On Feb 15th I dropped the price of my technothriller novel, The List, from $2.99 to 99 cents on Kindle and Nook.As of 2/15/2011 7:30pm, The List had sold 592 copies sold on Kindle in February. That had earned me about $1200.
Here were the Amazon rankings prior to changing the price:
#1,078 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#13 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals
#14 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals
#57 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure
Now, a little over eleven and half days into the experiment, The List has cracked the Top 100 overall bestsellers on Kindle.
Here are the new numbers:
#78 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#2 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals
#2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals
#8 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure
At $2.99, I was earning $2.03 per download. And I was selling an average of 43 ebooks a day.
At 99 cents, I only earn 35 cents per download. I'm now selling 533 sales a day.
At $2.99, I made $87 a day.
At 99 cents, I'm now making $187 a day.
Now, the automatic reaction to this might be, "Wow, cheap prices = more money! I've got to lower the price of all my ebooks to 99 cents!"
But that assumption is incorrect.
My horror ebook, Trapped, which is currently ranked at #325 on Amazon, has sold 3640 copies this month. It is priced at $2.99, and I earn $2 per copy sold.On Trapped, I'm earning $276 a day, selling 138 copies daily. For it to earn that at 99 cents, I'd have to sell 6 times as many copies, or 828.
Maybe I could, if it climbed high enough into the Top 100. Certainly the best selling ebooks are hitting higher numbers than that. But that's going after the two birds in the bush, when I'm pretty happy with the one currently in my hand.
The List, originally ranked at #1100, was a better gamble.
So what about my other titles? I have a few novels that are ranked higher than The List was. Should I drop their prices to 99 cents and see what happens?
Prior to this price change, I was selling 534 books a day of 14 other fiction titles, not including The List.
Currently, I'm selling 539 a day.
So my belief that a bestselling ebook improves the sales of backlist titles doesn't seem to have much merit.
Which means, based on the data I've accumulated, it might be a wise move to lower the prices on some of my other ebook novels. By guesstimate, if I have novels ranked over #1000, it stands to reason that I should drop them from $2.99 to 99 cents. But for novels ranked lower that #1000, it is too big a gamble, so I should leave those at $2.99.
My novel Shot of Tequila is my poorest selling ebook novel, currently ranked at #2523, and having sold 453 copies this month at $2.99 each.I have just lowered the price on it to 99 cents.
I have no idea if sales will take off like they did with The List, or if Tequila can crack the Top 100. It might. It might not.
But I'll keep Tequila at 99 cents for two weeks and see what happens. Tequila is currently earning me $33 a day, averaging 16.5 copies daily.
In order to match that, I'll have to sell about 100 a day at 99 cents.
I'll start keeping track once the new price goes live.
It should be interesting to see what happens.
Even more interesting is a dilemma I haven't had to face yet. The List is currently in the Top 100 at 99 cents.
So when, if ever, should I switch the price back to $2.99?
Added: At 5:30pm Shot of Tequila was lowered to 99 cents on Amazon. Its rank is #1405, and I sold 483 copies so far in February.
94 comments:
Thanks for the analysis, and the caveat. I've wondered if I should lower the prices of my eBooks. I'll experiment too and let you know the results.
Alison
The tinkering of prices is taking an interesting turn. Should be telling when a few more weeks go by to see how numbers between The List and Shot of Tequlia compare. And if, over those few weeks, word of mouth helps to drive sales of other titles in the $2.99 range.
It seems there is a school of fish out there that could be labeled as impulse buyers or discount hounds. I wonder, assuming they exist, if they'll subsequently bite on the $2.99 bait or just stick with the 99 cent bin.
Well done!
I almost started with 'cheater!'
Daring to experiment has paid off. :)
We're on a multi-family vacation. Each family has one 'intense reader' who Kindles. We all yapped yesterday on how easy it is to find and buy Kindle books.
What amuses me is that two of the readers do not even realize their buying habits are mostly "Indie."
I cannot wait to see how the market shapes up with $99 Kindles.
Neil
@Rabid Fox:"if they'll subsequently bite on the $2.99 bait or just stick with the 99 cent bin."
$0.99 is to try a new author. It drops the resistance to the click. Once you have a 'fan,' then they'll pay more. Before, the big6 had the coop positioning advantage. Now the Indies are out maneuvering them.
Neil
$0.99 is to try a new author. It drops the resistance to the click. Once you have a 'fan,' then they'll pay more
That's what I assumed, too. But my numbers aren't showing it.
Let's assume that The List is a good book (the ratings it gets seem to suggest that people enjoy it) and let's assume that some people who have bought it this month have read it.
I'd expect to see a spike in my other ebook sales, since I've presumably made new fans. But I'm not seeing that spike.
So either The List sucks, people are buying it but not reading it, or our assumption about new fans buying other titles isn't correct.
Maybe, because there are so many other 99 cent titles to try, those who read The List will buy my other books eventually, but are first sampling the multitude of other authors.
We might be witnessing a new way people buy books, which doesn't correspond with the way they did with print.
Congratulations, Joe!
My guess would be that there is a bit of lag time before buyers read your $0.99 The List and move onto your other books. Give it another month, and then see if sales overall shoot up to decide if it's worth it.
~Vanessa
Joe,
For what it's worth: I have long thought that The List was your best concept and title. I like the cover also.
Joe, I have several thrillers out priced from $4.95 to $9.95. They sell well month after month, generally netting me $10-15,000. While they sell well and get solid customer reviews, none of them have caught fire yet. My best seller, priced at $5.95, generally hovers at around 2500-3000, a far cry from the top 100. However, it hovers there consistently, month after month.
I have a new book that will be released in March. I'm wondering if I should lauch it at .99, or possibly lower the price of one of my existing books to .99.
Any suggestions or comments?
RJ
This is an interesting post. I think that it is entirely possible they simply haven't read "The List" yet. I know my TBR pile is about five times as large as it should be, and yet I keep buying new books. I'm a sucker, what can I say? ;-)
As a point about the whole "bargain bin" mentality, I still shop at the bargain area at Border's first before I head to the other areas. Would you rather buy one $15.99 trade paperback or three $5.99 books? I think the same applies here. If you're just looking for something interesting to read, you're more set up for the bargain bin mentality.
