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first in series pricing

2K views 17 replies 12 participants last post by  TromboneAl 
#1 ·
I'm sure this has probably been discussed elsewhere. I did a search but couldn't find what I was looking for. SO, I'm asking here.

For this of you with series in KU, what have you found to be the sweet spot for pricing the first book? I've heard all kinds of advice. Keep it at full price and advertise, make it free, make it permanently .99.

Can anyone share any wisdom? Or point me to a thread that covers this?
 
#2 ·
I was actually searching for the same thing a few weeks ago and it was hard to find for me as well. :) For me, I've found that $0.99 first book pricing lost me money and readers. I once had my entire New World series (dystopian thriller) priced at $2.99 per book, including the first book. All books are between 49K and 89K words. I read over and over here at KBoards that $0.99 for a series starter was the way to go, so I changed it. I was getting some sales, but traction dropped. Page reads went to zero for the first book (which leads to no reads for the rest of the series, of course). I decided to change it back to $2.99 about two weeks ago. That very day, page reads went back up and not only did I sell a few copies of the first book, I also had three complete series buy throughs (two people bought the entire series in paperback, and someone bought the entire series on Kindle). I have no idea how much of this truly correlates to the price change, so take that with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't know about making books free. I don't personally like the idea so I've never tried perma-free. I did do some giveaways back in 2012 that did nothing but get me a few reviews, but the climate was very different then.

I can see we write in very different genres, so I'm not sure how true my experience will be for you. But for me, I will never price a book below $2.99 again.
 
#4 ·
Launching at 99 cents can work really well. It tickles the algorithms.

One of the problems of keeping it there permanently though is that 99 cent books are penalized in the popularity lists (not bestseller lists) which is part of the reason sales decline after a while. A lot depends on the genre though and how other authors commonly price first books.
 
#10 ·
When I asked a similar question in the autumn the response was generally that different things were working for different people to different degrees, so there wasn't a general consensus. The advice I got was: give X a try, then mix it up until you find what works for you. I'm leaning towards discounted first book ($2.99) and full price for the rest in the series ($4.99), but I'll be re-evaluating that pretty soon here when I get ready to release them all. The first book is also a bit shorter (63k) where the other books seem to be 90k-110k. Not that I think a 63k book shouldn't be $4.99, but given the discrepancy with the rest of the series, it makes the worried part of my brain feel a bit better.
 
#17 ·
TromboneAl said:
In the past, I've paid big bucks to give away copies of Yesterday's Thief and introduce my books and the series to new readers.

Since I made it permafree (on Nov 1), I've given away 2,451 copies at no cost to me (plus another thousand or so through InstaFreebie).
Have you noticed a good read through on the series?
 
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