After some early morning pondering, I've decided to lower the price of BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT to 99 cents. Yep, you read that right.
It's my hope that this will help get my book into the hands of more readers. It may have no affect whatsoever, but we shall see. At this particular point in time, I'm planning on leaving it at this price for 30 days--test the waters, see how it goes.
Some of you may be wondering why I've decided to do this. Well, I always told myself prior to publishing that price point is something I would experiment with--and I haven't. Sales are steady, but slow...and really, doing this now isn't going to have any sort of financial impact. Can't worry about the few dollars that are trickling in when they're...well, trickling. (g) And really, that wasn't why I did this in the first place. What I'm on the hunt for is readers.
So far, BTPM hasn't sold in record breaking numbers, but those who are reading it, are really loving it. It's been a huge success on that level, which was my ultimate goal. i.e. To put out a quality book that people love...that they'll want more of... and basically, to create a readership for the series, etc. It is gaining slow momentum, and perhaps this pricing change will be the boost that it needs. I definitely want to go into book 2 with the added benefit of there being actual readers who are anticipating its release.
So...yeah, that's my reasoning in a nutshell. It may flop, I may go right back to my "high price" of 2.99... We shall see.
Go forth and spread the word. :)
Oh and P.S. I just made the changes this morning, so the new price may not be listed for another day or two.
3 comments:
Jenn, As an Indie author there are always adjustments to be made in price. Quite a few have offered their books for free and then raised the price with each subsequent novel.
For me, I base it on word count. Recently I published a business pamphlet on being and author...mainly taxes. While I offered the 3K word pamphlet for free, the whole book (currently being written) will sell for a minimum of $3.99 for e-readers. 75,000 words.
My e-version novels range in price between $1.99- $3.99. This isn't bargain basement, but part of me refuses to sell something that takes three-six months to write for $.99. That's not to say I won't in the future.
BTPM is an excellent book. Yes, you want to get it into the reader's hands...that comes from promotion. Because you've changed your price think "SALE" not a permanent reduction. Your book is now "On Sale." 30 days is excellent. Promote it that way on Twitter, Facebook, and every place else. All businesses have sales to draw customers. It's a marketing ploy and nothing more. It is not a reflection on your work as a whole.
Right now you are only offering two titles...as your inventory increases so will your readership.
I think it's a great move. As I've blathered about elsewhere, in the last three months I've finished two series of novels, each of which hooked me in with a perfectly priced first volume.
The first series I happened across when the author put the first book price down to FREE for a month. She usually retails it for 0.99c, and I was so hooked by the end of it that I didn't mind paying the list price for the other five volumes in the series ($5.59, though I think a couple of those were also on special when I got them). The second series has the first book priced regularly at 0.99c and the next seven range between 1.99 and 2.99. I'd happily pay more for all of them because I've enjoyed them so much.
In short, I think dropping the price to 99c will get you a whole lot of new readers who might need convincing to pick up an author they haven't heard of before- and I think doing it for 30 days is a great idea, too, because you'll gain yourself plenty of word-of-mouth attention in the meantime to make people pick it up at the ordinary price. Which is what I paid for my Kindle copy, and it was worth every cent :)
Hope it's working, Jen!
I like Jo's idea of charging based on word count. Isn't that how Dickens worked? [bg]
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