Welcome to The WG2E, Stephanie Graham Wright!
Yep…this Bestselling Author Stephanie Graham Wright…also known as S.J. Wright…
Stephanie and I have been having a wonderful conversation about the pricing of multiple ebooks within a series.
And just like many of you superfab WG2E-Land Peeps, we’ve come to the realization that this is one of the tough decisions you’ve got to make as an Indie Epub Author.
That said, we’re hoping that by several of us giving you the scoop on the reasoning behind each of our pricing decisions, you can find a strategy that will further your own writing-for-publication career goals.
With that intro…take it away, S.J!
Make That First Book Free!
By S.J. Wright
When I first started thinking about the possibility of succeeding in this business, I already knew that pricing would be a key factor in how my books were received by readers. How did I know that? Because I am a bookworm who has an e-reader. I’ve been through the process of searching for books that interest me and when I run across a book that has a decent blurb on Amazon and an attractive cover, the next thing I look at is the price of that book. If a book is priced higher than $5.00, I won’t hit that “buy now” button unless it’s one part of series that I really love or if other books by that author have been my all-time favorites.
Let’s use Anne Rice as an example. Vampires are a favorite genre of mine because of Anne Rice’s work. So I did shell out some extra money to buy the e-book copies of a few of her vampire books. But she is an exception to the rule. What I will not do is invest more than a dollar or two on an e-book from an author I’ve never heard of. I think that is pretty typical of the readers out there who have recently discovered the wonderful world of e-readers and independent authors/publishers.
So I knew going into this that I was going to have to price my first book pretty low. I also had read a lot of helpful posts at WG2E about the big ninety-nine (99-cent price model)! At the time that my first book, The Vampire’s Warden, was released, I had already decided to go with the 99-cent price model for the first book of the series. With my series, Undead in Brown County, the follow-up books are crucial to the storyline. They end with cliffhangers and are short enough to keep the attention of busy readers for a “read it in one sitting” novella.
When I began writing the second book in the series, I did so with the intention of pricing it at $2.99. It was slightly longer than the first book, gave the reader a better idea of who the main characters were, and included plenty of action and emotional back-and-forth between my hero and heroine. When I released The Vampire’s Curse at the end of June, the readers who liked the first book came back and bought the second.
By the end of July, I had sold over 800 copies of The Vampire’s Curse. The majority of those sales were made through Barnes & Noble’s Pub-It platform. In August, the first book went free on Amazon for the first time. That’s when things really picked up. By the end of August, almost 28,000 people had downloaded their own copy of the first book. So what about the second book priced at $2.99? The Vampire’s Curse ended August with over 2,800 copies sold.
At the end of September, the first book was marked back at 99 cents. But because so many people had read the first book (downloading it for free), both books were high enough in the Amazon rankings to still get attention from browsing readers!Which propelled things upward yet again! I finished out the month of September selling 4,685 books. About half of those books were copies of the second in the series.
September was the best month I’ve ever had in book sales. But I did make a mistake in going back to Smashwords and changing the price of the first book back to 99 cents. It wasn’t long at all before Amazon saw the change and brought the price back up. So afterwards, there was a significant drop. There are several variables that also contributed towards the higher sales. I ran two blog tours for the first book and one for the second book. I also paid for Kindle Nation sponsorship several times throughout this process.
And the price experimentation continues, peeps! After multiple attempts to get Amazon to match my Smashwords price (FREE!) for the first book again, they did make it free in their UK store. Suddenly, I was seeing just as many sales across the pond as I was here in the US! Finally, in the middle of November, Kindle’s US store did the same. And then I took the plunge with the second book and changed its price to 99 cents.
The third book in the series, The Vampire’s Redemption, will be released on Christmas Day. Right now, I have a website for the series that generates about 200 hits per day during days that I post nothing new at all. On the days when I post excerpts from the new book, the hits sometimes jump up to over 2,000.
By making my first book free, I’ve found a good deal of my niche readers. I’m hoping to find a lot more of those wonderful people over the next month and a half. When The Vampire’s Redemption goes up for sale, it will be priced at $2.99. I plan to release five books in this series before I move on to my next project.
So now you know my REAL numbers! Again, free is the key when it comes to the first book in your series. I don’t plan to change the price of my first book anytime soon. Finding your niche readers should be the goal for you as an e-book author as well. If you want to wait until the second book is released before you make that first one free, then that works too. Get it up on Smashwords, peeps. Make that first book free.