To that end, I released my book with a price of $0.99.
If, on the other hand, you're looking for something specific, then you're not going to be open to experimentation in the first place. You'll buy what you came to buy, and that's that.
But what we're talking about is attracting shoppers, who are by definition looking for the bigger, better deal -- and more books for less price gives the illusion of a better deal ("Wow, I can get this book AND that book about why my weiner doesn't work right!").
It will definitely be interesting to see how this plays out.
- Nick
Thanks for all that you do, Joe. You're paving the way for a lot of us, and I know we all appreciate it.
I'll be happy to run out and buy Shot of Tequila... Lord knows I need one.
"We might be witnessing a new way people buy books, which doesn't correspond with the way they did with print."
Joe, I think you may be onto something here. I'm a very heavy reader. I've probably averaged reading 300 to 400 novels per year for the last 40+ years. I'd never read an ebook until I bought a Kindle a month or so ago, which I decided to do after reading all of your blog entries since you started your blog.
Since I bought the Kindle, I've downloaded a bunch of free ebooks and bought a couple of dozen, mostly $0.99 titles, with a couple $2.99 titles. I've never read any of your fiction, but when you put The List on sale for $0.99 I decided what the hell. I bought it and stuck it in the TBR stack on my Kindle. I still haven't read it, but I'll get around to it soon.
So, in the interim you ended up getting one $0.99 sale from me. It may be a week or a couple months before I decide to start reading The List. At that point, if I like it, I'll be ordering more of your titles, probably all of them. Maybe a few at a time, or maybe all in one go.
So, what I'm saying here is that your two-week February sale experiment will show no add-on sales from me in February, but might end up selling a bunch of $2.99 titles in March or April. I suspect a fair percentage of people who sampled you at $0.99 will show the same pattern, so I think it's much too soon to assume that high sales volume on The List won't translate to add-on sales of your other titles.
"I'd expect to see a spike in my other ebook sales, since I've presumably made new fans. But I'm not seeing that spike.
So either The List sucks, people are buying it but not reading it, or our assumption about new fans buying other titles isn't correct."
Or... it could simply be that the readers haven't had the chance to read The List yet. Take me as an example of that. I've purchased it a few days ago but haven't started reading it yet because I was finishing up a different book. I was going to start reading The List today.
As of today, 02/27 it hasn't even been two weeks since you've lowered the price of The List. I think you are not allowing enough time to let it marinate with your readers. You won't be able to gauge its impact on your other titles for at least a month or so.
Now that you've lowered the price of Shot of Tequila, I may buy it (if I like The List) because of the price point. And here's something very important: If I don't like The List, it won't matter how much any one of your other books cost. I would not be interested in them even if you gave them away. However, if I like The List, I must say that I would've gladly buy Shot of Tequila (and any of your other books) at $2.99.
Some good points being made.
This experiment has to go on for a longer period before I can truly gauge if The List is helping me sell my backlist.
I'd recommend keeping "The List" at 99 cents until it *clearly* has peaked and is dropping in the rankings.
When Dirty Parts hit #43 I raised the price, and now I'll never know how high it might have climbed beyond that. Now, it's ranked in the #250s at $2.99; no complaints--I'm very happy with sales and revenue! But I wish I would have let it go longer at 99 cents the first time around.
I'd go with the others, Joe, and suggest that it may take some time for readers who have recently discovered your work in The List to pick up your other books. I'm sure many people who have purchased The List haven't even had time to read it yet.
As for if/when to bump the price up to $2.99, I guess you have a few possibilities. You could leave The List at $0.99 as a perpetual hook for new readers. If you were going to go back to the $2.99 price, you might consider waiting until The List stops climbing the Kindle rankings. Once it's leveled off, you could then raise the price (and also raise your royalties substantially).
The $0.99 price point can be a real driver for sales. In its first week out as a 99-cent ebook, The Other Side sold more copies than its print version did in the first three months. (It was in the top-30 for short stories for a little while, before dropping more recently.)
TBR turnover frequency would be a good number to know. Anyone care to comment on how long, on average, it takes a title to clear their backlog once purchased?
There's another factor in play here. It's now trivially easy to get backlist titles. For example, I'm a great admirer of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vor Saga series. I have bought every one of them in print, many in hardback, and several of them multiple times. (I keep giving them to friends, particularly the paperbacks.)
But I've never had all of them in my possession simultaneously. So, when I got my Kindle, the first thing I did was download every one of the Vor Saga titles (I got them for free from Baen; I didn't feel too badly about that, since I've bought all her titles before.) And I started reading them through from the earliest to the latest, which is how I spent my first week or so with the Kindle.
My wife enjoys reading series, particularly British mysteries, and she strongly prefers to read them in order. Quite often, many of the earlier books are out-of-print and almost impossible to find. We've ended up ordering used copies from British booksellers on ABE and having them shipped to us from the UK, and even then filling a series can be very difficult.
As backlists get filled out in ebook form, legally or illegally, I think a lot of readers are going to start reading entire series just because it's so much easier to get all the titles. That has lots of implications for pricing and sales volumes. Right now, a lot of authors are pricing their first series title or their most recent title at $0.99 and hoping to sell the other titles at $2.99. I write non-fiction, but if I had a fiction series, I think I'd be inclined to price my first title in the series at $0.99 to draw in readers who prefer to read the series in order, as well as the most recent title at $0.99 to draw in readers who prefer to read the latest first.
The $0.99 price level also raises the issue of what authors want: to earn as much as possible or to have as many readers as possible. If I had a series of books all priced at $0.99, I suspect I'd draw in a lot of people who'd buy every book in the series just so they had them. They might never actually get around to reading them, but at $0.99 each a lot of people will just fill out their collections without worrying about whether they'll actually every read them. Conversely, pricing most of the titles at $2.99 makes it more likely that people will buy only books that they intend to actually read.
Then there's the "how-much-do-I-like-this-guy" issue. I'm fulling expecting to like Joe's titles enough to buy all of them at $2.99, but at some point, either with Joe or one of the other authors I'm sampling, I'm going to probably ask myself, "Do I like this guy $2.99 worth?" At $0.99 for all titles, it's not an issue; if I even kind-of like the first book I'll probably just buy the others. But at $2.99, with at least some percentage of the authors I'm sampling I'm likely to thing, "I like this guy $0.99 worth, but not $2.99 worth."
