Questions for CREATE SPACE users after using LS

Questions concerning the most popular book I publish, printed by LS so far. This book sells just as well on our publishers website (thanks to key advertising on the author's website) as it does on Amazon.

1) If I start using CS to counter the Out of Stock issue, will I start seeing a discount on the book price ?? There has been no discount since I lowered the LS discount from 35% to 30% a year ago, and sales weren't affected negatively at all. In fact, they have increased.

I ask because if there is a discount on Amazon, it will mean I'll have to come down on the price on our publishers website, and will lose profit there.

2) Is it workable to raise the list price just for CS/Amazon (to overcome the loss from going to a 40% discount), while keeping it the same current price for LS? Is there a problem with this that I'm not seeing?

If I can raise the price by a few dollars for CS, and if they discount the book, I'm hoping it won't be too much different than the retail price I have for it on the publishers website.

BrianKittrell said:

The only thing that seems to cause Amazon to discount a book is if they have back stock that they're trying to get rid of. They will show "In Stock" if it's on CreateSpace, but you'll have to price higher to make the same money.

Also, unless you have to discount 30% for a specific reason or a bookstore, I'd set the discount to 20%. It's the lowest you can go and keep distribution for POD titles.

Click to expand...

Brian, my most popular book was discounted for a good two years when I was giving 35%. When I lowered it to 30%, no more discount, as if they couldn't afford that discount anymore. i.e. it didn't appear to have a thing to do with back stock that I was aware of. I assumed it was just a ploy for sales.

I should go down to 20% I guess. I just worry I'll get booted by Amazon if I do. lol.

Nancy