Amazon.com announced their new e-book reader, Kindle, the other day. What I found most interesting in the article is the suggested selling price for best-sellers was $10.
The reason I find this interesting is that it will set an upper limit for how much e-books can sell for. Let's say you're trying to sell a beginner's guide to Windows Vista for $40, but the customer can go out to Amazon.com and buy an electronic version of Windows Vista for Dummies for $10 or less, it's going to be a tough sell. Not only will you be pricing yourself out of sales, but you have to compete with the history and reputation of the ...for Dummies brand.
Whether or not Kindle takes off and becomes the success Amazon is hoping for is yet to be determined, but whether it succeeds or fails, it's going to establish an upper limit on how much e-books will sell for. To get the higher price points, you're going to have to convince people that either your information is something they can't get in mass-market books, or that it contains so much information it's worth the price tag, which is going to be tough for many beginners to do.
This is why I've been suggesting people start with sub-$10 products to start, like those suggested in $7 Secrets and Small Reports Fortune. I think products in the $5–10 range are much easier to sell and result in fewer returns than products in the $30–up category. So, if you haven't started yet, use any upcoming time off this holiday season to get a few reports/mini-books completed and start 2008 off with some easy and long-term profitable sales.