My gut reaction is that most authors, including ones who are pretty well-known, would be better off pricing everything at $0.99 and counting on readers to pig out on their entire series.
At $2.99, you're going to have only buyers who really like your stuff. At $0.99, the majority of your buyers are going to be ones who just kind of like it. I think there'll be considerably more than six times as many of the latter as the former, at least for most authors.
I'll cast my vote for needing more time to measure the ripple effect of selling a .99 ebook. My wife bought The List last week, loved it, and has recommended it to others. She'll definitely buy and read more of Joe's books, but she reads widely, and isn't one to read several books in a row by the same author. It could be a few months before she buys another of Joe's books, and even then she'll only buy one, but over the next few years she'll eventually read his entire catalog. I suspect she's far from the only one who reads this way. So, the discounted book did bring you a new fan, but it will be difficult to measure her sort of reader.
I just found out about your blog and I'm glad I did. A lot for me to study here.--Inger
I still think u might see a bump in your backlist. 11 days isn't a long time, especially if the list was an impulse buy that a reader will get to when they are done with their current book.
But I am glad to see that the 99 experiment not only didn't lose you any $ but made you some - that way you get paid for experimenting for our educational benefit.
Hopefully, shot of Tequila will be even more profitable for you.
Kendall Swan
Some good analysis here, which gives food for thought. One question that might be interesting to address is whether it makes a difference that the 0.99 book is the first part of a connected serial story that covers a single long plot rather than a series of several books with the same characters and/or settings. In the case of a serial, the book on sale might end with a cliffhanger to encourage the reader to buy the next one at the 2.99 price point, and thus the book on sale would serve as more of a teaser than one book in a series.
In one case, you're dealing with the reader's interest being in the characters or setting (a series) and in the other in a particular extended plot (serials). We're looking at this question with one of our own sets of titles, so it should be interesting to see:
A Slave Girl for the Emperor
"However, if I like The List, I must say that I would've gladly buy Shot of Tequila (and any of your other books) at $2.99."
Sorry, for the typo. I blame my copy editor for that. It should have said "...I would've bought Shot of Tequila..."
You're fortunate this actually worked, as my own pricing experiments--namely the 99 cent one--didn't do anything, and that's giving it a fair trial.
Same with the $2.99 price point around this time last year and into the summer. Same amount of units sold and much less money was earned.
Right now, $4.99 seems the sweet spot for my offerings. I've seen a noticeable difference in sales at this price.
This business is all about finding what works for you. Always has been. Always will be.
joe said:
> Now, the automatic reaction
> to this might be, "Wow,
> cheap prices=more money!
> I've got to lower the price of
> all my ebooks to 99 cents!" But
> that assumption is incorrect.
wrong.
you do not know whether that
"assumption" is incorrect or not.
the current data-point suggests
it is actually _quite_correct_...
surely we don't have any trouble
interpreting the 12-fold increase
in the numbers moved, do we?
and twice as much cash profit?
> By guesstimate, if I have
> novels ranked over #1000,
> it stands to reason that
> I should drop them from
> $2.99 to 99 cents. But for
> novels ranked lower that
> #1000, it is too big a gamble,
> so I should leave those
> at $2.99
i would disagree with that...
put your best books forward,
man, not your weakest ones...
you want the people to buy
your weakest books _last_,
so they do the least damage.
> So either The List sucks,
> people are buying it
> but not reading it, or
> our assumption about
> new fans buying
> other titles isn't correct.
let's use our head on this, ok?
have you followed the number
of reviews given to the book?
i have.
you've sold thousands of units
since the price drop, enough to
move up 1000 ranking places.
that's a lot of new copies out.
but the book has only received
2 additional reviews since then.
(it had 82 before, and 84 now;
both new reviews are 4-stars.)
so, no, most people have not
even read the book yet. sorry.
but they will. it just takes time.
how much time?, you ask...
until the book has double the
number of reviews it had when
you started out, at least twice,
you won't see auxiliary effects.
***
thomas said:
> Once it's leveled off, you
> could then raise the price
> (and also raise
> your royalties substantially).
that's incorrect.
the royalty _rate_ will change,
from 35% to 70%, yes, but the
_amount_ of "royalties raised"
will depend on the number of
units moved at the higher price.
based on the results thus far,
we'd have to assume that his
total royalties will _decrease_
if he raises his price back up.
let's see how big his balls are.
-bowerbird
Your best post yet.
Clear, easy to follow, great information.
THANK YOU !!
In light of bowerbird's comment, I'll revise the following statement: Once it's leveled off, you could then raise the price (and also possibly raise your royalties substantially).
I'll also note that I was not necessarily counseling Konrath to raise the price of The List---just gaming out one strategy if he did choose to raise it. (Not that anyone was implying otherwise...)
I was selling two books a day at $.99.
I'm selling two books a day at $4.99.
And making ten times more money.
I think I'll leave it at $4.99 for a while. Even at two books a day, that's enough money to pay my electric bill and car insurance. Not bad for a book that was just languishing idly on my hard drive not long ago.
Maybe you should experiment by raising some of your prices, Joe. :)
Journey Into Darkness: A Kim Journey Thriller
I recently discovered your blog, and I love it! I definitely appreciate your willingness to be open about financial matters, and to conduct experiments like this--really, you're doing a public service for authors here, and I thank you for it.
"We might be witnessing a new way people buy books, which doesn't correspond with the way they did with print."
This is just speculation, of course, but assuming that selling books for $.99 instead of $19.99 results in a lot more impulse buying, that may mean that people are less cautious about buying books in two ways.
The first would be that people buy more books than they can possibly read. The second would be people who are unlikely to become fans of your work are buying your books anyway--they might not really like the genre, but the book was so cheap, they just had to buy it. Those are people who are unlikely to seek out everything you write, but on the other hand, at a higher price point they never would have opened their wallets to you at all.
If that's the case, then a single big seller at the 99-cent price point won't affect your other books. But lowering the prices on your other books would presumably tap into this much larger audience of casual book buyers.
