Pricing, retailer space, and promotions

How does it work for your books?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to write a bit about how publisher pricing works, and about how we promote books in different formats, as I think this can be a bit tricky to understand from the outside.

So, when you sell your book to a publishing house, your publisher will then decide on the pricing. We usually look at this during the pre-acquisition stage, and these days, most paperbacks are priced at an RRP of £9.99 (when I began in publishing in 2013, this was £7.99). Hardbacks are now often priced at between £16.99-£20 for standard fiction, sometimes even £22 (for example if it has a particularly elaborate jacket and finish - a finish means things like spot UV, foil, embossing. Spot UV is what makes some books look shiny!). Lots of hardbacks are priced at £18.99 these days. The reason for this increase is essentially the same as with other products - a combination of Brexit, Covid, the cost of living crisis, and in 2025 it is more expensive than it used to be to print books - paper costs more, shipping costs more. So publishers had to raise prices as a result. FUN!

In terms of the digital formats (ebook and audio) we also control these, and then these prices change and are reduced for certain time periods, based on promotions run by retailers such as Amazon, Kobo, Apple, and Audible.

The physical formats are then also discounted by retailers - e.g. Waterstones or an Independent store can choose to put a book into a half price promotion, and shops such as The Works, WHS and supermarkets usually sell paperbacks for lower prices. So as a consumer you might not always pay the full RRP.

Pitching for price promotions is usually something which goes on very much behind the scenes, but it can be a source of anxiety to writers (especially when it comes to ebooks) so I thought I would try to explain it a little bit using the experience I have.

Different publishers will have different rules in place, and some publishing houses price ebooks very low at 99p, aiming to drive lots of volume, whereas others aim for more value, and ebooks can be as much as £9.99 or higher. A lot depends on the overall strategy; whether the author is a debut or someone with an existing audience who are happy to pay more; the genre of the book and the current market and climate. The digital space is EXTREMELY crowded, and there are now lots of digital-first publishers, successful self-published authors, and of course Amazon itself as a publisher (Amazon has its own publishing arm, with divisions such as Thomas + Mercer and Lake Union) who are launching low-priced ebooks, as well as some that go straight into Kindle Unlimited (this is a subscription service that lots of the big publishers are now signed up to, and can be excellent at driving sales). Low pricing can really help gain traction and visibility from the start, but it doesn’t always work, and some publishers prefer to hold the ebook at a higher price first and then enter it for promotions a little further down the line, partly so as not to detract from the physical format (though by and large, different consumers are buying the different formats in my opinion).

To be clear, it’s not that publishers think the books are only worth 99p – of course, having written myself I know exactly how much effort, heart, tears and soul goes into writing a novel, but as a business publishers do have to be competitive and we have to listen to the market, hence the low price where possible. (The problem is once one publisher starts doing it, everyone has to do it a bit as well in order to be competitive). However, it’s rare for ebooks to stay priced at 99p indefinitely – after a period of time (usually a few months) the book might be raised in price to either £1.99 / £2.99 / £3.99 or higher. Sometimes, your publisher might even make your ebook free for a short period of time, with the aim being that this drives the book up the charts and increases visibility, and translates into paid sales once the price moves back up (there are free book charts on Amazon).

Once authors begin to backlist, we will be able to tell whether they are building up reader loyalty, and the publisher can then price their third book (for example) higher because we know people already love the author and will be prepared to pay a little more – ie. it’s not a ‘risk’ for the consumer in the same way as a debut is. Most publishers will have an analytics team that will analyse the ASP (average selling price) of your novel and make decisions on pricing accordingly. Most also have regular meetings to review digital pricing and decide if anything needs to be altered.

A key reason for raising an ebook price is because retailers like Amazon have set rules about eligibility for promotions – if a book has only ever been at 99p, it won’t be eligible for lots of the major deals that Kindle advertises. Therefore, it’s about being strategic as publishers and ensuring we are shifting our pricing in order to maximise opportunities for an author and their book. These sort of opportunities in the ebook market primarily come from retailers Amazon, Kobo and Apple (iBooks), with Amazon being the biggest player. They range from promotions called Kindle Monthly Deals, where Amazon drop a book’s price to 99p and give it extra visibility for one month, to big sales like the Kindle Summer Sale where a range of titles are promoted all summer at 99p. Apple run lots of genre-based promotions, such as ‘Bestselling Psychological Thrillers’ or books to make you laugh / cry, and again they will then drop the price and promote the book on their homepage, usually in image form (banners / solus blocks).

