[Guest]

So, by the end of July Wolf Hunt will have been available for about six weeks. So far I've been content with the sales I got (haven't gotten any reviews from the book bloggers so far) which have been between one or two per day.

Now, by the end of next week I'll have the figures for July, during which I sold Wolf Hunt for $3.99.

In August, I'll set the price to $2.99.

And finally, in September, $4.99.

I'll come back to this thread and update this post with the respective sales numbers after each month.

 

[MartinLake]

A useful experiment.  I'd be interested to see the effects of the changes.

 

[Guest]

So what do you think making arbitrary price changes is going to do other than confuse the marketplace?  Sales don't happen in a void.  There are hundreds of variables beyond price that come into play.  July and August are traditionally slower sales months for books because people are doing a million other things besides reading. September begins to pick up.  Meanwhile, assuming you have a marketing plan, your sales should be increasing each month as more people become aware of your product and word of mouth spreads.  So September should be a bigger month that July and August.

But now you are going to handicap September by having the price at $2.99 in August.  So all of those folks with interest who think the book sells for $2.99 and decide to grab it in September are going to see a $2 increase.  All things being equal, you risk those people just buying something else. 

Meanwhile, you can't control other variables.  What is a stunning review appears somewhere and drives traffic to the book?  Or you strike a good spot with an ad campaign and hit your target demographic one week? 

Playing yo-yo with pricing is bad unless you have a control group to compare to and means to rule out other variables.  All this sort of stuff does is devalue ebooks by leading customers to consider all pricing arbitrary and at the whim of the author.  In order to build value, there must first be consistency. 

 

[Glenn Bullion]

I have to agree with Julie.  I know there's that large pricing experiment thread, and I think it's okay to try different prices over a long period of time.

But I always feel (and of course, I'm not an expert), you have to set a price, and stick to it, at least for a while.  I did the same thing with Demonspawn, moving the price around several times in a short span.  It was just impossible to tell what was working, and what wasn't.

 

[MonkeyScribe]

I like your idea, but people have raised some good points. How about if you leave the price for two months at a time instead of one?

 

[Guest]

Sounds like a better idea, Michael, especially considering that the summer months don't seem to be representative that much, with sales generally being lower.