I obviously have no idea if this theory is correct or not, and I would give your experiment more time to see if e-book buying behavior isn't that different from traditional book-buying behavior.
Joe says: "So either The List sucks, people are buying it but not reading it, or our assumption about new fans buying other titles isn't correct."
I'm wondering if there is a bit of disparity between the immediate results of sales increases for a title and readership increases. As quick and easy as it is to buy a Kindle book, the potential gains of that reader going out and buying more from the same author--and using word of mouth to encourage others to buy those books--could take several weeks, if not months.
At the same time, lowering the price of a book to $0.99 might result in a decrease of its perceived innate value, leading to an increase in sales, yes, but to less (quality) readership. How many people on here have already commented that their TBR piles are way too big?
~Vanessa
Nice post, Joe.
I do agree with Bowerbird on the 'putting your best books forwards' thing. Maybe this is like releasing a music single? Lead with your best work.
Interesting. There are surely a lot of voracious readers who want low prices, but most of the ereader users I've been talking to say that a $0.99 price tag makes them leery of the book's quality. Very different schools of thought. If only there were a way to poll each person who browses ebooks!
Lead with your best work.
All of my work is my best work. The stuff that isn't the best, doesn't get published.
the current data-point suggests
it is actually _quite_correct_...
Wrong.
You certainly have a lot of strong opinions considering you have no skin in this game.
The data point suggests I can sell 533 ebooks a day at 99 cents. Not that every ebook I lower the price on will start selling 12x as many copies.
If I sold 533 copies of Trapped, I'd lose a lot of money.
Hence my reluctance.
However, it makes sense to try it with a book that isn't selling as well as Trapped.
They're some extremely interesting results, Joe. It was a brave move risking a revenue drop but clearly it's paying off. Wonder what it's going to be like after 2 months instead of 2 weeks.
I agree with a few of the other comments about The List probably sitting on a lot of TBR piles. Though I'm ereader-less my paper book TBR pile is about half a dozen books. I can imagine that digital piles are even steeper. So I think you may see an effect maybe a month down the line because surely if you're selling a lot more books that would generate enough fans to make a notable impact on your backlist.
Of course, maybe people who already like your horror novels or Jack Daniels series, but haven't wanted to read/got round to reading The List were seduced by the price. From my own perspective, even if I class myself as a fan of a particular author, I won't just buy everything that author has written by default if I don't like the sound of it or if that something is a different genre to what I like of theirs.
Joe - Aside from the very possible TBR pile issue, I wonder if you'd get more of an effect on other sales if you included excerpts from your other books?
I see Suckers in there, according to the listingg, but that's it for you. I'd be inclined to think with such a susbtanial backlist like yours that you'd benefit a lot from the cross pollination.
HyperPulp 5000: New Fiction, Every Damn Day
Allow me to beat a dead horse and say that I agree you're going to need to wait much longer before you can truly see how dropping the price of THE LIST affects your backlist sales. At least 3 months.
My tbr Nook pile is much higher than I ever imagined it could be. I bought BANANA HAMMOCK as soon as I saw it was available at B&N, and am pushing back reading TRAPPED & ENDURANCE in favor of it.
I bought KILLERS as soon as you blogged about it, and since it's shorter I'll probably read it first too. And then there's the 10 other books I really want to read, and the 20 others queued up that were impulse cheap or free buys that I will read but are not a priority.
THE LIST rocks. New readers who buy it will most definitely buy more of your backlist...but it will take a lot of time.
joe said:
> All of my work
> is my best work.
why doesn't it all sell as well?
luck?
i'm pretty sure you knew exactly
what i meant. and that everyone
else reading along knew it too...
so, do i have to spell it out?
because i'll be happy to do so.
> Wrong.
oh gee, i guess some of us _do_
have some trouble interpreting
a 12-fold increase in sold units
and twice as much cash in-hand.
> You certainly have
> a lot of strong opinions
> considering you have
> no skin in this game.
why don't you see if the data
supports my strong opinions?
> The data point suggests
> I can sell 533 ebooks
> a day at 99 cents.
> Not that every ebook
> I lower the price on
> will start selling
> 12x as many copies.
i will repeat -- once again! --
that i'm not suggesting that
you or anyone else should
lower your prices, because
(a) i don't care how much
your books cost, really, and
(b) i think amazon's "royalty"
rate of 35% is _unfair_, and
(c) you can do what you like,
and (d) you undoubtedly will.
but overwhelming evidence
(evidence!) informs us that
lower prices mean big sales.
that's no big secret, though.
economists have know that
for a very, _very_ long time.
heck, they even call it "a law".
the big news for us is that
e-book sales often increase
to the point where they even
offset the huge handicap that
amazon places on low prices.
> If I sold 533 copies
> of Trapped, I'd lose
> a lot of money.
you might "fail" to make
_more_ money (or you
might not), but you still
would not "lose" a penny,
because your variable cost
remains absolutely nothing.
i might have said that before.
i'll probably have to repeat it
again, and again, and again.
i won't make any prediction
because i don't really have
a "strong opinion" about it,
but my _guess_ would be
that if "trapped" is _really_
your best work, and so is
"the list", then "trapped" will
climb up as high as "the list"
in the charts, and it might
even climb higher, since it
started from a higher perch.
> Hence my reluctance.
do what you like. i care not.
and i am most certainly not
trying to sway you in any way.
i'm just stating my "opinions".
> However, it makes sense to
> try it with a book that isn't
> selling as well as Trapped.
it should work on just about
any book that you try it on...
but i suspect the best strategy
is to have customers read your
best work before the rest of it.
oh right, all your stuff is "best".
-bowerbird
>>What amuses me is that two of the readers do not even realize their buying habits are mostly "Indie."<<
This is a key observation.
neil said:
> I cannot wait to see
> how the market shapes up
> with $99 Kindles.
well, then, you just might pee
your pants when you read this.
> http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/02/free_kindle_thi.php
november is 8 months away...
-bowerbird
Joe, your figures are interesting but I have a question:
Have you compared the sales figures to determine which group of buyers made the biggest jump at your .99 price point?
