The only unknown author I've ever seen get away with more than .99 for a short is in erotica where 2.99 is standard.
I wonder... It would be interesting to see data behind say a regularly priced book of $6.99 or something, discounted through a countdown deal to 99c and a good promo like Bookbub, compared to the same scenario but discounted to $1.99. My gut tells me it wouldn't do as well because the $1.99 price point is so odd, but as an author you would get 70% of $1.99 on a countdown promo.Tyler Danann said:If it's a discounted price to $1.99 it should be fine.
You have a lot of pricing info at your fingertips. Have you compiled any pricing info on all the books you service and do any of them give you insight on the $1.99 price point? I didn't really see any flaw in the Smashwords data, but I would like to hear what about it makes it flawed. The only thing I can think of is that no one uses $1.99 so the datasets are small compared to all the others. But there was a clear volume drop between 99c and $1.99. So much so that with the same royalty rate it was a clear loss for the "mean" (not average) $1.99 priced book.Phoenix Sullivan said:What studies have you seen? The only one I've seen is Mark Coker's and my analysis of his conclusion indicates it was HIS math that was flawed.
Amazon uses $1.99 to a nice advantage. I have a feeling that "$1.99 is a dead zone" is a myth perpetuated by the flawed study mentioned above. Everyone *knows* it's dead, few people price there, and like most things in publishing, the results are all over the board for those who do use it.
But if there have been other good, recent studies on pricing, I'm interested in seeing them.
I'm not an unknown author. Readers like the series and follow it. The first story, which is permafree, is a best seller in two categories in the free Kindle store. The novella in this series is $2.99. This new story won't be included in the collected stories so I thought I might have some room with the price. After reading all the posts, I believe my best choice is .99 cents.ireaderreview said:1) This: Personally, I wouldn't pay more than 99c for a short story by an unknown author.
This. I have several out at this price point (PNR, 15k-20k) and they sell pretty well for me (or what I consider well, anyway, ranked in the 2000-3000 range). I do think it's a valid price point if the market will bear it for your genre and length. I know some people don't see the value in it, but honestly, 70 cents is better than 35 cents no matter how you cut it. Not as good as 70% of 2.99, but if you can't get 2.99 for it either way, then it doesn't really matter lol. I'll take the extra 35 cents, pleaseandthankyouLady Vine said:I personally like $1.99, and I reckon if Amazon wasn't so tight with the royalty rate, everyone else would like it too. But whatever. I have a couple at that price point. They sold all right on Amazon when they were first released a couple of years ago. They sell okay on Google now, where I get close to 70% royalty for them. You see, readers on other platforms don't have the same biases as those on Amazon. $1.99 is a good price for a novelette/novella.
I had read that study and recently decided to try some new things with pricing. To offer some anecdotal data, I very definitely did NOT see a drop in volume when I went from .99 to 1.99 on certain titles. Ranks stayed almost exactly where they were and sales continued on an even keel.SBJones said:You have a lot of pricing info at your fingertips. Have you compiled any pricing info on all the books you service and do any of them give you insight on the $1.99 price point? I didn't really see any flaw in the Smashwords data, but I would like to hear what about it makes it flawed. The only thing I can think of is that no one uses $1.99 so the datasets are small compared to all the others. But there was a clear volume drop between 99c and $1.99. So much so that with the same royalty rate it was a clear loss for the "mean" (not average) $1.99 priced book.
That's something to think about.Bob Stewart said:I have a three 10,000 word short stories I price at $1.49. These really only sell to people who buy the novels in my main series, and not many at that. But at $.99 only the same people buy, so why not make a little more?