I will be sure to let you all know how things go with my recent price experiments in relation to the release of the newest book in the series. If you’d like more information about my Undead in Brown County series, please go to www.sjwrightbooks.com. You can also e-mail me at stephiej9557@gmail.com.
THE VAMPIRE’S REDEMPTION (Coming December 2011)
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Okay, WG2E-Land Peeps…there you have it, one super-savvy author’s price point decision-making process!!!
Thanks sooo very much, Stephanie, for sharing both your Real Numbers and the decision-making process you used to make those numbers your superfab Indie Epub Reality!!!
It’s Your Turn, WG2E-Land: What questions do you have for Stephanie regarding her decision-making process?
The Best of The WG2E Ebook Price-Point Wishes — D. D. Scott
I’m going to release my first novel officially on febuary 9th 2012. This book took 5 years and four drafts to write (yesss I know I’m a snail!) and I know writing the next one will take a bit of time too.
I sold the first two thousand (bar code free) copies of my novel Kiss the Sky in person (under a slightly different title woman in the sky) and received over three hundred rave reviews which you can see on the facebook group. I know I have a book people love but how am I supposed to price it? I was thinking of starting at 2.99 to entice people to buy a book from an unknown author and hopefully one day I’ll be able to sell it at 4.99. What do you think? Would love to hear your opinion!
DC, after spending that much time developing your book, it’s totally understandable for you to want some profits on it. However, keep in mind that you can change the price at any time. I would recommend starting it out at 99 cents. You can always bring that price up to $2.99 once you get your reader base started! And congrats on the great reviews for Kiss the Sky! Three hundred reviews is phenomenal! Cheers to you!
I totally agree with S.J., DC!!!
The 99 Cents Price Point sooo works for debut authors!!!
I’ve heard readers say over-and-over again that they will NOT try an ebook author new to them for more than 99 Cents.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond! Very much appreciated
I have priced my first ebook (a short story really) at 99c, and when I publish the second in the series, think I will price it the same but put the first as free. Shall see how that goes when it comes out next year.
You’ve got the right bull by the horns, Julie! A lot of readers out there are looking for the big ninety-nine! Especially with the economy the way it is. And from what I’ve read lately, once a consumer gets their hot little hands on an e-reader, they spend more on books than they ever have before! Pricing low (and free if possible!) is one of the biggest selling points. They want cheap e-books and plenty of them! Make a splash with that first 99-cent baby and your genre readers will begin to find you! Good luck!
Free is the key you’re right. Tell me more about the Kindle Nation thing.
Kindle Nation Daily is run by Steve Windwalker. If I remember correctly, he began by just posting links to free books on his site. Now he has thousands of people who come to the website every single day looking for bargains. He has a writer sponsorship program with several different levels of exposure for authors and their books. It is NOT cheap for authors to do this. However, the exposure is good. Temporarily, Steve’s promotional program will bring your book up in the Amazon ratings and increase sales. But don’t depend on that alone to find your niche readers.
Wavin’ atchya, Elizabeth!
I’ve also enjoyed huge success with KND and the superfab Steve Windwalker!
I’ve done I think three Sponsorships now…and getting ready for my fourth!
In fact, Tonya, Talli, Lee and I’s Christmas Anthology MADNESS UNDER THE MISTLETOE will be a featured book from December 23rd thru December 28th on KND as well as several of their sister sites, plus in the KND mass emails too (which go out to something like 15,000 people)!!!
These little “pushes” give you a huge boost in visibility that’s long-tail effect can be seen for about a month following your actual push dates…sometimes more…for example, if you also use the Free price point, you’ll be on KND and several Ereader-Centric Blogs for as long as your book is Free because that’s what the Sponsorships pay for…posting all the new Free books. So, in that way, you basically get Sponsorships for free too!!!
See how all these things work together to increase your visibility?!
Great info! I’ve been doing the freebie experiment for the last couple of months and it’s been working really well. Things are starting to slow down a bit now with the second book in the series so I might have a re-think about the freebie now and change it back to paid. We’ll see. Here are the stats on my freebies on a post I did for WG2E earlier: http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/my-freebie-experiments
Congrats on the fab figures!
Hi Sibel! I love the posts you’ve done here on WG2E. Thanks for sharing your stats!
Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing your experience! Once I build up enough books in my portfolio (I’m working on a sequel right now), I’m definitely going to give the free thing a try. Based on what I’ve seen from you, DeeDee, and Sibel, it’s worked phenomenally well.
Talli- go GET ‘em, girl! Riding the FREE way is the best way to get your first book out to TONS of readers. Some of those are not going to be fans. That’s the downside of the free first book experiment. But getting to your niche readers is totally worth it. Good luck and please keep us up to date on how it’s going for you!