It looks like The List was already selling well among the "police procedural" readers, but you saw a bigger position jump among "action adventure" readers. Which was a bigger jump? Is the "PP" market larger than the "AA" market? Or did you see a larger jump among general fiction readers -- that is, those who are willing to try new genres and don't tend to read in just one or two areas?
By comparison, it's clear that your horror novels already have a large audience even at the higher price. You've already got pretty good penetration there. It's not clear whether the .99 pricepoint would gain you readers who don't already read horror.
Do you see where I'm going with this? If you can answer those questions, it might tell you whether your .99 pricepoint is actually broadening your market or just selling to a few existing but reluctant-to-buy fans. In the first case, the .99 price may sell the 2.99 books; in the latter case, it probably won't.
In the short term this may not matter, but in the long term this may tell you whether a book should stay at .99 or not.
why doesn't it all sell as well?
luck?
Yep.
Over the last few years, my ebook novels have all been my best seller at one or more times, and they flip flop often. No idea why one outsells another.
why don't you see if the data
supports my strong opinions?
Why don't you write a book, put it on Amazon, and see for yourself?
oh right, all your stuff is "best".
Yep. The List was my #1 bestseller for over a year. I've sold 30,000 copies of it.
Then, in the past two months, my other novels began to outsell it.
Why? Hell if I know. But it has nothing to do with how good the book is, and nothing to do with saturating the reader base, because it isn't close to doing that.
Luck. Random chance. That's why some books outsell others.
There was no way to predict The List would hit the Top 100 when I lowered the price. It was impossible to guess. Too many variables involved.
But there it is, at #75.
Will Tequila get that high when it goes to 99 cents? That was my bestselling ebook in November.
We'll see. I can't predict what will happen. And neither can you.
But you still keep spouting the sharpshooter fallacy, over and over.
As a "newbie" to e-books and self publishing, this is as eye opening as can be. I mean you literally dropped 1,000 spots to #78. That is amazing. But i think there's no reason you need to change it. You're obviously bringing in more revenue and reaching more readers. Win/Win.
But I also think it's like a Pyschological experiment. You need a focus group so to say. So, you've only had it at .99 for under a month. I would say see how you're looking in two months. Then see how The List is affecting/effecting your other sales.
Well done sir, you're knowledge about e-books/publishing continues to amaze this guy!!
kevin l. dillon
I think there is severe lag between the time people purchas a book and the time people read it.
I purchased three books recently on the Kindle. Spore by John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow, Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson and Slaughterhouse High by Robert Devereaux.
I'm about 1/2 done with Blind Lake, about 50 pages into Spore and I haven't started reading Slaughterhouse High yet.
If those were unknown authors to me -- it may be several months before I start looking around for other books from those authors.
As it stands, I buy everything from Cody Goodfellow the second it is released and I own Robert Devereaux's other book, Santa Steps Out, in paperback.
I think part of the problem with these posts is that Joe is feeding off the instant gratification he gets from his blog readers. He lowers the price of one book -- his blog readers buy that one book and the sales spike. As the sales spike it ends up in the Top 100 and more people than just the blog readers buy it.
But, Joe keeps talking about "for two weeks" and it has only been about a week since he started this experiment.
You can't expect to see how this will impact the sales of your other titles unless you are willing to take the long view and let the price stay at $.99 for several months.
That gives people time to buy the book, read the book and then come back looking for more.
I think you need to give this experiment more time, Joe. Probably 90 days at least-- to let Amazon's analytics do their job.
I think I'm going to Roatan this Summer. I'm one step closer to being an ex-pat every month.
Fascinating thread.
I'd echo the comments of waiting a bit longer to see if sales pick up on your other work. Not only is there an issue of whether your customers have finished reading the list, not everybody will read two books in a row by the same author.
Instant follow-on is great, but the endgame is being in the permanent rotation.
So either The List sucks, people are buying it but not reading it, or our assumption about new fans buying other titles isn't correct
I forgot to mention-- maybe the List was a poor choice for this experiment. Mainly because it's a Thriller, but most of your other books are Horror. I don't like Horror (I had nightmares for a week after reading Endurance-- it was so creepy), but I like thrillers.
Maybe Amazon isn't doing as much book pairing because you don't have many thrillers in your backlist. It might be a better experiement if you drop the price of one of your horror novels.
Just a thought.
There's a lot of speculation that the low price point does well for new authors. I can see that. But it may also be that actually, it's better-selling authors who benefit more from the drop, because it has a chance to push them to the top. Authors who are still at the level of garnering just a few sales a day, almost all probably due to interaction in some form of social media, aren't necessarily going to see the same jump.
Of course, I have no idea, since I don't think there's a lot of solid empirical data on this. As Joe has pointed out, individual experiences, while suggestive, are too obscured by random chance to really give us a solid theory.
Tara Maya
The Unfinished Song: Initiate (UK)
The Unfinished Song: Initiate (US)
joe said:
> I can't predict
> what will happen.
> And neither can you.
except i've been very accurate
when i have predicted anything
-- the skin i have in this game.
why did you do an "experiment"
if you're just gonna turn around
and ignore your own results?
maybe one reason is that you
just enticed everyone here into
helping you jump your profits
by $100 a day on a stuck book.
so now let's move another one!
tom sawyer whitewashes fence.
and profits big in the process...
> But you still keep spouting
> the sharpshooter fallacy,
> over and over.
what i am saying is _obvious._
so bloody obvious that i can't
believe i even have to say it!
but hey, it really seems i do.
and i must _repeat_ it often!
but that's ok, i guess, because
that's why my record is so good.
-bowerbird
@Joe said:
"So either The List sucks, people are buying it but not reading it, or our assumption about new fans buying other titles isn't correct."
It hasn't been enough time to make these assumptions, I think.
I'm willing to bet a lot of folks who bought it simply put it in their TBR pile and haven't tried it yet.
Shana Hammaker
Twelve Terrifying Tales for 2011
Joe,
I understand that this is how you earn you living, but I'm wondering if you aren't over-analyzing a bit? I think the feedback Amazon provides on sales is great, but if you are constantly looking at it, constantly tinkering.... is it really worth it? I mean, you're making scads of money and will continue to for the forseeible future. Get out and enjoy yourself, dude. Be thankful you don't have to do the 9 to 5 routine.
