How Should You Price Your Book? 5 Strategies That Work
Finding the perfect price for your books isn't guesswork, it's one of the most powerful marketing levers you have as an author.
The truth? The only way to truly unlock your maximum profitability is through consistent, disciplined testing. That means dedicating a month to each price point, applying the same marketing effort, and letting the data reveal where you generate the most income.
At Seven Figure Author Career, we’ve worked with authors across genres, and here’s what we’ve learned: what drives huge success for one series may not work for another. Still, building brand expectations through pricing helps maintain loyal readership.
This article, based on the proven strategies developed by bestselling author coach Rebecca Hamilton, will walk you through five of the most effective book pricing strategies for self-published authors, when they work best, and how to test them for your own career.
Top 5 Pricing Strategies to Boost Profit
01. First in Series Free (FISF)
Setting the first book in a series to Free is a strategy with limitations, yet it remains incredibly effective, especially for authors just starting out or those publishing wide (outside of Kindle Unlimited).
The Goal: To achieve the lowest possible Cost Per Reader Acquisition (CPRA). The real profit comes entirely from the "sell-through" rate to subsequent paid books.
The Trade-Off: While conversions are naturally highest when a book is free, we've found that the sales bump isn't enough to justify a large ad spend. Furthermore, sell-through from free books to paid books tends to be lower overall.
Best Practice: For authors getting started, FISF is a great option. Stick to low-cost promotion methods: think newsletter swaps, free group campaigns, or promotion sites like BookBub.
Post-Free Pricing: Once you understand your sell-through metrics, you can strategically price the next books. While a slow rise works for some (e.g., Book 2 at $0.99 before moving to $2.99+), a higher price point on the next books can offset a lower sell-through rate. We generally recommend aiming for $3.99 to $4.99 for Book 2 and then staying there or going up a dollar for the rest of the series.
A Word of Caution: Novellas should not be priced above $3.99 (with rare exceptions) and should generally be published wide. Never use a novella as the free starter followed by full-length paid books.
02. First Book at $0.99
Pricing Book 1 at $0.99 aims for a sweet spot: conversions won't be as high as free, but they should be significantly higher than $2.99+. The crucial factor here is the subsequent sell-through rate.
Platform Advantage: $0.99 works better for Kindle Unlimited and for those aggressively running ads. In KU, the earnings from a full page read will likely exceed the $0.99 sale price.
The Reader: This price attracts readers who are willing to pay for content, meaning your sell-through to the next, higher-priced book is likely to be higher.
Pricing Path: From here, you can step the price up for later books (see Dollar-Stepping below). If you're writing in a semi-serial model with short "episodes" (20,000–30,000 words), keeping all books at $0.99 can be very effective, but your writing style for serials must be tightly controlled.
03. Start High, Stay High ($5.99 to $9.99)
This strategy requires total confidence in your product. You will sell fewer copies, but the higher price point means you make significantly more per copy sold.
The Math: Conversions will be lower (especially wide), but the value of each sale can make you profitable even with a low sell-through. For KU authors, you’ll still move the same number of KU copies as if you were priced lower.
Quality Control: This is a hard price point for new authors to command, and poor quality will immediately result in returns, which impacts your bottom line.
Book Length: This is NOT for short books. Aim for a minimum of 80,000 words, and ideally between 90,000 and 150,000 words. (a perfect fit for genres like Fantasy).
Enhance the Experience: Justify the price by offering special bonuses, like custom artwork, public playlists, or downloadable content. Make the purchase feel like a premium experience. This strategy works exceptionally well when paired with ads.
04. Dollar-Stepping
Dollar-Stepping is the art of escalating your prices as reader loyalty grows, rewarding them for taking the initial leap into your series.
The Execution: Start your first book at $2.99 or higher (we recommend $3.99–$5.99) and increase the price by a dollar every few books.
Examples:
Book 1: $3.99, remaining books: $4.99.
Book 1: $4.99, Books 2, 3, 4: $5.99, Books 5, 6, 7: $6.99.
Your Limits: Genre expectations, book quality, and your current author popularity will dictate how far you can push this, but price testing is the ultimate dictator of success. This strategy is highly effective with ads.
05. Collection Pricing
If you need to hit a $9.99 price point to be profitable but can’t command that on a single book, collection pricing is your answer.
The Bundle: Offer 2–3 books per collection (priced at $5.99 to $9.99) or bundle an entire series into one large collection.
Strategic Discount: Your pricing should offer a slight discount compared to buying the books individually. This encourages read-through, but the discount shouldn't be so large that it hurts your revenue.
Timing: Only use this strategy when needed. Don't automatically release every finished series as a collection. Collections are perfect for filling release gaps, ensuring you remain active in the sales algorithm.
Curious how other authors structure their bundles and price collections? Our Facebook group is full of examples and success stories you can check out.
The Bottom Line
There’s no single “perfect” price for your books. The key is testing, understanding your genre, and aligning your pricing strategy with your business goals.
If you’d like to see how other authors applied these pricing strategies to grow their careers, explore our author case studies. These real-world examples show the exact steps writers took to scale from struggling with sales to earning six and seven figures.
CLAIM OUR EXCLUSIVE PRICE-TESTING TOOL
For a limited time, we are giving away our proprietary price-testing tool as a bonus to everyone who attends a free strategy call with our team.
That said, free strategy calls are available by approved application only, due to the limited availability of our team (we always prioritize our mentees but strive to give back to the community!).
If you would like to apply for a free call to revolutionize your pricing strategy, apply here!
And if you’re not ready for a call yet, browse Six Figure Author Career for more articles, tools, and strategies to help you grow.
