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I think you have to look at what else is available to readers and at what price. For example, if the reader can buy a commercially produced and professionally edited mass market paperback for $7, pricing your own self-published, e-only, not edited by a publisher book at anything over $4 (i.e. $7 minus $1.50 for the paper, minus $1.50 for the services a publisher provides which your book has not benefited from) will be a hard sell, I think. I certainly wouldn't pay that! $2-3 is about the sweet spot for a total self-publish by a newbie author.
What I have seen some people do is give away the first book to get a bit of a reputation, and then charge more in the $5 range for subsequent books. That is fair and I would pay that if I wanted the book.
I have been reviewing one Smashwords book a week for some time now, and fwiw I have only found 2 books so far that I felt were of commercial quality. One of them was a backlist republication by a commercial author so perhaps it does not count, and only one of them was an indie publish by a total newbie. Many of the others really did need one more pass by a proper editor in order to be ready for prime time.
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