Joe,
That is a really amazing jump! I bought The List (and Disturb) forever ago, when I first started reading your blog (long-time favorite!) I'm one you helped push into the try-it-for-myself crowd.
I'm a little torn on some comments I've read - drop your worst to .99, drop your best to .99! I think both have their merits. You want to put your best foot forward, but if it really is your best foot, people will be willing to pay more for it...
Anyway, thanks for the updates! It's always an interesting read :)
J. E. Medrick, author of Shackled
It's hard not to jump at the bit and want results now, but I think that as time goes on we'll all see the results of this experiment far clearer.
I don't know if the $0.99 thing will work for every book...it's an interesting thought, but really doesn't charging that low give a certain impression of lesser worth? It shouldn't, since you can purchase classic novels for free, depending on the version, but I think there might be a stigma.
Certain genres might benefit more from the dropped price than others. Riskier ventures, for instance.
This is going to eat at me all night now. ;-)
- Nick
Congrats on cracking the top 100, Joe! Pretty amazing at any price.
All of my work is my best work. The stuff that isn't the best, doesn't get published.
I don't know. For example, I would have to say that Silence of the Lambs was a better book than Hannibal, but that doesn't mean Hannibal shouldn't have been published. It's still better than most horror thrillers, IMO. So I think sometimes writers do have some books that are better than others, even though all of their books might be of publishable quality.
Damn, I forgot the BSP. For you, Mitchie!
Deadly by the Dozen
Pocket-47 Book Trailer
is it really worth it?
I'm making an extra $100 a day because of this experiment. I think that's worth it.
@Jude - Hannibal should not have been published. It's awful.
I loved his first three books, but Hannibal fails on every level.
But oddly enough, I enjoyed the movie.
@Joe: I'm making an extra $100 a day because of this experiment. I think that's worth it.
I can't disagree with that statements. ;) Very impressive gain in the rankings. But I don't blame you for keeping your better-selling books (ranking under 1,000) at $2.99.
I recently lower the price of all of my books to $0.99, mainly because they are all either short novels or novellas. I would be a lot less likely to price an 80-100k book at $0.99, except in the case of a short-term promotion.
But still---it only makes sense to go with the pricing that earns the most dollars.
Naked Frame | Sweet Ginger Poison
I have a semi serious theory that Hannibal (the book) is intentionally bad, because Harris disliked the way Lecter became mythologized.
Aside from being ridiculously over the top, it also gives a kind of Freudian excuse for Lecter, and that sort of thing Harris mentioned he viewed as a mistake with Red Dragon.
Could easy be wishful thinking on my part.
The movie is hugely entertaining.
HyperPulp 5000: New Fiction, Every Damn Day
Hannibal is quite simply one of the worst books ever written.
Believe me when I say - you shouldn't have.
Really, it will just sit in my attic gathering dust, unused. ;)
But oddly enough, I enjoyed the movie.
Interesting. I liked the book (except the ending), didn't care much for the movie (except the ending).
For one thing, Jodie Foster will always be Clarice Starling for me.
"But you still keep spouting the sharpshooter fallacy, over and over."
Joe, you rock in every way! lol
Really, it will just sit in my attic gathering dust, unused.
That's okay. Someday it will be worth a lot of money!
;)
Deadly by the Dozen
Pocket-47 Book Trailer
@Browerbird:":november is 8 months away..."
Everyone loves a bargain as Joe's experiment is proving. The list is currently #73 in 'paid Kindle store.'
If that 'free' Kindle is a cell phone subsidized by a contract... then we'll have a 'free' Kindle (paid for via monthly cell phone fees). I've been arguing Amazon should do that for almost a year.
Amazon only needs to take the current down to $69 to double the potential market. 'Free' would explode the market potential... I think it will be in a cell phone.
I personally would pay good money for an e-ink (w/video capability) 5" Android based 'Kindle phone.' I'm rather shocked how many of my coworkers and their wives read on Android phones...
Word is getting out that the cell phone up is a 'free kindle.' :)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/0225/Kindle-for-free-All-you-need-is-a-smart-phone
Neil
Joe, congratulations on the quick success of your experiment!
However, I think we're all trying to infer too much from one man's experiment, with one book, at one particular time. Price changes certainly affect sales -- all other things being equal. The problem, however, is that all other things are rarely equal, and they are not even equal here. There are just too many independent variables that can't be controlled in this pricing experiment.
One factor is that only ONE author is participating. There could be all sorts of reasons why readers who by-passed "The List" at $2.99 might say, "Okay, I'll give it a shot at 99 cents." Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Joe Konrath -- who has a high profile in these parts -- is HEAVILY PUBLICIZING the fact that he's running a fire sale on this novel and conducting an experiment.
But would a price drop for one of your books make this big a sales/revenue difference if it were completely unpublicized?
Would a price drop make such a difference for a writer who is far less visible? Or far less respected?
What if a once-stellar writer churns out a string of hack work and becomes known for just "mailing it in." Would even a low price cause his sales suddenly to soar?
Or suppose some celeb with a huge fan base decides to publish a book. Would her fans refuse to buy it because it is priced at $2.99 instead of 99 cents? Do you really think price changes of a few bucks would have made a whole lot of difference to the bazillion fans waiting for the last Harry Potter installment?
Then there's the changing market itself. The tsunami in ebook sales has occurred only during the past few months. Why? Price? We know that many new people have just acquired Kindles, iPads, and color Nooks for Christmas. So they've been downloading to their new toys like crazy, and cheap books encourage many impulse purchases.
But what happens a year from now, when the novelty has worn off and when their ereader is loaded with still-unread books? That's happened with my wife and me: We both have more than enough unread books on our Kindles. Hell, I'm not even downloading FREE stuff anymore. So, are these sales results going to last, even by lowering prices?
We just don't know the answers to all these kinds of things. As I said, price changes do affect sales -- all other things being equal. But I suspect that too many variables are at play here to make universal claims about which price points will be best for all authors and all ebooks.
> I'm rather shocked how many of my coworkers and their wives read on Android phones...
