How much??

[JoArtyJo]

Hi, I am having a hard time deciding how to price a product, and would appreciate some opinions please.

I currently sell this printable instant download coloring book in my shop, it is my best seller:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/91321593/coloring-book-zentangle-inspired?ref=shop_home_feat_1

I used to sell it as an actual hard copy book but the time it took me to print it and bind it myself made it not worth the hassle.
I have recently found a website that will print the books on demand and sells them on amazon! Very exciting, so basically this book is now available on amazon as an actual hard copy book, just with a different cover. I am selling it there for $12, the same as the price of the downloadable book in my etsy shop. Obviously I earn less money per sale as amazon take their costs and profit etc, but I don't have to do anything so it's still great.

I really want to offer the hard copy book in my shop, and I can order them myself for around $4 per book. So now my question is, how much should I sell them for in my etsy shop? If the download is $12 then I think it needs to be more than that, but how much is too much? And I need to factor in the trips to the post office (I'm in the uk so will mostly be international shipping which means can't just pop them in the post box....)

Any suggestions how much you would pay for this kind of thing- it's a 12 page book of hand drawn zendoodles to colour in. The printing and binding is great quality- it's a "real book" :-)

Thank you!

[WhatCandySays]

Wow! Congrats!

So happy to know that your art works are on amazon!

[Former_Member]

This article was extremely helpful for me. It was a difficult pill to swallow. What made me re-evaluate the price was having been contacted for a wholesale quote, I wanted to provide a reasonable price for the potential customer without undercutting my time. This did not happen, so it was a learning lesson for me.

https://blog.etsy.com/en/2014/4-ways-to-conquer-pricing-pitfalls

[StuckOnSilver]

I would leave the hard copy to Amazon and only do the downloaded pages..

[HoneyThistle]

I agree with Bev... but if you were to sell the hard copy in your etsy shop, shouldn't the price be the same as what it's selling for on Amazon?

[CarolBradley]

I agree with Bev and Wei. I doubt people would buy a hard copy (including postage) when they can get the download cheaper and faster.

[scrappyrat]

One reason I could see people buy hardcopy is if they would like to give the book as a gift. Have you thought about making it a gift set, with a special pricing that includes the hard copy book, maybe a set of decent quality (but not miraculous or anything) colored pencils, and something cool in the way of gift wrapping/presentation, maybe even a little greeting or enclosure card type thing inspired by your designs? Then you could kick up the price a bit more since it comes with all the bells and whistles, and it attracts people looking for something a bit more luxe than printing it out themselves.

[maydaylabels]

People will buy the hard copy. People buy physical copies of books all the time, and you don't even have to print digital books out to use them! Not everyone even owns a printer, or wants to deal with it.

Sell them for the same price as amazon. Increase your amazon price if you have to to cover your costs/profit.

[maydaylabels]

Gift sets with a non-handmade item used to be against Etsy's TOU but I'm not sure if that is still true.

[creativemind]

I agree with Matthew and Sara. People will want a hard copy too. But yes, raise the Amazon price, and sell the Etsy copies for the same amount.

Nice work!

[BlackCatStudio98]

My first thought was, "Why would you sell the hard copy for the same price as the instant downloads?", so I would sell the hard copy on Amazon and in your shop for $15-16 and keep the downloads at $12.

Congratulations, that must feel awesome!

[JoArtyJo]

Thank you all for the replies and suggestions :-)

I think I will buy a few copies and list them for sale at around $15. He reason I guess I should raise the price on amazon too in that case, for the sake of consistency. Will have an experiment I think!

Yes it is very exciting to have my book on amazon, sold 2 copies here so far this month- not bad considering I haven't marketed them at all and they have just been found!

[HandmadeByEvaRose]

Selling hard copy on etsy is not a good idea. Paper is heavy and A4 costs a few $ to post, Plus a digital download means they can use it again and again. I think from a customer point of view, hard copy should be cheaper as you can only color the pics once.

I can buy a 50 color book on awful grey thick rough paper from the £1 store. Or a nice paper one with 20 pages for £1.00 again.

I would stick to the digital here, and let amazon sell it as a book.

A digital download is also great for kids parties, can be handed out to the kids to play with, maybe another option for marketing it...