Kindle writers, please answer this for me

I agree, Tim. 99 cents is insanely cheap -- unless the Amazon machine can turn your books over and over again on autopilot.

That's been part of John Locke's strategy, He was the first indy writer to hit one million sales on the Kindle -- and he did it in five months as a fiction writer who also understands the marketing game and played it brilliantly.

But for most of us selling information products -- particularly those that are not based on PLR -- it probably doesn't make much sense to offer decent material at such a low price, only to earn thirty-cents or so in commission on each sale.

Robert

Yeah, seems crazy, doesn't it?

People do it to build a following, figuring if they offer the book at a no brainer price, people will buy it, like what they read and then seek out more books by the author.

It can actually work pretty good for fiction (and maybe non-fiction too but I think better for fiction) and you can actually make good money even at the 99 cent price point.

There are quite a few Kindle authors selling their books for 99 cents that have sold millions of books and, in the process, created a big following of fans that will buy their next book without hesitation.

This article may interest you:

Crime Writer Makes a Killing With 99 Cent E-Books - Slashdot

As stated in the article, if lowering your price increases the buyers astronomically then you actually end up benefitting twice - by making more money and by getting more fans (customers).

Lee

Firstly, re free on Amazon. As far as I know, Amazon will price match your ebook, so if you're giving it away free on SmashWords or wherever, it becomes a freebie on Amazon, if someone lets Amazon know.

Re the 99 cent strategy, John Locke and others have made it popular. It works for fiction, but I have doubts that it works for nonfiction.

Anecdotally, from writers who sell both fiction and nonfiction, fiction outsells nonfiction 6 to 1. So start writing short stories and novels, and sell them for 99 cents. :-)

It makes sense to price fiction (at least one novel, or whatever) at 99 cents. It's cheap entertainment. Even if they hate it, your buyers aren't losing much -- just give them 99 cents worth of entertainment.

I can't see the point of free or 99 cents with nonfiction. If you believe in what you're selling, price it appropriately.

From memory, I THINK (I'd need to read it again) that Amazon has something in its Terms of Service that you can't use advertising in a Kindle ebook -- that leads me to think that you shouldn't shove in endless affiliate links. However, I know that people do... gotta read the TOS again.

Re monetizing "free."

Most people here monetize their freebies, in one way or another, whether it's via free reports to get sign ups to a list, or information on a blog which is monetized via advertising, or affiliate sales.

In a nutshell: the point of free is to monetize, eventually.

My opinion, FWIW... I was reading the Kindle bestseller list yesterday, and most of the ebooks on the first page were free. One writer I've known for many years was selling a novel for $2.99, and it was on the bestseller list.

So, what did I do? I bypassed all the freebies and paid $2.99.

Here's why: I recognized the author.

So that's why there's a lot that's free -- monetization somewhere down the road, often via name recognition.

Angela

I appreciate everyone's input on this. I learned a lot from asking this question.

You should be thinking in the long run. When I submit a new Kindle book to Amazon, I always go for the $0.99 price tag, and when it starts selling, the book gets a higher ranking, and I increase the price later. Works like a charm ;-)

i think this could be a great idea if you have a series - so you give one free in the hopes that you will have buyers for the rest - assuming the first one in the series is very good you should have buyers for the second -- thats actually a good idea - thanks for the question!!

Seth Godin, who is on the bleeding edge of the publishing revolution,
has some unconventional views about writing and selling books...
including the concept that what matters is spreading ideas, and that
the book is just a 'souvenir' for fans!

With the cost of digital distribution being practically zero, even
99 cents is 'profitable' for everyone concerned.

I read this long ago, maybe in the Cluetrain Manifesto, that when
the cost of content production and distribution approaches zero,
its spread will be frictionless and far-reaching. It's what we're
seeing happen.

The Domino Project is pioneering another interesting concept of
getting a business to sponsor an author's work, allowing the content
creator to be adequately compensated for creativity, while letting
the book (with its ideas) spread far and wide without costing the
reader/consumer anything - and the business/brand benefiting from
the association with the IDEA!

Recommended reading:

Seth's Blog: Why write a book?

Partnerships

All success
Dr.Mani

For some people publishing on kindle is a numbers game. Having as many item listed as possible for the lowest possible price does create income.

Are these fiction or non-fiction?

For fiction it's a great strategy for indy publishers to charge $.99 to $2.99 because that's the market standard is for self published works.

A lot of folks complain on the Amazon boards about the major publishing houses charging the same and even more for an ebook as a paperback ($10-$15).

We all love to talk about John Locke and Amanda Hocking but their success is not the norm so making serious money vs. pocket change is tough.

For non-fiction, work... I don't see that pricing model paying off. Just my opinion of course.

The Kindle has really dropped the perceived value of ebooks.

It's a marketing strategy. Less price, more customers, more publicity. More publicity, hike in the price !!

I use Kindle as a passive income... mostly for my "just for fun" fiction writing but also for some informational books.

Basically, I post maybe 2-3 a month, sometimes not even that. The thing is, even the first one I posted still gets sales and more sales each month so my per month profit keeps growing.

If you want to sell higher priced books, use your cheap books as a leader. Do "Introduction to ____" type things and then have a higher priced version that goes into more depth. Just make sure they can both stand on their own.

Kindle has always been a just for fun thing for me but the income is growing each month and it is pretty nice. I would highly suggest putting them up through CreateSpace too though! Not only is it nice to have a physical copy of a book you have written but I do sell a few of those each month too. I price them quite a bit higher than the ebook versions to make up for printing costs though.

Simple loss-leader method. Gain a following, get people to interact with your social media accounts, cross-promote your other products, etc.

Not to mention the authority it brings. Instant authority is achieved when you can say "Joe Shmoe, Author of "How To Make a Billion Dollars."

You wrote the book on money-making...

Why would you want to rip off somebody with your book? That's way of thinking that came from IM niche I guess, like average ebook doesn't sell for less than $17 or $27 or even $47... which is crazy for most of those ebooks...

The point behind those cheap Kindle books is to get more readers... now, bestsellers are selling in thousands of copies each day... although author gets only 35% of that amount... so "only" $0.35, if one sell 1000 copies per day that equals $350 per day... now it seems to me that's not bad at all, right?

Also, if you provide your readers with quality content, they will buy your other books, especially if you guide them to sign up for your list, for example, in your Kindle book...

Also, many Kindle ebooks are pretty short and designed for special audience (those who have Kindle e-reader), therefore it doesn't make any sense to charge more for a small ebook...

But as I said, it's easier to sell those cheaper books... especially if you count in that Amazon will "promote" your book for free through their recommendation algorithm if your book seems to be popular ... that will at the end increase your sales... and you also want books to be cheap to trigger that impulsive buy from readers and not to make them think for too long if they are willing to pay higher price or not...