Pricing: Keep it Simple
Avery’s Battlefield and Avery’s Crossroad are each priced at $10. This is lovely for me at signings; really speeds things along. Many times a family purchasing Battlefield hands me a $20 and then decides, “Oh, keep it, just give us both books.” Or they decide since it's just $10, they can buy both.
I went to a dog show with my therapy dog book .......
After my bargain sale of three dog books for $30 I decided to continue selling the dog book for $10. No need to make change at all! Then Bread Upon the Water joined us at $12.95. With what I’d learned by observing my customers’ buying habits, I called it $13. I needed single bills for change, still pretty simple.
When Cracks in the Ice joined the table at $14.99, I saw a new trend in the money handling. It’s easy for parents to hand over a $10 for a book for a kid. Thirteen, well maybe. Fifteen? A little more hesitancy. Knowing that families would like to buy multiple books for different aged kids but didn't have the cash, I decided to help them out.
With the help of my iPad and and the app, Square, I now take credit cards. Easy as pie. I’ve had credit card sales at every outing since I started offering the service, averaging $50 or more. In some cases that courtesy made a difference in making the sale or no sale. We've already discussed my technology challenges in an earlier blog. One time I was distressed to discover even though I'd used their credit cards, I had tendered the transactions as cash. I gave away six books! Won't make that same mistake again.
If I could offer any advice on the money end of this, it would be to keep the pricing simple. But, alas, unless you are self-published, you don’t have much to say about that. The publisher comes up with the prices. Folks love it when you say, $10, $13, $15. Whatever the product is you are selling, keep the pricing simple and you'll sell more.