If I give away a 99 cent book from my website will Amazon price match?

1316 Views 24 Replies 9 Participants Last post by Gregg Bell, Apr 3, 2015

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · Apr 2, 2015

I want to give away a 99 cent book (actually it's a short story) from my website as an incentive to sign up to an email list. If I do that, will Amazon price match to make it free? (I don't want them to price match.) Thanks.

1 - 20 of 25 Posts

75814

· #2 · Apr 2, 2015

Probably not. But I think you'd be better off making the story exclusive to your list. It's more of an incentive if you're giving people something they can't get anywhere else as opposed to just saving them a dollar.

Shelley K

· #3 · Apr 2, 2015

As Lana Kane from Archer would say, "Nooooooooooope."

They price-match their book-selling competition: Kobo, Google, Barnes and Noble and Apple.

Briteka

· #4 · Apr 2, 2015

It's unlikely. It would have to be reported multiple times or their spiders would have to crawl it. Maybe you could put a no robot command on the page?

MEPurfield

· #5 · Apr 2, 2015

If you want Amazon to make it free then just ask them to do it.

75814

· #6 · Apr 2, 2015

MEPurfield said:
If you want Amazon to make it free then just ask them to do it.

He doesn't, he wants to offer it free to mailing list subscribers but keep it paid on Amazon.

thewitt

· #7 · Apr 2, 2015

They will not spider your website and find your title, then related it to your Amazon title and price match it.... Not a chance. It's tough enough for them to successfully parse the half a dozen key contributors they care about; iTunes, Kobo, B&N, etc

If someone reports it to them because they bought it on Amazon for $4.99 and you are stilling it for $0.99, then it's possible.

katrina46

· #8 · Apr 2, 2015

shelleyo1 said:
As Lana Kane from Archer would say, "Nooooooooooope."

They price-match their book-selling competition: Kobo, Google, Barnes and Noble and Apple.

Even then you have to jump through hoops to get them to do it sometime.

SBJones

· #9 · Apr 2, 2015

Be aware that Amazon does not like to price match into a lower royalty rate. They frown upon listing a book in the 70% royalty rate, then trying price match to 99c from another site so you keep the higher royalty. Many authors have gotten naughty letters from Amazon for attempting this.

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · #10 · Apr 2, 2015

Thanks everybody.

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · #11 · Apr 2, 2015

SBJones said:
Be aware that Amazon does not like to price match into a lower royalty rate. They frown upon listing a book in the 70% royalty rate, then trying price match to 99c from another site so you keep the higher royalty. Many authors have gotten naughty letters from Amazon for attempting this.

Not sure what you mean.

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · #12 · Apr 2, 2015

Perry Constantine said:
Probably not. But I think you'd be better off making the story exclusive to your list. It's more of an incentive if you're giving people something they can't get anywhere else as opposed to just saving them a dollar.

Thanks Perry. You're right but I'm just wondering if it will be enough of an incentive. (You see all these stories here of people giving away two or three novels to get people to sign up to their email lists.)

I'm going to do something with the story, though. But I'm wondering if it might be better to make it perma-free and load up the back-end with links to the other books (maybe that and even the first chapter of the free book). The only real traction I've ever been able to generate is with my free book, but it's hardly turning into sales for the other books and nobody is signing up for my email list.

Decisions decisions.

SBJones

· #13 · Apr 2, 2015

If you read the price matching policy, Amazon says they will pay you the royalty rate you signed up for at the regular list price. So if I have a $2.99 book at 70% royalty and I set a lower price somewhere else to 99c and Amazon price matches. You keep the 70% royalty rate at the 99c price match. Not the 35% royalty where a regularly priced 99c book sits. People did this a lot early on to pull in better royalties at the lower price. Amazon put their foot down, and if I recall correctly they now talk about it specifically in the pricing guidelines. So if you want that red slash through the price that a price match gives you to the down to the 99c realm. You better make sure you opted for the 35% royalty rate to begin with or expect Amazon to come calling and asking for their money back.

https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A29FL26OKE7R7B

If we price-match your Digital Book, your Royalty will be: The Royalty Rate indicated above, multiplied by the price at which we sell the Digital Book, less taxes and Delivery Costs, for sales to customers in the Available Sales Territories.

iv. Non-Compliance: If at any time your Digital Book does not meet the requirements for the 70% Royalty Option, the Royalty for the Digital Book will be as provided in the 35% Royalty Option and we can adjust previously reported or paid Royalties based on the 35% Royalty Option.

The old language is still in there about getting 70% royalties on a 99c price match, but they added the Non-Compliance bit later to prevent people from getting it.

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75814

· #14 · Apr 2, 2015

Gregg Bell said:
Thanks Perry. You're right but I'm just wondering if it will be enough of an incentive. (You see all these stories here of people giving away two or three novels to get people to sign up to their email lists.)

I'm going to do something with the story, though. But I'm wondering if it might be better to make it perma-free and load up the back-end with links to the other books (maybe that and even the first chapter of the free book). The only real traction I've ever been able to generate is with my free book, but it's hardly turning into sales for the other books and nobody is signing up for my email list.

