Ebooks pricing is a complicated issue with a fraught and controversial history, believe it or not!
The very short version of the way things have evolved is that historically, Amazon KDP has punished self-published authors for pricing their ebooks above $9.99.
You can still see this here:
Note that the "USD List Price Requirements for Amazon.com" set a "Maximum List Price" for the "70% Royalty Option" of "$9.99".
The upshot is that if you want to price your book above $9.99, you have to choose the "35% Royalty Option", i.e. you get half the royalty rate if you price your book above $9.99. (It's more complicated than that, but this explanation captures the general situation.)
So, anyone who thinks their ebooks should be sold for more than $9.99 has a good motivation to use Leanpub instead of KDP, even though Amazon obviously has a lot more eyeballs.
Now, in our opinion, lots of ebooks ought to be worth more than $9.99.
Nick Russo's book is over a million words and was possibly the only comprehensive book about a very special type of certification, that meant people could get life-changing promotions and earn higher salaries.
People with that motivation are willing to pay high prices, and may be able to use a corporate budget to buy the ebook, or even possibly get a tax deduction.
That's a different perspective from the old debates about "What should an ebook cost?", which basically looked at things from the publisher's and the bookseller's perspective, not the author's or the customer's perspective.
It's still ok to price books at $1.99-$9.99 on Leanpub though! It just depends on your goals, your audience, how you're marketing your books, etc.
If you have any feedback or questions about this article, please email the Leanpub team about it at hello@leanpub.com!
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