Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
The royalty thing, of course.
Amazon doesn't forbid 99 cent *regular price* titles because some are PD or shorts.
But they do discourage it.
They allow 99 cent sales but that isn't the everyday pricing; just, as I said, temporary promos.
The same with free books. They allow it but they put limits on it.
If they didn't care they wouldn't limit.
The Other thing is Amazon has a pricing recommendation tool for indie authors based on genre also-boughts. In most cases it recommends higher prices than prevailing rates.
There is this general perception out there that Amazon wants to drive ebook prices to rock bottom; they don't. They tolerate freebies and 99 centers but their own policies are for regular prices closer to $5 than zero. (Author Earnings has documented this repeatedly.)
After all, there has to be room for promotional discounts.
There is a sweet spot for ebook pricing that maximizes profits and all evidence from Kindle and Smashwords is that it lies in the $4-8 range, depending on genre and author fanbase.
Pricing normal books lower is about buying visibility, not generating revenue.
That is how price jogging works: you price the book a bit higher than the average price you want to maintain and then drop it dramatically for a day or two once in a while. Regular price sales go up after the sale ends, making up for the losses from the promo.
Modern Retail pricing is a dynamic thing, not a matter of setting a fixed price and praying.
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I know how sales work. But most of the 99 cent books at Amazon are not on sale. That is their everyday price.
I would love it if on Weds all the grocery stores decided they need to put chicken, pork tenderloin, ground beef, canned goods and assorted other stuff on sale.
Thing is, I have never seen one word from Amazon about e-book pricing.
Everytime I have heard your argument, it was from someone who thought all books should be priced higher so they didn't have to compete with the cheap books. Yes, I have heard it many times.
My point is if Amazon wanted all books to start at $2.99, they could do that.
Please show me where Amazon has said they don't like 99 cents and free. In those words or something similar.
You do know they also give big sellers of other items discounts on the fees.
If Amazon didn't want someone picking up mostly freebies and 99 cent books, then I am sure they could put a limit on how many a customer could get.
Instead they tell us, thank you for being a very valuable customer.
Not to mention if a person buys three 99 cent ebooks, Amazon has made $2.05. If a person buys a $2.99 book, Amazon only made 89 cents.
My math says Amazon is profiting off the low price books.
But I guess, making less money is better than making more money.
See Amazon is customer centric and knows they will sell more at 99 cents than at 2.99.
That is overall, not per author.