[Amanda Brice]

When you lower your prices for a limited time sale, how long do you ride it out?

My list price is $2.99 but I discounted to $1.99 for the month of June. However, two weeks in, I'm not seeing any increase in sales whatsoever. Literally, I've sold the exact same amount these past two weeks as I did the 3 weeks previously. Same amount each day, too.

Only thing different is I'm earning a LOT less.

So I'm debating whether to raise the price back up to $2.99. After all, if I still sell the exact same amount, I might as well make more per sale. Or is it premature to make any moves, since it's only been 2 weeks, and I should continue to ride it out?

My other thought is to reduce the price even more, to 99 cents. Sure, I'll make even less money, but hopefully I'd sell more per day (thus increasing my chance of reviews and of improving my sales ranking).

For the record, my genre is YA chick lit/contemporary romance, and 99 cents doesn't dominate that category. The best sellers in this genre tend to be the trads at $8.99. Even the best-selling indies tend to be in the $2.99 to $5.99 range. Just in case that changes your analysis.

Am I overanalyzing things here? The book hasn't even been available for 2 months yet, and everything I've read says it takes 4-6 months to find an audience.

(I'm selling 5 copies a day currently, down from 10 per day during the first few weeks of he book's life.)

 

[John Hartness]

Well, I recently tried to make myself raise my price dramatically, and it lasted about 24 hours before I panicked and dropped the price back down.

But I only dropped the price halfway - to $4.99 instead of $2.99. Now I have one book at $.99 and two at $4.99 (I don't really track my poetry books, nobody buys those things). After a couple of days of a price dip, I seem to be creeping back up to where my sales were at $2.99, but with almost a 100% increase in revenue.

So maybe if your sales are going to stay flat, try to raise the price. Then the same sales equates to more cash. Of course, YMMV.

 

[SteveKarmazenuk]

I'd set up my pricing in the $2.50 range...wasn't getting much return on sales.  I decided to drop them down to 99 cents for the month of May (A birthday sale) and my sales shot up.  Keeping them at 99 cents, I may be on the verge of cracking my first 100-sales month.

...now if only some of those customers of mine would go back and review the damn books...

 

[SheaMacLeod]

I haven't published yet, so this isn't from personal experience, but from my research $1.99 is a deadzone (as Doomed Muse pointed out).  I've read this from several authors.  Personally I would either drop to 99 cents, or raise it back up.  Depending on what you want to achieve.

 

[jimbronyaur]

I agree with everyone to move it on up... I say $0.99 for small projects ( short stories, poetry, etc.) and then at least $3.00 for novels... I'd personally hit $4.99 or higher and then you could have coupons, sales, etc. without killing your profits. 

-jb

 

[kcmay]

A price drop in a vacuum may not do much to drive sales. A price drop in conjunction with targeted promotion could propel the book into very good rankings, which would serve to drive more sales.

That's what happened to my book. It was ranked 16,865 the day before my sale. The sale price helped a little, but the ad I placed on an ereader-oriented blog sparked a lot of sales, which drove down the ranking, which resulted in more sales, snowball style. That was in April, and the sales just keep improving. It's now ranked 531 -- the lowest rank it's ever had. I've decided not to raise the price back up yet.

 

[MQ]

I just lowered my price from $2.99 to $0.99 and the first two days I had 9 sales...but then it dropped off for a day or two and has picked up. 

I know I'm losing money but I'll probably keep it at that price for the summer (it's so nice to see sales) but if I see that my wallet is taking a beating then I might change it back up.

 

[ThatGurlthatlife]

Well when I first started in April my books were $3.99 each, and I wasn't even selling 1 per day- averaging approx 5 per week. I figured it was because they were brand new, and no one had seen them around before, so for the month of May I lowered the price for all three book of The Gifts Trilogy to $1.99, $2.99, & $3.99. I doubled sales in May doing this, but I still wasn't happy with how slow sales were coming in, so for the entire month of June I have dropped the price of all three books of The Gifts Trilogy to .99 each. I know I am losing big time on the profit, but I am hoping to build a fan base that will help spread the word. I just surpassed May sales this morning, by 2 so far, and there are still 2 weeks left in the month of June. I am already coming up with a pricing strategy for August, and hopefully this will bring in even more readers. I plan on playing with prices until I am selling a steady stream of books each day. Book 1 will probably always be on the lower end, and I'm fine with that because I know once the reader gets to the end of book one they won't be able to resist book 2 and 3. 

 

[Aynoit Ashor]

Great advice from everyone. 

 

[TheGapBetweenMerlons]

Content removed circa September 2018 after realizing this forum was bought by VerticalScope -- a foreign corporation with seemingly suspicious motives and a bad attitude apparently attempting to grab rights retroactively. They can have the rights to this statement!

 

[jawar]

Pricing strategy is an important one for the short and long-term success of your book. You'll find the more competitive your genre and less outside branding, marketing, promotions and publicity you have for your title(s) the lower your price per book will typically need to be.

Extremely successful author/publishers have found that the pricing model of .99 for the first book in a series then $2.99 - $4.99 in subsequent books in a series is a winning pricing model. However, other author/publishers have found solid footing with pricing their books between $7.99 - $9.99.

At the end of the day it's about having certain financial, branding and sells/sales goals in place. When you have certain goals in place you'll to tend to find a pricing strategy that works for you. Given the various success stories it would be wise if writing/publishing across genres to have a series or two that is priced using the .99 to $4.99 strategy and others wherein you price your books between $7.99 - $9.99.

It's been mentioned that the bulks of sells/sales will come during and shortly after the holiday buying season ie Nov - Feb. With that being said, upload as many books into the system as possible between now and then and promote like you aim to achieve high level success.
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