It takes a long time to produce a book, even longer to produce a series. It’s no wonder that many authors are reluctant to give their books away. Many, myself included, price their work relatively high based on what they think it is worth. Effort+quality+outlay=a fair price (as much as $7.99-$9.99 for an ebook novel).
This has been my approach over the past few years. Sometimes a book takes off at this price. If it fails to achieve good sales, I tend to experiment with various prices until sales kick in. With some books, that doesn’t happen without a Book Bub promotion, during which the price is dropped to 99 cents for a day. Often, when the price returns to normal, there are 2-3 weeks of improved sales at the full price and then a gradual tailing off. With some books, the improved sales continue a lot longer.
This approach has worked extremely well for me, despite the increasing difficulties of maintaining visibility for indie titles since KDP Select, pay-per-click advertising etc (which are supposed to work for the author… hmmm).
I’m at the stage now that I have so many titles available, and have a couple of books out with traditional publishers, that I can afford to use some as loss leaders and reduce the price of all my older books. In the hope of dramatically increasing sales volume and ranking (even at the expense of short-term revenue), I have set the following books to FREE:
CARNIFEX: A PORTENT OF BLOOD (LEGENDS OF THE NAMELESS DWARF book 1)
WARD OF THE PHILOSOPHER (SHADER ORIGINS book 1)
THE ATTIC
A DWARF WITH NO NAME (ORIGINAL NAMELESS DWARF NOVELLAS book 1)
I’ve also reduced all novellas to 99 cents, including the brand new release, DEAD OR ALIVE.
All the to buy links for the above titles can found on the “Books” page of this site.
I plan on keeping these prices low for at least a couple of months so I can gauge the effect, so now would be a great time for readers to dip into the various series to see if you can find something you like. If you are buying the ebook from Amazon, you will be offered the chance to pick up the audiobook of the same title for only $1.99. If you start by buying the print version, you get the ebook free and the audiobook for $1.99.
It would be a huge help to me if, while sampling the books, you could leave your honest feedback in the form of a REVIEW. The more reviews these books get, the more visible they become, and the more likely it is that I will be able to continue publishing indie titles for the foreseeable future. Often it is readers taking the time to leave reviews that is the difference between success and failure for indie authors.