Great, great post. . .I am set to launch my second eNovel and I had it for a short time on Smashwords at no charge. A tease perhaps, but a my way of enticing future readers to my work. How did it work? Well, the launch for Tudor Rose is in December so we’ll find out!
Cheers girls!
Jamie, I’m a huge fan of Tudor novels. I will definitely be checking out yours! Good luck on your launch!
Welcome to The WG2E, Stephanie!
We’re thrilled to be hosting you today!!!
And what a terrific topic…one with decisions that can really have a profound impact on your sales!
The best part…thanks to our Indie Epub World, we can experiment.
I think what you said right here is key:
“…because so many people had read the first book (downloading it for free), both books were high enough in the Amazon rankings to still get attention from browsing readers!Which propelled things upward yet again! ”
It’s all about using your price points to get visibility!
On Amazon, I would argue, it’s Visibility that gets you sales. Many readers simply one-click-buy the books that are most visible to them. And when you hit multiple bestseller lists and then you have a better price than many of the other books on those lists…BOOM…you’ve got yourself a bunch of sales!!!
Plus, those Bargain Book prices (Free-$2.99) get you on tons of Ereader-Centric Blogs which also can make a huge, huge difference. Why? Again…those sites boost your visibility!!!
As far as B&N, iPad and Sony and Kobo visibility, I got absolutely no visibility on any of ‘em until I went Free with Bootscootin’…now, I’ve hit over 89 bestseller lists…just on those platforms, and for four weeks running now have had four of my books as B&N Nook Must-Read picks (in their emails that go out every weekend)!
U Go, Girl!
And thanks again for sharing with us!!!
Eighty-nine best seller lists! That’s fantastic, DeeDee! And thanks so much for having me on as today’s guest poster. I’m a huge fan of this blog because of all of the wonderful advice given to new authors. WG2E ROCKS, BABY!
Right backatchya, S.J.!!!
Wow, eighty-nine best sellers lists! That’s spectacular!
I don’t mean to sound dumb, but I am rather new to epublishing and I’d like toknow where one finds all of these lists?
Great question, Debra!
In fact, I’ll do a post on that very thing next week! Thanks for the suggestion!!!
Here’s one place, rather obscure, to get you started for iPad for example:
http://bookchart.info/author/47107/D–D–Scott
I’ll do a full post for you on all these sites this coming Monday!!!
Thanks, D.D. I’d really appreciate that! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
U betchya, Debra, and right backatchya!
I can’t wait to read that one, DeeDee!
Awesome results, Steph!
Congratulations on your success! I’m more convinced than ever that I need to do a series instead of stand alone books. Thanks for being here today!
Nice to meet you, Stephanie! Being a chronic reader I’m always happy to discover a new author.
A question – is your Undead in BC series YA or adult?
Also, since I’m just beginning my own Indie journey I would love to know if you scheduled your own blog tours or if you would recommend someone who handled yours.
Congrats on your success and good luck with #3!
Hi Alicia! My Undead in Brown County series is definitely not YA. However, I opted out of doing very many graphic sexual scenarios. That’s just me. It’s an adult series, but the first book would probably be acceptable for the YA market.
So much information to think about…
But do you set that first book as free before or after you have the second one out?
I’m thinking the 99 cent price point on the first book until the second one comes out then set the first one to free?
Gosh am I really thinking about this? Yikes I must want it somehow *giggles*
Cathryn- GO FOR IT, girl! As to your question, I think it depends on your situation. If you need the money, price it at 99 cents when it first comes out. Then once you have the second book done, make the first one free on Smashwords. It really does make a huge difference! Good luck!
Another great post on this site. Thanks!
Two words stand out to me: reader base
READER BASE.
That’s the key.
Hi Toni! I’m a firm believer in finding your niche audience through free books. In August, over 27,000 readers downloaded a free copy of my first book, The Vampire’s Warden. What I’ve noticed is that for my own series, about ten percent of those readers will come back to buy my second book for $2.99. Those ten percent represent my reader base. Those are the folks who will (hopefully) come back and buy every book I write. Those are my true peeps. Those are the readers that I cherish.
Hi, Stephanie! Thanks for stopping by WG today! I love hearing about all the different ways Indie’s decide on how to price their novels, or the experiments that seem to work and not work for them. Congratulations on all your amazing success!!
Thanks Tonya! I feel very lucky to have the opportunity. And I look forward to your articles!