Decisions decisions.

You're right, it's hard to compete when you're offering a short story while others are offering novels. But if you make that short story exclusive, something they can't get anywhere else even if they pay a dollar, then it becomes a bit more of an incentive. Maybe not as much of an incentive as offering a free novel, but it's still something, especially if it ties into something else you're working on. I've managed to get a number of sign-ups from people by stating in my back-matter that if you sign up to the list, you get access to stories that aren't available elsewhere.

If you're getting downloads of your free book but no sign-ups or sell-throughs, then I don't think doing the same thing with a short story will help your chances. So I'd say it's worth a shot. Update the back-matter on your free book, include a note that sign-ups can get a free short story--maybe include a blurb for the story--and then put in the link to your subscribe page and your welcome letter to new subscribers should include a link to the story.

And if it doesn't work, you can always put up the story and make it permafree later.

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MEPurfield

· #15 · Apr 2, 2015

Perry Constantine said:
He doesn't, he wants to offer it free to mailing list subscribers but keep it paid on Amazon.

Damn my tired eyes :-/

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · #16 · Apr 2, 2015

SBJones said:
If you read the price matching policy, Amazon says they will pay you the royalty rate you signed up for at the regular list price. So if I have a $2.99 book at 70% royalty and I set a lower price somewhere else to 99c and Amazon price matches. You keep the 70% royalty rate at the 99c price match. Not the 35% royalty where a regularly priced 99c book sits. People did this a lot early on to pull in better royalties at the lower price. Amazon put their foot down, and if I recall correctly they now talk about it specifically in the pricing guidelines. So if you want that red slash through the price that a price match gives you to the down to the 99c realm. You better make sure you opted for the 35% royalty rate to begin with or expect Amazon to come calling and asking for their money back.

https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A29FL26OKE7R7B

The old language is still in there about getting 70% royalties on a 99c price match, but they added the Non-Compliance bit later to prevent people from getting it.

Thanks but I'm still not sure I get it.

You better make sure you opted for the 35% royalty rate to begin with

How can you opt for the 35% option "to begin with"? If the book's at 2.99 it has to be at the 70%. So you make it .99 elsewhere and then Amazon price matches. When that happens, isn't the royalty percentage automatically made 35%?

I'm a Little Teapot

· #17 · Apr 2, 2015

Gregg Bell said:
How can you opt for the 35% option "to begin with"? If the book's at 2.99 it has to be at the 70%.

No, you have a choice: 35 or 70%. It's right there on the royalty page.

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · #18 · Apr 2, 2015

Perry Constantine said:
You're right, it's hard to compete when you're offering a short story while others are offering novels. But if you make that short story exclusive, something they can't get anywhere else even if they pay a dollar, then it becomes a bit more of an incentive. Maybe not as much of an incentive as offering a free novel, but it's still something, especially if it ties into something else you're working on. I've managed to get a number of sign-ups from people by stating in my back-matter that if you sign up to the list, you get access to stories that aren't available elsewhere.

If you're getting downloads of your free book but no sign-ups or sell-throughs, then I don't think doing the same thing with a short story will help your chances. So I'd say it's worth a shot. Update the back-matter on your free book, include a note that sign-ups can get a free short story--maybe include a blurb for the story--and then put in the link to your subscribe page and your welcome letter to new subscribers should include a link to the story.

And if it doesn't work, you can always put up the story and make it permafree later.

Thanks Perry. That's good logic. I know I'm going against the grain without having a series. I just don't write series. Oh well. I figure it will just take that much longer to win people over. (I don't like to read series either.)

I already have the offer of exclusive free short stories in the back-matter of all the books. I don't really think having the blurb for the story is going to do much, esp. since they just got the book free.

But what's my "subscribe page"? LOL (Seems I ought to know.) And what's my "welcome letter to new subscribers"? Is that the Mailchimp (of course if you use Mailchimp) sort of stuff? (I saved what you said about doing the free files thru Google Drive. And so are those the same "links" you're talking about in the subscribe page and welcome letter?)

Hey, thanks for the help.

Gregg Bell

Discussion Starter · #19 · Apr 2, 2015

SevenDays said:
No, you have a choice: 35 or 70%. It's right there on the royalty page.

Hey Seven Days. But why would anyone make it 35% at 2.99?

SBJones

· #20 · Apr 2, 2015

Gregg Bell said:
Hey Seven Days. But why would anyone make it 35% at 2.99?

Because someone might not ever intend to sell it at $2.99. I can list price to $5.99. Price match to 99c and get a cool little ~~$5.99~~ 99c Save 83% listing as my price for a book I always wanted to be 99c to begin with.

Also, you may not have world wide rights to your book. Certain territories force you to choose a 35% rate. Others can only go 70% if you opt in for select. 35% is also the only option for books over $9.99. There are a number of other reasons why an author or publisher may opt for 35% over 70%

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