Thread: Apple + Agency Pubs Colluded on Price?
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Old 08-25-2011, 10:50 AM   #119
murraypaul
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools View Post
JA Konrath did an experiment last year in which he temporarily lowered the price of his books from $2.99 to $0.99 to see if he would make up in greater volume what he lost in the lowered price. He found that he made less money pricing his book at 0.99. than he did when he priced it at $2.99.
He is comparing 15 days at 0.99 to slightly over 2 days at 2.99.

a) Lowering the price, and selling many more copies, pushed the book up the sales lists, putting it in front of more eyes. That will slowly decay as sales drop at the higher price. What level of sales did he see over the 15 day period before putting the book on sale? Or for a month after?

Looking at an earlier blog post, he said:
Quote:
Eighteen days ago, I dropped the price of my ebook, The List, from $2.99 to 99 cents on Amazon. I was selling 40 copies a day prior to that.

Currently, The List is #37 in the Top 100 Bestsellers on the Kindle. It's selling 620 copies a day on Amazon.
40 copies at day at $2.99 is ~$120 a day

And in the post you link to:
Quote:
From March 1 to March 16 at 3pm, my ebook The List, priced at 99 cents and fluctuating in rank between #13 and #23, earned $5647. It averaged $375 a day. It peaked at $525 a day.

During the last 57 hours, The List, priced at $2.99 and currently ranked at #39, has earned $4092. It is averaging $1723 a day.

What does this mean?

Hell if I know. There's probably a formula in it somewhere. But I'm 100% sure I'll make a lot more money in 28 days at $2.99 than I did for the 28 days it was 99 cents. However, I wouldn't be making the current figures if I hadn't priced it at 99 cents.
He has made more money overall by lowering the price for a short period. He lowered the price to get more visibility, and kept some of the increased traffic after raising it again. He is making significantly more per day from that book than before lowering the price.

b) Did he see an increase in sales of his other books, as people liked the first one? That is (IMO) the main benefit of offering a book a low price or free, to entice new readers.
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