Monday, March 14, 2011

Pricing experiment update: after 14 days

Here are the sales and royalties charts for the two books that I’m experimenting with price.
Lowered price from $2.99 to $0.99.

February average daily sales = 6.6
March average daily sales so far = 15.1
February average daily royalties = $13.21
March average daily royalties so far = $5.28
March’s average daily sales/royalties have increased since last week, from 13/$4.55 to 15.1/$5.28.

Raised price from $0.99 to $2.99.

February average daily sales = 6.7
March average daily sales so far = 8.2
February average daily royalties = $2.34
March average daily royalties so far = $16.51
March’s average daily sales/royalties have increased since last week, from 7.5/$15.08 to 8.2/$16.51.
Things continue to look good.
Previous pricing experiment reports:
March 1 – Experiment begins for novel and Format book

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for keeping us posted on the experiment. Interesting findings for sure.

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  2. I've noticed that fiction writers that lower it to 99 cents see a pretty good increase in units sold, and the lower profits are a temporary thing as word spreads.

    But your Kindle help book...you're meeting such a specific and growing demand, I bet you could increase the price a little more with little or no effect on units sold, yet increase that profit margin in a healthy way.

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  3. I agree with J. Noel. I think you could raise the price on the Kindle format book and sales would continue to climb.

    Pricing is never an absolute. Perception, positioning, market penetration, and elasticity all play into the art of correct pricing. I think pricing elasticity is the dominant factor here. You can raise the price and not much will happen to consumer demand.

    I've read that it takes 2 months to actually see the overall effect of pricing decisions. You could wait for that time to pass, or you could incrementally raise the price until you reach the threshold where sales slow.

    That threshold is when consumers say: "Hey, this book is really short. Why should I pay X for it?"

    Of course, then you could apply "value chain" to it and rework your product description to show the embedded value of the book despite its length.

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  4. Love it when the good guys do well.

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  5. Don't raise that book price again yet *cry*! I want to get it, but I can't afford the $2.99 as it is :P

    Shackled
    Cheat

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  6. Thanks for sharing this, Derek. I've put mine on a $.99 sale for this month too, though in my case, it hasn't meant enough extra sales to make up for the price/royalty change. If it weren't for the difference in royalty, it wouldn't be such a killer. However, I'm happy to do some loss leading to build up to my release of the second book in my series.

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  7. Wow, that's impressive, Derek. It's nice to see positive results. I think the higher sales = better ranking will help you out in the long run to gain a user base. Thanks for keeping us updated.

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  8. I am sorry if this is off-topic (can't find where else to post this question to you):
    In your epublishing expenses (sidebar) you list substantial amounts for "editing". Could you elaborate on what exactly this encompasses? Thanks. (Excellent blog, by the way).

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