I did just that the other day, read a full length book I downloaded from Amazon on my phone, as an experiment. I really liked it. I was surprised, but it was very comfortable. To hell with e-ink, don't need it.
I'll go further, and say that I strongly suspect that I liked reading on a small lightweight device, better than I would a (relatively) big chunky Kindle or other reader tablet (for plain, non-illustrated text anyway). I will be testing this theory out very soon.
Anybody who thinks they would hate it, should try it at least once with an open mind.
Even though many if not most authors only publish their best work, not all books sell equally well. I don't think the reason is luck, and it's not necessarily the quantity and quality of marketing either.
I think you can write a really good book that is just not as popular as your other books, because the genre, style, tone, length, or *something* is different. I don't like all the books by my favorite authors equally well, and I suspect most other readers don't either. In fact, with some authors, I love some of their books and actively dislike their other books. I am sure there are readers who love the books I dislike, but still, some books will sell better than others.
I do appreciate your sharing your results like this.
As someone with a to-read pile of over 200 print books, I can say yes, not everyone reads a book right away. I also do not like to read two books by the same author back to back, unless they are part of a series. I usually wait to read a series until all of it is published, so I can absorb myself in it fully. I do buy the books in the series ahead of time, though.
I think the results of your experiment, as to whether readers who like this book will buy your other books, will take weeks or months to play out. BUT, I don't think you have to leave the book at 99 cents the whole time. Readers who already bought it, and eventually read it, and like it, will buy those other books later whether you keep the book at 99 cents for yet more readers, or not.
Oh yes, a suggestion:
Have you tried (maybe you have) posting the first chapter or two of a novel free on your website (or somewhere) and marketing the heck out of that? So readers will be intrigued by opening of the book, but have to buy the whole thing at full price to find out what happened to the characters/how the plot played out? So you do a giveaway, you show new readers how great your work is, but you don't lose any full-price sales.
@Francis Grimble:"Have you tried (maybe you have) posting the first chapter or two of a novel free on your website "
How is that substantially different from Amazon's 'sample' feature? Either someone is going to buy the book of the sample or they won't.
It is the fourth 'buy button' on the right side after "buy now with 1 click", "Give as a Gift", "Add to Wish List", and then "Send Sample now."
Author's need to do something substantially more than the default...
Neil
@Anon 11:35: "I'll go further, and say that I strongly suspect that I liked reading on a small lightweight device, better than I would a (relatively) big chunky Kindle or other reader tablet (for plain, non-illustrated text anyway). I will be testing this theory out very soon."
Already half the Kindle customers 'consume' content on three or more devices:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/15/technology/att_mwc/index.htm
Cell phones because they are always there. Kindles as they are light enough and easiest on the eyes. I guess laptops are device #3.
I'd ditch the Kindle for a 5" screen (e-ink) cell phone. The current 3.5" screens? Too many page turns.
Neil
neil said:
> If that 'free' Kindle is
> a cell phone subsidized
> by a contract... then we'll
> have a 'free' Kindle
did you actually read the post?
the thinking there goes that
amazon prime subscribers
would get a kindle free, like
they get streamed movies free.
and their shipping gets waived.
so no "contract" will be involved,
just a once-yearly cost of $79...
-bowerbird
Apologies Joe if this has already been said, but why the big price drop? Why not drop to say $1.49 or even $1.99 from $2.99 on some titles? Just wondered if there was a technical reason.
@wannabuy Maybe you could append a sample chapter and a "buy me" link (or several links, to various stores) to any book.
When my Kindle 1 broke last year (it stopped recognizing my library) I read on my iPhone for about 6 months. It was fine at first, but after a while I developed eye strain. I bought reading glasses and whined for a week that I was too young to need them before it dawned on me that it might be from reading on my phone.
I went out and bought the kindle 2 and the eye strain went away within a couple weeks.
Also, I am an Amazon Prime member and have not received a free Kindle offer.
Kendall Swan
@Kendall: The 'free' Kindles for Amazon primers haven't started yet. Give it a bit of time :)
J. E. Medrick, author of Shackled
It's a shame to see that price matters so much. The quality of the story, it seems, in the reader's eye is not much of a factor--or for the identical book is a non-factor at all. Drop the price, readers buy, it climbs on the sales list, more readers see it and snatch it up at 99 cents.
Here comes the onslaught of the 99 cent novel (like the 99 cent iTunes song), and in grows the chaffe into the wheatfield (as you've said in the past, Joe).
Shame, really. For authors, mostly, but for readers,too. Mountains of junk to sort through to read, with--as yet--no defined awards, agencies, websites or true and honest reviewers to help sort out the e-book heap.
Why not drop to say $1.49 or even $1.99 from $2.99 on some titles?
I dunno. $1.99 seems sort of pointless, even though it may be a viable price point.
I'm not a fan of the $0.99 but have said that it has its place. I do think that his sales got a boost from a few important sources that other's don't have...
1 - people who read this blog - I know I finally bought a Konrath title when it hit $0.99 and I suspect many others have.
2 - Kindle Review highlighted some books of which The List was one.
I personally think Joe is a good enough writer that people will pay $4.95 for his titles and would love for him to take Trapped to that level and see what happens. It's not always about "going low" it's about maximinzing income. The $4.95 and $6.95 works really well for Michael's books - no reader has ever complained about them being too expensive - but it may be that you can't cross the divider - you are either "low price" or "mid-priced" and perhaps you can't do well in both. My experiments in lower price were not successful.
Robin | Write2Publish | Michael J. Sullivan's Writings
robin said:
> I personally think Joe is
> a good enough writer
> that people will pay $4.95
> for his titles and would
> love for him to take Trapped
> to that level and
> see what happens.
i would love to see that too.
since it would surely make for
a more fascinating experiment.
and who knows? joe might
end up making more profit
with that higher price-point.
he won't know if he never tries.
of course, everyone who didn't
want to believe _those_ results
would write a comment about
how it was just one book from
one writer at one point in time,
and how everyone is different...
and all the people who _did_
want to believe such results
would say "see, i told you so!"
might as well be religious nuts.
-bowerbird
of course, a promotional push
announcing a new higher price
probably will not work so well.
