Does price pulsing still work these days?

[Marie Long]

With KU and all its miseries it's been causing many authors, I'm wondering if certain marketing techniques of old are still effective now.

-Does dropping the price of a book that's already out to .99 for a limited time, then back up to the normal price (2.99 - 4.99) still work?
-Also, what about RELEASING A NEW BOOK for .99 for a limited time, and then bringing it back up to the normal price (2.99 - 4.99)?

Are these methods still effective these days?

[KBoards.com]

[Wayne Stinnett]

If they do, I'd warn against it. You really don't want someone One Clicking, just at the moment of price change. I've personally never done it, but did get a really nasty review of a book from someone that most likely One Clicked a free book, just a little after midnight when a Free Promo ended. Apparently, the reviewer thought I was price pulsing, though that's not possible with Free and his review lit up my product page. Someone complained to Amazon and they removed it, so the reviewer pasted it on Goodreads and started a bolg. I can only imagine the kind of person that writes that kind of review and saves it.

[Molly Tomorrow]

The second one can be extremely effective if you don't have a huge following and I don't think KU has changed anything there (except if your in KU and then the borrows are a nice bonus because you make more on them than you do on a sale).  I'm envious of people who can hit the top 100 launching at full price, but I can't (yet!).

For the first I don't think dropping the price and leaving it will do much. Combined with promotion it can help though. Again I don't think KU has really changed anything here.

[Jake Kerr]

It definitely works, but I would make a bolded first line of your description outlining the term of the sale. This should at least alleviate a bit of Wayne's concerns.

I did a 3 day non-select sale (even though I'm in Select), and sales were dramatically higher over those three days. Price went from $3.99 to $0.99. I did no marketing other than using my own social media accounts.

[donna callea]

I've done what is probably a pretty stupid thing with pricing.  One of my books wasn't selling at all.  Not even when it was 99 cents.  Maybe because I wasn't promoting it all. Then I put it in select at $2.99 and did a countdown promo to 99 cents and it did OK during the promo (thanks to some ads), but then nada.  So... I thought I would increase the price to $5.99 for a while, knowing that it was absurdly high, and no one was likely to buy it at that price.  But I figured when I did my next countdown, reducing it to 99 cents, it would seem like an even better deal.  And maybe there would be more borrows afterwards.
I don't think this strategy (if you can call it a strategy) is pulsing.  But now I'm afraid it might backfire somehow, and there's really nothing I can do about it now.
Any advice?

[reneepawlish]

Oh I hope I don't get burned - I just released a new book today at 99 cents and let my email list know, but I didn't put anything on my product page.  I'm going to up the price tomorrow. Think I better go change the description to say it's on sale just today

[ruecole]

I launched my novel at $0.99 for the first two weeks. Ran a few promos to go with the launch. Landed on the Hot New Release list and stayed there for the next 30 days. I'd say iy worked great!

Several other KBoarders have had similar (and better!) results doing the same thing.

I've run one other $0.99 promo and one free promo (combined with a BookBub ad) since. I have been very happy with the results of those too. Running another $0.99 promo at the end of the month.

As has been mentioned, put a note in bold at the top of your description that this is a limited time offer so there's no confusion.

Hope that helps!

Rue

[cinisajoy]

Please remember if you change your blurb to reflect a sale, change it back after the sale.   Otherwise,  it just looks silly.

[Joe Vasicek]

I price pulsed my first Star Wanderers omnibus to $.99 for the first week of November, and it resulted in my first 100+ sales day. Not only did I push more volume with the $.99 sale, but I also saw an increase in revenue from that book, in spite of receiving only $.35 for each sale.

So yeah, I think it's safe to say that price pulsing still works.

[Molly Tomorrow]

Did you do any promo Joe? Or was that completely organic. Either way, nice one!

[Joe Vasicek]

Did you do any promo Joe? Or was that completely organic. Either way, nice one!

Yeah, I did a couple of promos, otherwise it probably wouldn't have worked. The big one was ENT; I also did a ReadCheaply promo which pushed a few, and a Fussy Librarian which had virtually no effect.

[Wayne Stinnett]

Maybe I missed the definition of price pulsing somewhere. Running a discounted promo or launching a new book at a low price aren't what I'd call pulsing. To me, price pulsing means dropping the price for a short time, a day or two and then raising it to full price when it starts showing some rank and dropping the price again when rank starts to slip, then doing it all over again. Yeah, it takes advantage of the better rank exposure, but to me it just seems a bit underhanded. I don't have any problem discounting for a promo and advertising it as such, or launching to my mailing list at a "Thank You" price. Everyone on here knows I do that fairly regularly. But, I wouldn't call that pulsing.

[ruecole]

Wayne, to be honest, I really don't see the difference. Running a $0.99 promo every month or two to boost your rankings is exactly the same thing as dropping your price and then bumping it up again when your rank improves. Only difference is, with the former, you're usually paying a promo site to help you do it.

Rue

[Dobby the House Elf]

Wayne, to be honest, I really don't see the difference. Running a $0.99 promo every month or two to boost your rankings is exactly the same thing as dropping your price and then bumping it up again when your rank improves. Only difference is, with the former, you're usually paying a promo site to help you do it.

Rue

And all are valid ways to gain traction and generate income.

Don't be afraid of readers getting mad, only a select few will, and they are usually located on Amazon.com, and not many people pay attention to them anyway.

[KBoards.com]