Comments on: How to Price Your Book for Maximum Results During a Promotion

By: Hope

Hope — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:08:37 +0000

In reply to William Brown. Had the same observations a year or so ago. Well put.

By: Hans Erdman

Hans Erdman — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 14:43:26 +0000

I just read another article that says pricing your book low tells potential readers that you don’t feel your work is worth more than 99¢ or $1.99. Personally, I’ve put hundreds of hours into each of my three books and tried the 99¢ thing with the first book for the month before Book 3 (It’s a series.) came out, and sold just ONE at that price. It’s back at the original price of $2.99 now. I’m the week since I changed it back, I’ve sold two. I keep getting 5-star reviews and people who but Book 2 or 3 invariably go back and buy Book 1. They want to know how the story began.
I believe I have a great story line, engaging characters, and beautiful covers. My work is worth more than just 99¢. But that’s just my opinion.

By: Isobel starling

Isobel starling — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 17:15:44 +0000

This post doesn’t even touch on the fact indie authors price our books by word count. It is a huge factor in price structure. No one will pay $3.99 for a 10k word short story, for example. Initially, I marketed the first book in my series as free, then 99c. It’s 45k words. Now the book is priced at $2.99 and selling more than it did at 99c. The 99c price point cheapens a book.
I price all of my books by word count. Up to 50k are $2.99, 50k to 70k $3.99/$4.99 depending on whether the book is standalone or part of a series.
Readers are swamped with free and 99c books that sit unread on their devices. It’s a horrible trend that devalues our work. I’ve decided to cut back on price drop promotions and will not offer freebies unless it’s for a group giveaway that will net me lots of new newsletter sign-ups. Now I’m focusing on selling my books at their full price and trying to master Amazon Marketing Service ads.

By: Margaret Merrifield

Margaret Merrifield — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 08:06:48 +0000

Margaret Merrifield; have you done any analysis on children’s picture books. I wrote the first educational children’s book on HIV aids called come sit by me and have the rights back. I’m planning to Indie publish it along with a series on bullying, cancer etc. They will be professionally done. Learning a great deal regarding the whole process. Interesting comment regarding the reader list and the freebies versus the traditional publishing houses now using kindle etc. Do you have any experience with the best approach for pricing and promoting children’s books? There’s not seem to be a great deal of information about this. I look forward to your reply via email. Thank you for the work you do.

By: Dov Nardimon

Dov Nardimon — Sun, 16 Jul 2017 15:49:33 +0000

Thank you chloe
Great info .My 2 books are for 3.99 and during promotions period I choose the gradual system of .99 1.99 2.99 during a week time.Do you think that extending this promotion scheme to longer time-2 weeks of even a month would be beneficial?
THanx

By: Chloe

Chloe — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 11:51:19 +0000

In reply to JB Wocoski. Hi JB, We don't have hard data about the effect that book length has on pricing. However, we promote predominantly full length novels on Bargain Booksy, so most of the titles that this analysis is based off were at least 150 Kindle pages, with most of them being over 200.

By: JB Wocoski

JB Wocoski — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 10:15:58 +0000

CHhoe,

Thank you for the latest data on pricing, it is very helpful to see the upward trend. I was wondering, being a fairly new writer in the market: Is there any data on how book length effects pricing? If so what book lengths do readers prefer to buy for the types of books you mention in the article?

Once again, thank you very much.

By: William Brown

William Brown — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 02:51:12 +0000

Your pricing article is interesting, but I have come to believe that there are two new 800 lb Gorillas in the room: 1) the explosion of Free Books, and 2) Kindle’s new shift away from Indie Books to Publisher Books. There are now a horde of new Free sites, like all the group promos on Insta-Freebie, and others. I’ve participated in 7 or 8 myself with a Perma-Free Book (all this ala the seminars and classes of Mark Dawson and others). I thought I would be building a reader list and crating a market for my other paid books. Unfortunately, all I did was give away a lot of books , with no bump in sales. What we’ve created is a large readership who sees no reason to pay anything for books. The second, equally ominous trend is the number of books on the Kindle best seller list published by traditional publishers. Kindle released a list a month or two ago of their top 25 sellers. Only one was an Indie, and virtually all the others were around $9.95, not the $399 or $4..99 you were discussing. Indies created Kindle, but clearly they have seen their own best interests now lie with working with and promoting the major traditional houses. Indies are left with giving away freebies. It is not a good trend.

By: MRUTHMYERS

MRUTHMYERS — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 01:24:59 +0000

Useful info with some interesting quirks. Thanks.

By: Maggie Carpenter

Maggie Carpenter — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 14:52:48 +0000

This article has confirmed what I have found out myself just through watching the sales of my books. However, I didn’t realize that $1.99 would net me less than .99 in promotion. seems like .99 would be the best sales price for a pre-order.