Buying a book today is a matter of clicking a button, no matter where you are in the world. This convenience brought by technology provides great opportunities when you publish a book. But, to take advantage of international markets and optimize potential sales, you’ve got to know how to price your book for international markets.
If you’re wondering how to do just that, stick around. This article is for you.
Your book sales aren’t limited to just your country. At Book Launchers, our marketing focuses on the North American market. But, inevitably, you’ll find yourself with international viewers and buyers.
Optimizing Your Book for International Sales
If your book is available on KDP, you already have access to 13 different international markets. You won’t need 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 main marketplace, you’re telling Amazon which market you think is the major market for your book.
Your 13 options are U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, India, Australia, Spain, Italy, France, the U.K., and Germany. That’s 13 in all. 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.
Change Categories For Different Markets
There are many ways to optimize your book for international sales, including changing your book categories for each different market. If you’re setting out to do this, I recommend Publisher Rocket.
Publisher Rocket is the easiest and quickest way to change your categories. Select your chosen country, use the “Unleash the Categories” feature in the Category section to browse through all the options, and then you find your new categories. Afterward, you can contact Amazon and ask them to update your book browse categories for 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 to need a U.
Check Out How Others Price their Book for International Markets
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. Evaluate their size along with the formats when you are looking how to price your book for international markets. You’ll also want to look at how different books price out on U.S. Amazon for that category relative to other countries. For example, you’ll find that typically, books in Canada and Australia are priced higher than U.S. books, even after currency exchange.
They’re often about 30% higher in Canada. Regardless of exchange rates, you’ll still find a higher price for a book in Canada than in the U.S.
In Australia, books sell for 50% to 70% higher than the same book in the US. If you price your book for an international market without taking into consideration the differences in market standards you could be underpricing or overpricing your book. So you want to research that market for your category before you calculate the U.S. price, convert it, and spread it around.
Ingram is Your Friend
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: U.S., U.K., Europe, Canada, and Australia.
If you leave any of those options blanks, your book won’t be available in that market. You must tell Ingram the list price, or they won’t sell it because they just won’t know how much to charge.
Strike A Balance Between Competition and Compensation
When considering how to price your book for an international market you want to study your competition, but you also want to consider your compensation. You can use the calculators on Ingram 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.
Steer Clear of Weird-Looking Numbers In Your Pricing
There’s a currency converter on Ingram’s page to help you but you need to use judgment, not just use their conversion.
Weird-looking numbers in pricing can actually affect buying decisions for your book. If your price converts to something like $15.34, you should round it to something smooth, like $15 or $15.99.
Pricing your book this way gives you a better chance of getting 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.
You’re also able to price it appropriately for that country, because again, converting the U.S. dollars to the currency in another country doesn’t always optimize the pricing.
It’s Always All About The Market
Optimizing your book for international markets can be incredibly lucrative, 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, 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.
Another great marketing research tool for authors is K-Lytics. Check out this video on their product here:
Take your pick. I’ll put on some coffee, and we can hang out a little longer.
At Book Launchers, we provide full-service professional book publishing and book marketing.
Check out our list of services to learn more about how we help self-publish authors like you get their ideas out there.