OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
There's a lot of talk about the 99 cent ebook at the moment, so I thought I would just throw in my own 99 cents worth. Pentecost is currently 99 cents on the US Kindle store, although it started out at $2.99. It's rank as I write this is shown above.
Here are the reasons I am leaving it at 99 cents.These are all my own reasons and may not be applicable to you, so I am not saying everyone should do this, merely why I am.
- 99 cents is an impulse buy for anyone. My husband and I are Kindle converts and spend a lot of time reading. He isn't an author and doesn't keep up with the industry like I do so watching his behavior is fascinating. He buys a lot of 99 cent ebooks after downloading samples. He has tried a whole stack of indie authors based on 99 cent books and has told other people about them. It is a low risk buy and if someone enjoys the sample, they don't even need to think about clicking when the price is under $1. I want those readers to try me as well.
- Number of books sold is more important than income for me right now. I have a well paid day job so I am not writing for income just yet. I hope to in the future but right now, I want readers and fans. I want people signing up for Prophecy (which they do every day) and I want to build a large number of people who want to read more of my books. I am writing a series so I want to build fans now who I can sell to in the future. Hocking and others have made the first book in the series cheap (or some have made it free) and then upped the price on the subsequent books to $2.99. I may well follow suit with others in the series but for now, 99 cents is a great price for the first one.
- The example of John Locke. Locke is rocking the Amazon charts with his 99 cent ebooks and this article is what convinced me to follow his example. He writes good thrillers with the brilliant Donovan Creed character. For 99 cents they are great value and you just buy all of them if you like what he writes. 6 books for the price of half a mainstream published book – fantastic! I've spent an afternoon in the hammock with Donovan Creed and it was very enjoyable! The quote below is from the interview with him.
- JA Konrath and the impact of staying in the Amazon bestseller rank. Konrath writes the best blog for ebook authors, definitely subscribe and be inspired! He changes prices all the time and experiments with things but this got my attention “when I lowered the price of The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, I started selling 20x as many copies” (from the same Locke article). When I first launched Pentecost, I made the Amazon rankings in launch week based on my platform and my marketing activities but then I dropped out of the charts. Of course, I freaked out because I cannot sustain the effort it takes to maintain those rankings on my own. So after reading a lot of Konrath, I dropped my price to 99 cents and I haven't left the charts since. I have been in Religious Fiction for 10 weeks now and have started ranking in Action/Adventure (which I believe in my true home!) I have definitely seen the evidence that lowering the price affected my ranking. Perhaps I should change the price back to $2.99 and see if it has an impact but for all the other reasons listed, I'm leaving it as is for now.
- Fast-paced action-adventure thrillers won't change your life. Pentecost will entertain you for a few hours but it won't give you actionable tips for your business and won't inspire you to give everything to charity or work for world peace. It is fiction and is there to take you out of your world for a time. I pay far more money for non-fiction books that will help me in a tangible manner than I will for fiction which I read once and then (often) forget. It's not that I don't value fiction writing, but the price you pay for entertainment has to be representative vs the price you pay for actionable content. I sell my e-courses for $39.99 and up to $297, and my workshops are also more expensive. I am definitely happy charging more when I believe you get more benefit, but with a thriller I am competing with free TV or a movie so want to price it attractively.
What do you think about the 99 cent ebook? What price do you sell for? Do you buy 99 cent ebooks?
Gina Amos says
Hi Joanna
I’ve self published my first novel and maybe I was a bit naive, but I placed a value of $4.99 on my e-book. I’m happy with the response I’ve had. Received good reviews and wonder if the attraction is the book’s cover ? By way of note, if the author doesn’t value the book, why should a potential reader bother buying it? Despite that, after reading a few articles on pricing I have dropped the price to $3.99
Michael D. Christensen says
I recently placed my novel, The Tomb of the Devils, out on Barnes and Noble for 99 cents. I’ve been going back and forth, wondering if I did the right thing, pricing it so low. Yet, this is my first novel and my first experience in the ebook world. I’ve appreciated reading your article and the subsequent comments. Thanks for the information.
Spencer says
Great info! I find the most interesting topic here to be perceived value of non-fiction over fiction. Is anyone finding that to be the case? Are people willing to pay more for information that can improve their lives long-term?
Thanks for your input!
Liz Atherton says
I would like to know how to put your book on Kindle for .99 cents when Createspace want to charge more than that when using their Royalty Calculator. Am I missing something? Or is there another distribution channel setup with Amazon/Kindle?
Joanna Penn says
Hi Liz, You can publish direct through http://kdp.amazon.com/ and then you can charge 99c.
