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Are there really Kindle pricing "secrets"?

by chrisrizzo
4 replies
I've heard that some Kindle price points sell much better than others. For example Ty Cohen has mentioned he has four price points that sell best, one being $8.97. Does anyone know if there is really any merit to this claim, or is it really a matter of each book having it's own unique price point?
#kindle #pricing #secrets
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by chrisrizzo View Post

    Are there really Kindle pricing "secrets"?
    I think so.

    I remember reading a long and detailed explanation by John Locke (who has sold a few million short-ish Kindle novels). He was saying that for him $0.99 with 35% royalty worked out far better than $2.99 with 70% royalty. His royalty per book, of course, is 6 times higher at $2.99, but (surprisingly?) he can sell 10-12 times as many copies at $0.99 and that's what really matters. Something like that, anyway.

    When I've repeated this to other Kindle authors, some have commented that it varies greatly according to the niche (even with fiction niches), and that readers of some niches expect to pay higher prices.

    But I think there probably are "pricing secrets"; yes.
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    • Profile picture of the author chrisrizzo
      Thanks Alexa. That makes sense to me. Seems like any pricing secrets there are need to be applied with discretion--since they probably don't work across the board.
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  • Profile picture of the author WeavingThoughts
    Besides the above, certain numbers tend to impact human psychology to a greater extent, or so it is believed.
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    • Profile picture of the author blackjetta
      Alexa is on point with her comments. $2.99 garners higher royalties which is why a lot of authors tend to stick to it but again this all depends on your genre. .99 is the norm for other genres but sometimes people feel like this price point indicates a lack of quality.

      Some other pricing strategies I've seen are serializing your longer work into shorter parts. Authors may give the first one away for free and sell the next two for .99 or $2.99 a piece and I've seen this strategy applied to both fiction and How-To guides (usually considered "Workshops"). Then, they also have bundles available with the whole collection, which ends up being another exercise in pricing strategy. For reference, I recently paid $5.99 for a 5-part bundle of a novel, and I was drawn in because the author had put the first entire part up for free.

      Not sure if this helps but hopefully it can give you some guidance!
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