Kindle Pricing Newbie...$1 Question

fullbookjacket · Jan 21, 2013

I've got a selection of short stories up on Amazon for Kindle now, and I was wondering if there's some advantage to listing something for 99 cents rather than an even dollar. Are buyers actively searching for the cheapest they can find? I'm new to the e-publishing so I'm in the midst of a crash-course self-teaching process.

thanks in advance,

Ken Pelham
Author, BRIGANDS KEY

AnneGlynn · Jan 23, 2013

Somehow, one dollar seems like a good deal more than 99-cents. Which is why I buy my Christmas presents from the 99-Cent Store instead of the One Buck Emporium.

But that's just me. Other people are sane.

merrihiatt · Jan 23, 2013

AnneGlynn said:
Somehow, one dollar seems like a good deal more than 99-cents. Which is why I buy my Christmas presents from the 99-Cent Store instead of the One Buck Emporium.

But that's just me. Other people are sane.

I knew there was something about you I really liked!

dogpie · Jan 23, 2013

fullbookjacket said:
I've got a selection of short stories up on Amazon for Kindle now, and I was wondering if there's some advantage to listing something for 99 cents rather than an even dollar. Are buyers actively searching for the cheapest they can find? I'm new to the e-publishing so I'm in the midst of a crash-course self-teaching process.

thanks in advance,

Ken Pelham
Author, BRIGANDS KEY

It's a psychology thing, there's a reason why items are always $x.99, it makes consumers feel that they're spending less than they actually are.

sarahdalton · Jan 24, 2013

Also, at $0.99 you'll find more places to advertise your book. For some reason many Kindle bargain websites like Ereader News Today only have a $0.99 section and a free section.

fullbookjacket · Jan 25, 2013

Thanks for the feedback, all!

I set the book at $1, since everyone else was going with .99 cents. "Ha!" I thought. The buyer will see that my book is at least 1% better than these others. No such luck. No buyers. So I slashed prices to .99 cents. Still no buyers. Oh well. I guess it takes time.

It's called TREACHEROUS BASTARDS: Stories of Suspense, Deceit, and Skullduggery. If anyone's interested.

Ken Pelham
Author of BRIGANDS KEY

sarahdalton · Jan 26, 2013

Good luck with it, ken. It does take time. Have a read around on the board about getting reviews and promoting. You might find putting it on goodreads or running a competition may get the ball rolling.

TroyJackson · Jan 26, 2013

Yeah, it's a retail mentality for pricing. They've done countless studies and people seem to click a lot better when you say "99 cents" as opposed to "1 dollar", even though it's only a 1 cent difference. Also, places have fine lines between the two when they are categorized, so your $1 book might get lumped into a $1- $2.99 cent category that fewer are likely to visit, as opposed to the $0.99 one.

fullbookjacket · Jan 26, 2013

Troy, thanks! That's kind of what I suspected the thing was.

The experience is educational, to say the least.

Arpeggio · Jan 26, 2013

Yes its psychological. I think the same can apply to print books, I am reducing my print price from double digits of over 10 somethingty something to the magical 9 somethingty something.

It's kind of stupid £10 is my deciding factor with unknowns in print too. Not quite the same in dollars I know.

Bookmama · Feb 5, 2013

fullbookjacket said:
Thanks for the feedback, all!

I set the book at $1, since everyone else was going with .99 cents. "Ha!" I thought. The buyer will see that my book is at least 1% better than these others. No such luck. No buyers. So I slashed prices to .99 cents. Still no buyers. Oh well. I guess it takes time.

It's called TREACHEROUS BASTARDS: Stories of Suspense, Deceit, and Skullduggery. If anyone's interested.

Ken Pelham
Author of BRIGANDS KEY

Is it a book that you have enrolled in Kindle Select program? Or do you have it for sale outside of Amazon (and therefore can't put in Select)?

Reason I'm asking is I have had pretty good luck with putting my books up as free and both posting on some of the websites that track free book days AND asking friends to download it on a free day, with the idea that then they can read it (and maybe even review it) some time later.

I get increased sales after free days. I'm thinking it is because of Amazon's feature of saying "people who bought this book also bought" -- if they downloaded my book for free that counts as 'buying' and so suddenly my book is getting displayed a lot more as people browse around Amazon.

Anne

fullbookjacket · Feb 11, 2013

Bookmama,
Thanks, and yes, I actually enrolled it in the "Select" program after a few weeks, and did a 1-day free promotion. The ranking shot up by the end of the day ("sales" of the freebie were estimated between 30 and 50 that day), but they dropped back down to nonexistent the next day.

I'll be adding a couple more short story collections soon, so I'll run the free price for each of them, one at a time, to see if the giveaway causes a boost in sales for the other two.

How many days did you run a free giveaway consecutively?

It's rather fun to study this.

Velcro · Mar 14, 2013

How's your cover art? Sometimes I know that can grab a reader and get them to at least peruse the synopsis. Just a thought. I'm considering jumping into the world of e-publishing soon so I find this thread very useful.

Kindle Pricing Newbie...$1 Question

fullbookjacket

AnneGlynn

If you don't try, you can't fail

merrihiatt

Writing! Writing! Writing!

dogpie

sarahdalton

fullbookjacket

sarahdalton

TroyJackson

fullbookjacket

Arpeggio

Bookmama

fullbookjacket

Velcro

Scribbling Scribe