Double rainbow! Double dip! Double down! Double Plus Good! It’s so beautiful I’m gonna cry.

Do you want to earn more money? Do you like nice, hard-line advice that you can easily apply without sitting down and having a cup of herbal tea with your feelings?

Because for once, I’m not going to faff about trying to teach you the True Nature of Value. That’s another post. Series of posts. And I want to be sure you’re ready.

Today it’s just you, me, and a simple rule that you can apply today, without thinking, to improve your profits.

Here’s the One Simple Rule. Are you ready? Reaaaaaady? Wait for itttt… drumroooooll…

Double. Your. Price

Yep: Double Your Price.

Take the price you feel in your gut is right… and double it.

There you have it: a simple, clear, no-room-for-wiggling rule that will help you dramatically increase your profits.

Why does it work?

It works because you’re a Pricing Newb Who Got The Fear, and because you must start with the price you feel in your gut is right. That part is key.

You’re a Newb. Your gut is uneducated. Your gut cannot be trusted.

Your price-uneducated gut is more afraid of scaring people off than it’s scared of having shitty profits. Just like your statistics-uneducated brain is more afraid of dying in a plane crash than a car crash.

Therefore, the price your gut comes up with will be extremely low, unhealthily low. Probably by half — or more. Ergo, doubling will restore you to pricing health.

Case Study: Me

But, unlike many business bloggers, I’m not just speculating based on what I read other people do. I experiment on myself first.

As you might know, I wrote me a little ebook once upon a time.

We originally sold the beta version of JavaScript Performance Rocks! for $19, to the intersection of people who were both Early Adopters and Had A Coupon. A few people without a coupon paid $25.

When the book came out of beta, we raised the price. My original plan was to bring the cost up to $29, a modest raise of $5.

But I had educated my gut about price in the mean time, and instead, I womanned up — raising the price to the incredibly lofty $39.

In other words, I doubled the price.

And the results?!?

Now, this is not scientific to the third decimal place, but… I just divided our total income by the number of sales, and come to the conclusion that the average price for each sale was $29.

Working backwards with the other statistics, I found that:

  • approximately 42% of all sales were at the beta-only price
  • approximately 57% of all sales at the highest price.

Did sales slow down after we raised the price? Well, yes, compared to the launch price, we sold fewer copies per month on average, although not by much. A higher price will do that to you (except in those weird times when it increases your sales!)

But raw sales are meaningless to a self-published girl like me. The real question is: Did doubling the price hurt our profits?

In a word: no. In fact, high price sales sooooooo didn’t hurt our profits that…

High price sales generated 75% of our income with only 57% of total transactions

That laughter you hear? That’s me, on my way to the bank.

I rest my case.

And I repeat: Double. Your. Price.

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