Simon Griffiths says
KDP is pretty awesome. Very easy to use as well.
Amirah says
Okay so let me get this straight. If you sell you ebook for 99 cents is that per book? Like for example if you sell 10 books is that = to 10.00 or is something being taken out of that. I’m confused on that part and I’m new to this as well. I love to write and actually have about 7 stories saved on my computer that’s waiting to be publish, but I don’t know how to start with this ebook thing. My books are inspirational books kinda like Max Lucado to give you more of an idea. Think it will sell well? And please someone help me to get started. Where should I sell them? What’s the process?
Yuajah says
Hi, I currently publish books on Amazon.com on a very rare topic. I do ok. But I came here just to out about selling my ebook as a way to promote my work and get my name out there. I got a lot of information. I am pricing my first ebook at 99 cents today. I hope it goes well. Thanks a bunch.
Adrienne Kleinschmidt says
Hey Joanna!
I love your article! It is eactly what I needed to know.. Thanks you!
I am new to Kindle e-publishing.. and now have two books on Amazon..
The Secrets of Snowflakes.. a little art book of snowflakes and poems about
them and the people of Flakeville.. A wonderful website which I have been a part of for about eight years..”snowdays.me”
A good friend of mine and everyone’s there.. recently passed of Cancer.. and I decided to dedicate this book to him. He was an extraordinary man, poet, photographer, husband, father, and friend.
He was one of the heartbeats in Flakeville. 269 pages ..
Then .The Little Bird’s Journey.. A childrens story..
I wanted to sell my books for 99 cents.. but I was not given the option????
I am making 7 cents per book, after paying the $2.90 delivery charge?????
Something’s not right.. Help!
Sincerely,
Adrienne Kleinschmidt
adrnklnsch@aim.com
p.s.
I am in the process of publishing more books soon.. but not under these conditions..
Thanks so much..
Norma Padro says
All of my ebooks are .99 cents. Since I first published my work I have been getting royalties. I’m happy about that, because it was my first time publishing. Now I have 18 ebooks. All of them are .99 cents. I’m keeping them at that rate for now.
I have hard cover prints as well, but my ebooks are very famous for now. I’m happy about the way things are going. I believe in this article you have written. It’s so true.
Nicki Chen says
Joanna, this must be a stupid comment because no one else seems to have trouble with it. But I can’t figure out how to change the price of my ebook. With my input, my publisher, Dog Ear Publishing, set the price of my ebook at $9.99, and they set it up through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Now I want to lower the price. How do I do it?
Joanna Penn says
Hi Nicki, your problem is that you have a publisher 🙂 The author has no control over price when you license the rights to a publisher – they would have to do that for you. Try asking them – but it’s not up to you if you have signed a contract.
Brandon Berntson says
I realize this is kind of an older article, but I wonder if this still applies. I’ve been hanging out on Derek Murphy’s website, and after taking all of his advice, I have completely redone my covers and watched all of his videos. One that stuck out was the .99 cent and free marketing, and that you shouldn’t even raise your price until you have 50 to 100 reviews. That all made a lot of sense to me. I have given away tons of copies over the past two years, but I also jumped the gun: typos, bad covers, not really understanding marketing. I was so thrilled to get my work out there, that I might have really left a bad impression. Now with the new covers and new marketing, and even a newer website, I have seen a significant increase. My author ranking (though it isn’t great) is still higher than it’s been in a year. All my work has been newly formatted, and I am currently experimenting with .99 cents. I am definitely not a household name, but I am seeing a rise in reviews, and people are saying some pretty dang nice things. It’s still early, and I am certainly on a limited budget, but it also makes a lot of sense to try .99 for a while. I haven’t had the chance to really market at .99 cents, so no one can really find me yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I guess I ranted enough. Thanks for the article!
Joanna Penn says
This is an older article – but these days I have price points all over the place – from free, to 99c to $2.99 to $4.99 all the way up to $12.99 – so basically, it’s best to have things at multiple price points … which means more books, better books are always the best way forward.
Ana Spoke says
I’ve experimented with $3.99, $2.99 and free giveaways and found that overall I get the best number of sales and royalties from $0.99 price for my first novel. I’ve just published a post on this and was surprised at the emotional response – it seems that people are strongly divided on this topic.
Robert Clifton Robinson says
How long after you lower the price to $0.99, before you begin to see and increase in sales?
Does it take a certain amount of time before the book at $0.99 is propagated in the Amazon Kindle system?
Thanks,
Rob
Joanna Penn says
Hi Rob, This post is from 2011 and 99c and free are only useful if you drive traffic to them these days.