Promotions are a real target for publishers, as they usually provide the selected books with a nice boost in sales and chart rankings. How it works in my experience is that the Digital team will pitch titles they think are suitable to the e-tailers (once the editor has signed off on the chosen titles) and once the e-tailer makes their selection, the editor informs the author and agent. Your publisher might not tell you until the promotion is actually guaranteed, as there is no point getting hopes up unnecessarily, though they might inform you that it is part of their strategy on acquisition or a little in advance. And it’s always fine to ask what the digital plans are for your book!

There are also smaller, shorter promotions such as Daily Deals or sales around particular events, e.g. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas, and all titles are up against competition from other publishers. Usually, titles with lots of reviews are more likely to get selected – a good reason why you should ask people to review your book if they have time and enjoyed it!

The nice thing about ebook promotions is that they can be flexible – your publisher can pitch backlist titles too, so even if your book came out over a year ago, it might still be selected for a sale and get a nice new lease of life (same goes for if it came out multiple years ago!) We have re-jacketed older ebooks for specific sales too, again with great results. If you have a big backlist, you could be eligible for a Goldbox Kindle deal whereby Amazon will promote lots of your books at once, hence why you sometimes see a lot of one particular author’s titles in the Kindle top 100 for a period of time (though they can then drop back down).

Audio wise, it’s quite similar - once a book has at least 20 reviews on Audible we can pitch it for Audible promotions, including 2 for 1 sales, audiobook of the week promotions (Apple have an effective one) and genre or time of year specific promotions. We analyse the list each month and put forward the books we think are most likely to be selected, and if they are selected, we let authors and agents know and we can support with extra advertising spend sometimes, too, alerting readers to a lower price point (same goes for ebooks). We’re seeing big growth in the audio market, especially now that books are available through Spotify, and for some titles publishers can try Spotify advertising, too.

For your ebooks there is also Bookbub, a marketing tool that is paid for by the publisher. Bookbub is a US based company who send email blasts out to their very large newsletter list, advertising 99p price drops, and these can be very effective in terms of boosting sales (you usually see a good spike the morning after a Bookbub runs). It’s worth signing up for Bookbub if you don’t already, as it’s quite interesting to see what gets promoted (plus, you get deals!)

In terms of your paperback, publishers can pitch to all physical retailers, though it is at the discretion of the sales team (with input from other departments) as to whether they choose to or not. Places like Waterstones choose the books they want to support, and we do not pay for that support, but we do pay for slots in WHS and the supermarkets (when I say we, I mean all publishers, not specifically mine). For these, the retailer will control the pricing – our sales reps will pitch the books to the buyers, and they will make their selections as to what goes in store and at what price (these meetings are a good example of why a great cover and title is so important, as the buyer looks at lots of books at once, and needs to make decisions based on whether they think the book will sell through for them).

Deals will be done between publishers and stores, and all this will determine where your paperback gets placed – for example, it might go into all 500 Asda stores, or it might go into half of them. It might be priced at £5 or it might be in a Buy One Get One Free deal. This isn’t something that you as an author can control, so essentially try not to worry too much about it – your publisher will give you the information when they get it. Publishers pitch to retailers at different points in the year, so editorially it is important that for my authors I ensure the book has a strong jacket in time for those meetings, and that the Advance Information team is up to date and working as hard as possible to sell the book, too.

The other thing to mention here is that often, supermarkets and other bookstores make their selections very late in the day, so you could receive the info even just a week / a few days before your publication day. This is NORMAL – do not worry! These days, far fewer books are sold through the supermarkets than when I first started, as the retailers have cut their space and become much more risk averse, often only stocking mega-brands. So as a publishing industry, we have to look for other places to reach readers. The Works has grown a lot in the past few years, and their book sales now go through the TCM (total consumer market - the Nielsen bookscan data platform) meaning they can help contribute to a strong overall volume. This change was made in the last few years (I can’t remember exactly when now!) They are still classed as a special sale, meaning the author receives a special sale royalty. Other special sale outlets include Aldi, Lidl, and gift shops such as Oliver Bonas etc (who tend to stock more gifty, non fiction titles).

When it comes to independent bookshops, I did an interview with Tom Rowley on this the other day, and you can read about how he makes the decision to stock certain books here.

Pricing and promotions are a tricky beast, but as publishers we handle these aspects of your publication, and we will always be trying to do the best thing for your book and for the business. That’s how it works – there are of course smaller minutiae, but hopefully this gives you all the basic information and is helpful. It can seem like a very mysterious world, but if you have a good publisher they will be taking all the steps they can to make sure your book gets into as many readers’ hands as possible, whether that’s in ebook, audio, or print - or all three! You should, though, always feel free to share information with your publisher, suggest ideas or ask questions. I never mind if an author does this.

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to pop them below, and as always, thank you so much for reading The Honest Editor.

Enjoy the heatwave and go buy a book!