-bowerbird
I think it's important to consider what makes people buy books. I buy and read a lot of books, the vast majority of which I have not seen before buying them. (I own over 5,000 print books.)
If I don't want to pay for a hardcover I'll wait for a paperback. But I find books in general reasonably priced for the entertainment or education they provide, and a couple of dollars makes little difference to me. My time is more important. I like long books--really, I want a book to be as long as it needs to be, no longer or shorter. But I don't want to waste a lot of time reading a book I really don't like. I'd much rather pay $25 for a book I am pretty sure I will like, than 99 cents for a book I don't have a clue about.
What I evaluate before buying: The publisher's marketing copy, including all statements about genre and subgenre, age range, and whether this author is considered similar to another author whose work I like. For nonfiction, all information about the content.
Then I read reviews, and since I see few print reviews these days, I rely a lot on Amazon reviews. I read a few other online reviews, but generally don't want to bother tracking them down. I carefully consider whether the reviewer's taste seems similar to mine. If it's an author whose work (whether books or short stories in magazines) I am familiar with, I am more likely to buy the book. But I've bought tons of books by authors I never heard of before. (These are often not new authors--just new to me.)
I find Amazon's "people who also bought" recommendations to be pretty useful as a starting point (to just find titles), assuming the book has been out long enough for their firefly system to have acquired meaningful data.
I buy DVDs of movies the same way.
I have looked at a few books and immediately sent them back. But, I've been very happy with the vast majority of my purchases, over many years. My tastes are not indiscriminate, possibly not even all that broad, but I have learned to do a good job of evaluating how well a book will satisfy them without pre-reading it. Or these days, since I buy most books online, without ever seeing it.
I guess what I am saying is, to me, content, not price, is all-important. But, I do vastly prefer print books and will only download e-books if they are not only free, but both in the public domain, and so rare a used copy is unavailable or unaffordable. Then I print them out and put them in a three-ring binder. I really hate reading onscreen, and my comprehension is not as good, because I like to flip back and forth in books. I don't think this is going to change. I've been working on a monitor since before the PC was invented, and I still will take print before screen any day. An ebook, even one by a favorite author, is an immediate no-buy decision for me.
I don't, by the way, think print publishing will ever die. Why should it? Every other form of entertainment has tended to coexist with older forms. Radio's not dead even though we have TV, movies, and DVDs. Etc.
I also think the e-book will rapidly morph into an entirely new art form incorporating sound and video as well as Internet capabilities. Just print on a screen will look really lame in a few years.
Joe Konrath said...
$0.99 is to try a new author. It drops the resistance to the click. Once you have a 'fan,' then they'll pay more
That's what I assumed, too. But my numbers aren't showing it.
I think it is too early to make any statements about reading your other books - not everyone tears through multiple books in a few weeks. And they might be saying..."It's worth looking into more from this author" but you might not see them buy for months as they have other things to read and don't "binge read" a particlar one.
Uptick in sales to the other books will probably occur in the future
Robin | Write2Publish | Michael J. Sullivan's Writings
almost top 60! congrats :)
so, joe, was "shot of tequila"
ranked at #2523, having sold
453 copies, as you said first?
or #1405, having sold 483,
as you reported as of 5:30 pm,
presumably sunday the 27th?
or both?
if so, it appears that those
30 sales alone jumped you
up over 1000 rank-places...
i guess those sales came
from people who wanted
to get the "higher-quality"
version of the book at $2.99,
not the bargain version $.99.
"you get what you pay for!"
either way, just 48 hours later,
the book has hit rank #777...
predictability of higher sales
with lower prices is boring...
-bowerbird
Just noticed The List is now in the mid 50's congratz Joe.
Robin | Write2Publish | Michael J. Sullivan's Writings
Joe: Thank you so much for your exhaustive efforts. I read The List. I loved the reference to Ira Levin... I assume its a shout out to him for his book 'the Boys from Brazil.' The book was good. I have read other of your author recommendations, some not so good. But here's my point, you are not harnessing the power of your efforts. I would pay 2.99-3.99 for a book critiqued and supported by a website such as yours. Any thought to banding efforts together and creating a quality e-book listing, Ie: Oprah's Book Club? I would be a critiquer (hah, critic, just kidding.) I have to say some e-authors are only enjoying this wave of publicity for a short time period, if the book isn't good, they aren't going to continue to buy houses with cash.
In my humble opinion, once this craze dies down, people will look at .99 books as authored by people who can't ask a higher price. Care to predict the future?
Ps. At the end of the book you welcomed questions and mentioned word count. What was the total word count of The List as published on Kindle. It was a good length for a vacation read.
Mary Beth Baron
after lingering just outside of
the top 50 for the past 3 days,
"the list" broke into it today
-- march 4th (march forth!) --
ensconced at #47 right now.
remember when joe thought
that it was "stuck in the 300s"
and he was "losing money"?
remember when joe thought
that it wouldn't reach #180?
we're about 2.5 weeks in to
the experiment at this time,
in case you lost track of that,
so these are still short-term
effects. but ain't they grand?
***
meanwhile, part 2 of this
"experiment" shows that
"shot of tequila" is today
just outside the top 500.
this is its highest point,
but it has fluctuated wildly,
as it moves generally up...
-bowerbird
3pm on saturday, march 5th,
and "the list" is now at #36...
and all of a sudden, there
seems to be no discussion.
and no _need_ for discussion.
-bowerbird
Mr Konrath mentions "Trapped" is priced at $2.99 but in the link http://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B003TFESNS the price is shown as $4.99.
I live in India. Is everyone seeing $4.99 or is this an international price? Are you guys in the US seeing $2.99?
I've noticed the price difference in other books as well.
Thanks
Sounds great if you have a widely known name. Im a new ebook author who just published my first kindle book at 2.99.ive been advertising it on facebook to all my friends and their many friends.everyone is very supportive but the issue is that a) most ppl dunno how to get the kindle reading app as they dont own kindles, they live everywhere but the US. And b) how do I advertise it to random ppl? How does it get to the noteworthy reading list on Kindle? Would truly appreciate some tips from a successful writer like you. Am really discouraged about this. I Had a lot of faith it would sky rocket, but i just dont know how to make it work. Help :-)
Thank you, this is very helpful information. Joti
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