Lesson 7 of 9 Free account 4 min read
Pricing and Launching Your Book: Preorders, ARCs and Launch Week
How to set an ebook and print price, when a preorder helps, how to get early reviews from advance readers without breaking Amazon’s or the FTC’s rules, and what to do in launch week.
Key takeaways
- Price within your genre’s normal range and inside the royalty band that pays you best, then adjust based on data.
- KDP ebook preorders can be set up well in advance, but missing the final upload deadline has real penalties.
- You may give free advance copies to readers, but never require a review or a positive rating in exchange.
- A launch is a planned sequence: early readers, an announcement to your audience, then steady promotion, not one big day.
Launching a book is less about one big day and more about a plan: the right price, a few weeks of preparation and a group of readers ready to read and talk about it. This lesson walks through each piece, with the platform rules you need to follow. Figures are as of November 2026.
How Should You Price a Self-Published Ebook?
Start by looking at what books like yours cost. Check the top sellers in your category from authors who are not household names. Most self-published fiction clusters in a fairly narrow range, and readers notice when a debut costs more than an established author’s book.
Then think about royalties. On Amazon.com, KDP’s 70% option applies to ebooks priced from $2.99 to $12.99. Below $2.99, you earn 35%. That means a $2.99 ebook earns roughly twice as much per sale as a $2.49 one. A low price can still be the right choice, for example on the first book in a series, where the goal is to get readers into the series.
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