was published it has been priced as low as .99p and as high as £4.99 At the higher end I didn't sell anything for two weeks and lost my nerve. At £3.45 I sold two books in two weeks and lost my nerve again. On Amazon's 35% scheme and CI priced at .99p I sold quite a few books each day but made less than I did if I raised the price to £1.53, which qualifies me for Amazon's 70% profit scheme.Promoting my book for free saw a huge number of downloads but I can't see that it resulted in a lot of reads. The yardstick is the feedback and interaction I get from a small percentage of readers. If I run free promotions this drops off despite the high number of downloads. The highest volume of feedback comes when the book is priced at .99p, possibly because the reader feels they really got value for money.
The only problem with the .99p price point is profit. I'm an Independent Publisher who prides himself in producing commercial quality product, which comes with a cost overhead. I need to make enough money from sales to bring the same quality to future books and I'm not going to do that with 30p profit from each sale.
In the last month Chasing Innocence has received quite a lot of publicity due to its Best Indie Thriller short-listing by the Kindle Book Review. Working with the remarkable Melissa Foster all the shortlisted books were wrapped up in a campaign and resulted in a lot of sales at the higher price point of £1.99/$2.99. This taught me something else. That a book will sell at a higher price as part of a campaign and that sales will drop off soon after. Right now I barely have enough time to write, let alone market Chasing Innocence. If I spent my time marketing I'd not have a sequel to deliver in 2013. Until I can free up some time I have to focus on creating a body of work and price CI at a level that appeals to the passing reader. I've tested various price points in trying to find a balance between .99p and no profit and the £1.99 people only pay if they've already decided they want it.
£1.53 seems to hit that mark, resulting in steady sales without marketing. Giving me the time to conjure book two. Unfortunately $2.99 is the lowest price I can set CI in the US under Amazon's 70% scheme. This means I don't sell so well there outside of promotions, despite all CI's awards being US based.
2 comments:
bloody sad when a whole novel has to be priced for less than a monthly magazine...
I know. It does all seem to be about market placement and or visibility mixed with reputation. As I'm here for the long game I hope that might come with the portfolio of good books . That's my goal anyways. Hugely appreciate you taking the time to stop and say hello.
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