Hate high ebook prices? Check out this experiment

[iq3]

One author is doing an experiment about ebook prices. She's dropping the price of her new book from $10.99 to $1.99 for a week to see if it will increase sales. If this is successful she's going to push her publisher to lower ebook prices. Check it out here:
http://deadlyletters.blogspot.com/20...on-ebooks.html

I've read the book, it's awesome. So if you want to support a new writer, and make a statement about ebook prices, purchase this book for $1.99 from Dec. 7–Mon. Dec.13

Ashley

[JLeighs]

It's $1.99 now on Amazon. It looks interesting, and the few reviews it has (6) are good. I would *not* have paid $10.99 for it, no matter how interesting it looked.

[abookreader]

Is this an Indie book?
I'm not sure about this publisher, never heard of them. At best, it is a very small press. Either way, $10.99 is beyond out of this stratosphere pricing for the book. Top NYT Bestsellers can command $10.99. New authors trying to build and audience need to be more realistic.

I'd suggest you contact this author and have her read through JA Konrath's blog on eBook pricing or at least talk to some fellow authors who are succeeding in book promotion.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by abookreader

Is this an Indie book?
I'm not sure about this publisher, never heard of them. At best, it is a very small press. Either way, $10.99 is beyond out of this stratosphere pricing for the book. Top NYT Bestsellers can command $10.99. New authors trying to build and audience need to be more realistic.

Hmm, the author thinks the price is too high, her publisher doesn't!

[Kali Yuga]

Well, it's pretty clear that if the price is lower, more people will buy it.

Unfortunately she is kind of spiking things by telling people "hay guys, if you want cheep books buy mine right now."

The question though is whether you can buy enough to make up the difference in lost revenues. For example, if the book is typically $10, and it's on sale for $2, you need to sell at least 5 times as many copies just to break even.

I'm sure she will sell more, but 5 times more than a typical week?

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I'm sure she will sell more, but 5 times more than a typical week?

Do you have a better way of acquiring the data needed for analysis of the price impact on the sales for this specific title?

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Hmm, the author thinks the price is too high, her publisher doesn't!

Okay. Well I read through the blog post and I'll say I suspect this post might belong in the author self-promotion section.

But taken at face value her publisher gives a whole bunch of that "devaluing literature" blather that the Agency 5 are fond of putting out. So at least someone THINKS BIG I guess. Still, reality check. Debut author in eBook is not going to sell at $10.99. End of story.

I'll just add that I personally know an author who has published through one of those tiny Publishing houses that appears very similar to this book. Her paper books are pretty much POD and she (The Publisher) really has no choice but to charge $12 to $14 for the book because they can't print it for less. Her Publisher insists on pricing the eBook at $9.99 though and she has argued constantly with them that it is way overpriced. They won't listen to her though and she has sold only a handful of eBook copies which leads them to believe her book really isn't marketable and now it just languishes.

I feel bad for her because I do think that at a $2.99 to $4.99 level she'd gain some momentum, but she signed away the eBook rights and has no control.

[jbcohen]

I have some basic price critera that can sink and in a lot of case has detered me from buying an ebook: 1) I will not spend more that $8, don't care who it is; 2) Book needs to line up with where I am going with my reading at any point in time, doesn't matter what the book is priced if I am not shopping for that type of book at the moment I don't buy. At the moment I am looking for political and military thriller books, I have read Andy Mc Dermott and I am working on Executioner # 385 Recovery Force at the moment. In the near future I am planning on reading Michael Walsh.

Simple pricing is not enough the book has to be in line with where I am going at this point in time.

[igorsk]

I wonder what relation the first-poster has to the author?

[desertgrandma]

Welcome to MobileRead, iq3.

May I ask, are you connected with this author?

It just seems strange that your first post is pushing someone elses book.

The original price is, like has been said before, out of line for an e-book, especially for an independent author.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Well, it's pretty clear that if the price is lower, more people will buy it.

Unfortunately she is kind of spiking things by telling people "hay guys, if you want cheep books buy mine right now."

The question though is whether you can buy enough to make up the difference in lost revenues. For example, if the book is typically $10, and it's on sale for $2, you need to sell at least 5 times as many copies just to break even.

I'm sure she will sell more, but 5 times more than a typical week?

It would be interesting to see the figures at both price points, as well as find out how much of a percentage the "publisher" is raking off just for uploading it to Amazon and denying sales to anyone who lives in the wrong country.

[Barcey]

Personally I think the data from Kobo is much more informative.

Slides 124 through 130 from the following blog slideshare. (You can just type in the slide #)

http://blog.kobobooks.com/2010/04/28...share-edition/

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Do you have a better way of acquiring the data needed for analysis of the price impact on the sales for this specific title?

I'm not disputing the general claim that a lower price will sell more copies. I'm merely expressing skepticism that she'll sell 5x more based on lowering the price.

The experiment is also going to be a bit distorted, since it's being billed as a "limited time offer" and meant to prove a point. A better experiment would be to take a series of backlist title with relatively consistent sales, vary the prices for random periods of time, and see the effects on sales. This is a start, but hardly a definitive experiment.

At any rate, we won't know the results unless she and/or her publisher share that info with the public.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I'm not disputing the general claim that a lower price will sell more copies. I'm merely expressing skepticism that she'll sell 5x more based on lowering the price.

I agree, but I also think there is an optimal price that maximizes the publisher/author profit and it is much less than $10.99. It is probably less than $5.49 ($5.49 would almost certainly sell more than 2x $10.99 for an ebook with 4-5 stars).

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I'm not disputing the general claim that a lower price will sell more copies. I'm merely expressing skepticism that she'll sell 5x more based on lowering the price.

And I am not arguing that she will sell 5x more copies. What will be accomplished, though, is to estimate a total number of customers who are ready to pay (anything) for her book. $2 is symbolic, it is definitely bellow anybody's threshold, but still weeds out freeloaders. Better starting point than "wet finger in the air" method.

Like wallcraft, I believe that there is a threshold bellow which nobody cares and it is, very likely, somewhere in vicinity of $5 dollars. The function is not linear, but what can one do to find out what the optimal value is, except to try lowering the price? Besides, the promotional values of (almost) freebie are still there, and for an unknown author, the enemy is obscurity, not a loss of imaginary sales.

Barcey, those are very nice charts, thanks. Have some karma.