My novella has been doing really well in the UK since I self published in january. Sales have increased month on month far better than expected, And as i've been more concerned about readership than money for my first effort, I priced at 99p, the lowest available in the UK. However for the last week i've noticed sales are slowly beginning to decrease so i'm thinking of putting up the price to £1.99. Not for profit but because i keep seeing how a lot of readers dont take 99p seriously and just bypass the book without even looking. I know all books begin to drop down the rankings eventually, but like everyone i'm trying to stay as high as possible for as long as possible. Of course it could go the other way and sales could die off altogether so I thought i'd ask if anyone else has tried this?
Dude, you're at #74 OVERALL, and you're worried about falling down the rankings?!? But, okay... I haven't experimented too much with price. I only have one full-length self-pubbed book to play with, and I think I had it at $.99 for a few weeks, got some reviews, and then bumped it up to $3.99 and left it there. No idea if that was a good strategy. As a reader, I do tend to discount books at $.99. But I snap books up like hotcakes when they're at $1.99 to about $4.99. Over that price, I have to really want to read the book as a specific book, not just a "maybe that would be good" gamble.
Ha thanks BayView, and maybe I am being a bit too panicky. I just know Amazon rankings are concerned with sales consistency and as mine have been consistently dwindling since I peaked I suspect I'll be plumetting soon! Yikes! I've just been checking books higher than me and quite a few are priced at 99p or even lower. Although very few of those seem to be self pubbed I'm thinking maybe a price change wouldn't make much difference at this point. I may give it a try when i've dropped out of the top 100. Did raising your price to 3.99 alter downloads or sales?
It lowered the total number of sales a little, but b/c I was making so much more per book I still made more at the higher price point. But I was never working at the really high sales ranks like you are, so it could be a whole different scenario.
At my level--best ranking I've ever hit was about #1200 on Amazon.com--I've never seen much difference so long as I kept prices in a reasonable range for the story... lower prices got about the same number of sales, and made less money. However, I haven't tried big price changes for a year or more, and a lot has changed in the ebook market since then. It's just too much hassle when you have books on many different retailers.
Still undecided. Although i'm favouring staying at 99p as that's probably a fair price for a novella. Even if in my mind I think it's worth a lot more
