Julie Broad (The Book Broad) explains how indie authors should price books for international markets, focusing on Amazon and Ingram. She covers available Amazon marketplaces, using category and keyword localization, researching competitive prices per country, currency rounding, and setting market-specific prices to optimize sales and compensation. Practical tips include using Publisher Rocket to change categories, checking Ingram’s five regional price settings, and matching prices to local category norms to avoid under- or over-pricing.
Questions this video answers
13 (US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, India, Australia, Spain, Italy, France, the UK and Germany).
US, UK, Europe, Canada and Australia.
About 30% higher (often) even after currency exchange.
About 50–70% higher (often).
Chapters
No matter where you are in the world today, you can buy a book with the click of a button. That provides some great opportunities for you when you publish a book. But to take advantage of international markets and optimize potential sales, you've got to price your book right. If you're wondering how to price your book for international markets, then this video is for you. Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of a fabulous self publishing services team called Book Launchers. Your book sales aren't limited to just your country. At Book Launchers, our marketing is focused on the North American market, but inevitably you'll find yourself with international viewers and buyers. Hat tip to my international peeps like Kevin McGuire, Allen West, Mike Herd, and of course Robert Bell, none of these fabulous folks are on this continent, but they found Book Launchers. So even if your marketing focuses on North America, you'll want to make sure your international pricing is ready to rock. If your book is available on KDP, you already have access to 13 different international markets without needing to go through the work of licensing your rights to reach other markets. On Amazon, you get to choose your main marketplace, and when you choose your primary marketplace, you're telling Amazon which market you think is the main market for your book. So your 13 options are US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, India, Australia, Spain, Italy, France, the UK and Germany. 13. Quite the world traveler Amazon is. Now, Amazon uses your book language to determine your main market, but you're not stuck in that main market. If you're hoping to optimize your book for increased international sales, there are many ways to do that, including changing your book categories in your different markets. If you're setting out to do this, I recommend Publisher Rocket. Our affiliate link is book launchers.com Rocket. I'll put that in the description below, but this is the easiest and quickest way to change your categories because you simply select your chosen country. Use Unleash the Categories feature in the category feature to browse through all the options and then you find your new categories. You can then contact Amazon and ask them to update your book browse categories in that market. You can also select keywords for international markets to increase your book's discoverability. For example, words can be spelled differently in English depending on the location. British and my fellow Canadians, we include a lot of U's in words that many Americans don't think need a U. So consider the different variations of your keywords or if there are phrases common in other countries for your topics and you can use one of your 7 keywords spots in Amazon for the translation of your top keywords for foreign marketplaces. But you still need to think about pricing. So take that category research you did and head to Amazon for the country you're pricing for and check out what the books in that category are selling for in print and ebook format. Take a look at their size and any other details and then compare that to the US Amazon for that category. And what you'll find is that typically books in Canada and Australia are higher priced than US books in even after currency exchange in Canada, they're often about 30% higher. So depending on exchange rates, that's often still a higher price for a book in Canada than in the US. In Australia, they're almost always 50 to 70% higher than the price of an American book. So you want to do research on that market for your category before you just calculate the US price and convert it and spread it around. Cheaper is not always better. Plus you're leaving money on the table if you sell cheaper than you need to. On the other side of that, if you're selling in a country that prices books much lower, you'll be setting yourself up to collect dust or just not sell. This is an old chart, but it illustrates my point about price differences around the world. So we've mostly been talking about Amazon, but you'll also want to head to Ingram and check out your book information. You'll see your pricing and compensation info for the five markets available. US, uk, Europe, Canada and Australia. If you leave any of those options blank, your book won't be available in that market. Ingram must be told the list price or they won't sell it because they don't know how much to charge. When you're considering international prices, you want to consider your competition, but you also want to think about about your compensation. You can use the calculators on Ingram, I'll link to one below and Amazon to calculate your compensation. But ultimately you have to keep in mind that it's more about the competition and the category you're going to be in than what you want to make per book. A price that's too high, especially compared to other books in that category, will not have much success and you'll be putting yourself at a disadvantage. So once you've figured out your prices for each of these five markets, set each on Ingram, there's a currency converter right there on the page to help you out. And if your US dollar price converts to a funky looking number in a different currency, it's a good idea to round it up or down. Weird looking numbers can actually have an effect on buying decisions when it comes to your book. So if your price converts to something like $15.34, you can go in and round it to something smooth like $15 or $15.99, which has a better chance of a sale because it doesn't look funky to your prospective buyers. On Amazon, you can also set an individual price point for each international market. Let me just show you what this looks like. You just head into your pricing section to do this. Keep in mind that when you set a price in US dollars, Amazon will convert it to that country's currency from your US price. So you should go through each and make adjustments so you don't have weird numbers and you're able to price it appropriately for that country. Because again, converting the US Dollars to the currency in another country doesn't always optimize the pricing. Optimizing your book for international markets can be incredibly lucrative. Or or it could be a total flop and a drain of your resources. How do you know? Look at how your book is performing in its target market. If you're struggling to get sales in that market, then you need to rethink your marketing strategy, not just your market. Lucky for you, I have some videos for that, so check out this one right here on Successful Book Marketing Tips. If your book's not selling, one of these reasons might be why. So take your pick and I'll put on some coffee and we can hang out a little longer.
