Today’s the day for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) where, on the first Wednesday of every month, writers get together to share their insecurities and offer encouragement. The IWSG was created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, and you can learn all about it and sign up for it here.

The print version of my book, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble, is printed on demand by the distributors Lightning Source/IngramSpark (LSI), so I don’t have to keep cases of books as backstock in my basement. Recently, I received notice from LSI that their printing costs would be increasing to cover their rising costs. I was given a window of time in which I could raise the retail price of my book and submit a new cover file reflecting this increased price without having to pay for the file update. The deadline is the end of February.

So I have to decide — do I raise the price of my print book, or leave it as is?

I had originally set the price at $16.99, which was about as low as I could go without selling at a loss. I figured if I priced my first book too high, no one would buy it. But with the 55% wholesale discount the big retailers get, the margin of profit is miniscule.

If I leave the price as is, I’ll still be in the black, but just barely. I tell myself, it’s okay, I’m not in it for the money. And yet I have to say it would be nice to make at least a little profit. But I’m concerned that if I raise the price a dollar or two, I’ll lose sales, and that would defeat the purpose of getting my book out there into readers’ hands. What to do?

Has anyone else ever run into this problem? What did you decide?

© Lori L. MacLaughlin and Writing, Reading, and the Pursuit of Dreams, 2016. All rights reserved.