Book pricing is where otherwise sensible people begin saying “I’ll just try £9.99” as if the number arrived on stone tablets. It did not. It arrived from a mixture of production cost, reader expectation, comparable books, retailer rules and the slightly inconvenient question of whether anyone wants this particular book badly enough to pay for it.

Tony’s approach is less mystical and more useful. Start with the price that has worked for a comparable previous book. Check what the format costs to make. Look at the market you actually occupy. Then ask whether you have created enough demand to justify asking a new reader to take a chance on you.

Price follows demand. Your confidence may send a postcard from there.

Start with continuity, not a spreadsheet fever dream

If the previous book in the same series or format was sensibly priced and nothing material has changed, that price is a perfectly good anchor. Readers learn a house price. A sudden unexplained leap can look less like commercial strategy than somebody discovering the settings menu after two glasses of wine.

A modest new-release premium can make sense if your audience expects it, with the price later returning to the usual level. That is a choice, not a sacred launch ritual. The point is continuity: readers should feel that the price belongs to the book and the author, not that it was picked from a tombola.

Tony’s current house example for an average novel ebook is £3.99 in the UK and $4.99 in the US. Those are his working prices and his commercial judgement, not universal advice. The useful principle is deliberate market pricing rather than blind currency conversion. A price can be mathematically equivalent and still feel odd in the shop where the reader is standing.

A cover price is not the money you receive

Paperback and hardback pricing have a problem ebooks do not: somebody has to manufacture the object. Page count, trim size, ink, paper and marketplace affect the printing cost. KDP’s current paperback printing-cost guidance makes the logic plain, and its print pricing page explains that royalties are calculated after the applicable rate and printing cost. The cover price is not a little envelope of profit waiting on the doormat.

This is why Tony does not try to impose an arbitrary gap between ebook, paperback and hardback. You do not really set the gap between formats. Production costs do. Hardback may feel more premium and more collectable, but it also costs more to make. Forcing it down to an attractive number can turn a handsome format into an expensive hobby.

The cover price is not a royalty wearing a nice coat.

Unknown authors are selling trust as well as a book

Major authors and familiar publishers can charge more because recognition lowers the reader’s perceived risk. A reader who already trusts the name is making a different decision from somebody taking a punt on an unfamiliar cover in a crowded store. That is not a moral judgement. It is simply the market refusing to be impressed by your internal monologue.

Look at comparable books in your broad genre and tier. What feels normal for a new or independent author? What does your cover, blurb, sample and product page communicate before the reader has opened the wallet? If a fairly priced book is not selling, Tony would investigate the packaging, positioning, metadata, opening and interior before immediately reaching for the discount lever.

Set a fair market price, then make the book earn it. A cheaper price cannot rescue a cover that signals the wrong genre or a blurb that has mistaken itself for a police statement.

Discounting is a tool. Free is a different argument.

Tony draws a sharp line between a temporary discount and giving the book away. A short promotion can lower the barrier for a new reader without teaching them that the book has no value. Free downloads, in his experience, can collect impressive numbers while producing very little actual reading. Downloads are not demand. They are often just tidying for people who have not yet bought another Kindle.

There is an exception worth understanding. Book One in a long series can operate as a loss leader if later books carry the economics. Even then, Tony generally prefers a deep temporary price rather than permanent free. The reader has still made a small commitment, and the offer has a reason rather than becoming the permanent price of admission.

Free downloads are not necessarily readers. Your hard drive has met plenty.

Do not run the same predictable sale every month merely because the calendar has changed its tie. Readers notice patterns. If they learn that every new release will be half-price next Thursday, you have trained them to wait politely while you wonder where launch-day sales went.

Success is not permission to punish the reader

If a book starts selling well, Tony would not raise its house price just because demand has strengthened. He would keep the price fair and put more effort into promotion. The argument is straightforward: success is not permission to punish the reader for having noticed you.

For ebooks, retailer mechanics matter as well as instinct. KDP currently offers 35% and 70% royalty options, with price bands, territory rules and delivery costs affecting the eventual royalty. Its digital-book pricing guidance is the place to check the live rules before changing a price. Do the arithmetic in the market you are selling into, not in a pleasingly vague idea of “global”.

The .99 ending is much the same. It works largely because readers are used to it. Tony does not treat it as psychological sorcery; he treats it as familiar retail convention. A round-number price may be perfectly defensible, but it can feel strangely formal when every comparable book has turned up wearing .99.

The final question is mercifully short

Before changing a price, ask: is the book fairly positioned for the audience, format and demand it actually has? If the answer is yes, do not treat price as a confession that the book has failed. Improve the discoverability, the presentation and the reasons for a reader to care.

If you are still building the rest of the commercial machinery around a finished manuscript, So You Finished the Book. Now What? is a useful place to start. Price the book honestly. Then give it something worth paying for.

Platform pricing rules, royalties and print costs change. Check the current terms and calculator for your format, territory and title before making a commercial decision.