Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

I can't decide which is a better way to sell a kindle book. They both have good sides, and bad sides.
The extra money you get from the 2.99 is tempting... but, more people might give it a try if its 99 cents?
Hmmm. What do you all think?

I had the very same dilemma this morning and I inevitably decided to drop the price of my debut novel, that is also the first in a series, to .99 cents. My reasoning was that more people might give it a chance at the lower price and then (if I did my job) pay the $2.99 for the second book in the series!

Yeah that's kinda where I'm leaning towards. Either that or the kindle countdown thing

The Kindle Countdown is only for so many days and you can only do it once every 90 days or so. Plus it has to be enrolled in KDP Select and I really didn't find any value in it when I was enrolled in it for 6 months. But, at the same time I have heard people rave about it so I don't know!

I'm in the middle of trying of trying the .99c route. I have tried the 2.99 but just couldn't seem to get any sort of consistent sales. Now, I have dropped them all to .99c and I'll see how they start to move. Hopefully better kindle ranks leads to more paperback sales where I make a better commission.

I see the argument for both, but I am available on Kindle Unlimited and wonder if it could be that advertising is everything. I am self-published and my original plan was to put all royalties back into promotions. I purposely priced on the lower end in hopes of selling more.

A book is a product. As with any other product, allow demand to determine its value. The higher the quality of a product, the higher price the customers will be willing to pay. A book's monetary value is determined by the quality of the technical writing and narration skills of the author and the originality and entertainment level of the story.

I think a good compromise is to have them at 2.99 and enrolled in Kindle Select. That way, the people who don't want to pay more have the option to read it for free. My books are selling well at 2.99 and they are considered shorter novels, ranging from 43K to 48K. If I had a longer book, like 60K, I would probably go 3.99.

If you decide to do the 99 cent price point to drum up sales, it might be best to actively promote it as a 2.99 book that is on sale for 99 cents.

Marie wrote: "I think a good compromise is to have them at 2.99 and enrolled in Kindle Select. That way, the people who don't want to pay more have the option to read it for free. My books are selling well at 2...."

in general, i agree w/marie to do sales instead of dropping the price. (although, it does look like you are enrolled in KU.)

if you haven't already, you should also look at the price points in your (sub-)genre; that is, look at the top 100 and see what their pricing is, which is what this good article (which was recently posted in this group) recommends (it also has excellent tips about improving discoverability): http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2...

furthermore, you released it only 16 days ago-and it's your first book--and you're already thinking of price-dropping! give it some time. even 2 months is not enough time to develop an audience.

you could also check out authorearnings.com (run by Hugh Howey) to check out their recommendations on the best pricing for ROI (if you want a particular genre, then you could download their CSV files and run it in a spreadsheet app).

btw, i noticed that in the mobile form factor, your website doesn't display your book at all. i'd create a static home page so that you can get your book displayed first instead of your blog. you could increase your sales with a simple improvement like that (ymmv). you can check out tarawoodsturner.com--she just updated her website and i believe that it's a very effective design.

This is a great article that Annie Arcane (goodreads members) linked to from her blog https://www.loveindieromance.com/is-y...

Highlights:

"THE FROG PRINCE went live on Amazon in August 2010. I priced it at $2.99, not so much because I understood the nuances of the various pricing arguments bouncing around the indie-pub blogosphere at the time, but because I sincerely doubted that anyone would pay anything more. In fact, I was doubtful anyone would even pay $2.99.

The first revelation took place at the beginning of October. While skimming various Kindle reader forums, I ran across a thread on the topic of pricing. One reader wrote that she never bought a book that was $2.99 or less because it was sure to be self-published “indie crap” riddled with typos.
The second occurred on October 10th of last year when a reader posted a five-star review for THE FROG PRINCE, writing: “The book description was a little strange, inbred insanity and impotency and all but for $2.99 I figured I'd give it a try given the high ratings by the others. In the end I would have paid full price for this [emphasis mine].” Of course, the mercenary portion of my little author brain perked right up at those eleven words.

Consider this: In mid-October I raised the price of THE FROG PRINCE to $3.99. I immediately saw a jump in sales. And when I say immediate, I mean overnight. Within a few days the book had leap-frogged for the first time onto two Amazon Top 100 lists. And even though half of the month had already passed, I sold 158 copies for the month of October.

At the beginning of November, I raised the price to $4.99. In November I sold 224 copies. I raised it again to $5.99 at the beginning of December, and that’s when the whole thing began to pick up steam."


It's a good read: http://jakonrath.blogspot.nl/2011/12/...

I will personally price mine at 3.99 (for a 90,000 words book= bargain!!) and invest a yet unspecified amount in advertisting. Hopefully I'll break even. :)

This blog post, while interesting food for thought, it's also from 2011. I wonder if this is still the norm five years later. I am an avid reader and most of the time I get turned off by the higher price points. So I'm just wondering if something that worked when the e-reader Boom was still relatively new would work in the same market now.

Never mind I read the wrong article lol!

Ember wrote: "This blog post, while interesting food for thought, it's also from 2011. I wonder if this is still the norm five years later. I am an avid reader and most of the time I get turned off by the higher..."

I think the only way to know for sure is to try it out.

True! I might try it after the holidays!

Ember wrote: "Never mind I read the wrong article lol!"

No you're right lol. It is from 2011. I think it's still pretty useful though!

Yeah but it's got me all confused now! I just lowered the price of my first book to 0.99 and now I'm wondering if I should raise it! Ugh this is confusing!

Ember wrote: "Yeah but it's got me all confused now! I just lowered the price of my first book to 0.99 and now I'm wondering if I should raise it! Ugh this is confusing!"

I think (I don't have any experience with publishing) that unless you have tried to promote the book as best as you can, then you shouldn't lower the price. My argument for that is that you really don't know if the price is the problem or not. Maybe your book just needs more visibility. Lowering the price might help with that (but then your profits are lower too) or you could choose to increase visibility of your book via (effective and cost efficient) promotion and still collect that 70% royalties share.

Most important questions in my opinion is: Why is my book not selling? Fix that first. A lower price of 0.99 should be a last resort.

Alexis wrote: "Ember wrote: "Yeah but it's got me all confused now! I just lowered the price of my first book to 0.99 and now I'm wondering if I should raise it! Ugh this is confusing!"

I think (I don't have any..."

Good point! At least with the time of year it is I can make it look like a sale and then after cyber Monday raise the price back up! I'm pretty sure I know what to do now! Thanks Alexis!

Alex wrote: "I suffer from the nasty duo of impatience and doubt, so going a couple of days without a sale makes my fingers twitch and makes me wonder what I can do or change to get some movement.
I am fully aw..."

patience.
patience.

mercedes benz.

(The Shino Suite: Japanese-American Poetry, p16)

I honestly can't recommend either because mine are listed at $2.99 and I hardly get sales and when I do countdown deals at $.0.99 I hardly get sales. I will however out it like this, look at books within your genre on Amazon and look at only the ones that are either $2.99 and $0.99 which ever comes up with most on the first two pages and that may help you decide.

I'd also say $2.99 is a better number when you run free deals as opposed to when you run one from a book that's $0.99.

Great discussion thanks guys! :)

Readers seem to want free books these days and who can blame them with all the authors desperate for recognition giving their work away. Why buy? Having said that I've had good luck pricing at $2.99 and then running a Countdown deal for $0.99. At least they still pay you the same percentage on the Countdown deal when you price your work for $2.99. Good luck!