I care MORE about not falling for their bullshit than I care about the book at that point.
I'm with Jon on this one. In my mind "pricing what you're worth" means setting a sensible price for that format in whatever circumstances and market you're in ... and in my opinion, ebooks priced TOO high feels like a dick move, almost arrogant. Paperbacks SHOULD be priced higher than their ebook counterparts because they consume real supplies, need to be printed and shipped, etc. So the customer logic feels right to me: electronic version + costs = lower price.
So if you invert that, then paperback - hard costs = lower price. Violating THAT feels as wrong as pricing your book at virtually nothing to begin with. It just doesn't make market sense.
I've worked in prepress for more than thirty years. A print edition of a book takes a lot more time since formatting is more of an art than strictly a science. And of course, paper and print costs, along with postage/shipping all add up. Formatting an e-book can take under an hour. Formatting a print edition can take weeks.
One big reason I find high e-book prices annoying is that I cannot lend an e-book to anyone. And I can't get the author to autograph them. (Well, I COULD ask an author to autograph my Kindle, but then it gets harder to read other books on the screen.) :)
As a tech savvy consumer I always balk at the sight of ebooks being priced the same as (or even higher) as their physical counterparts. I don’t buy into the convenience argument as a way to justify the extra price when the physical copy has to take production, storage and shipping costs into account- but that’s just my $0.02