Tossing my recent self-pubbing and e-pubbing experience out there

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merrihiatt

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Just popping in because I had a few minutes. Latest stats below.

amazonkdpstatsthrough11-3-2011at805pm.jpg


The sell-through rate has risen to nine percent (.091 to be exact). With the higher price of the third book and the increase to seventy percent royalties, I am seeing higher royalty returns. Again, no telling how long any of this will last, but it has been very fun to watch the stats and actually be in a position where money is coming in while I sleep. Not that I'm resting on my laurels. I'm busily working on my next trilogy.
 

merrihiatt

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Quickie update. My second e-book in the trilogy finally changed price at B&N yesterday (updated the price on Smashwords last week and have been waiting for the price to change at B&N), so I was able to contact Amazon through e-mail and let them know the lower price was now not available. I asked them to change the e-book price at Amazon to my listed retail price (through Amazon KDP) to $2.99 and the change occurred today.

Currently, the first book in the trilogy is still being offered free (as of this posting it has an Amazon ranking of 197; 20 in its specific genre category), and two other e-books in the trilogy are being offered at $2.99 each (giving me a seventy percent royalty).

The sell-through rate has been steady at ten percent (.096 to be exact) for the last several days and I, of course, hope this trend will continue.

I might as well post a screen shot of the latest Amazon KDP downloads. Here it is:
amazonkdpstatsthrough11-5-11at345pm.jpg
 
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merrihiatt

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I had a massive slow down in sales since the price increase yesterday, selling only a few e-books in the last twenty-four hours. I have changed the price to $1.99 in hopes that I will regain some of the momentum I lost at the $2.99 price. If sales are still low, I will return the second book in the trilogy to the original $.99 cent price. The third e-books' higher price did not inhibit sales, so it seemed logical that a higher price on the second e-book would have similar results. Not so. The words screeching halt come to mind. Fascinating.
 

izanobu

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It might have been the weekend, too. Usually I try to leave a price change for a while, because like body weight, day to day sales can fluctuate a lot.
 

merrihiatt

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Good point. I have never seen such an abrupt halt in sales, though, in the almost three weeks the free e-book has been offered. Downloads of the free book are still high, so the only change was the price change. I'll see if the $1.99 price point bumps sales or not. I check sales throughout the day several times (I'm getting better, as I used to check every hour!), and have never seen the numbers stay the same for so long. I expected the downloads to reduce over time, but not simply stop. I'll report back with findings as I discover them. The process is still fascinating to me.
 

izanobu

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I've also noticed that midday for the past couple days I'll get zero sales and then suddenly in the evening a bunch will show up, so there could be a reporting delay as well. Which is why I'm trying to only check every now and again now that I have nothing up for free anymore. No need to see when something goes back to paid, so no need to camp the spawn. :)
 

efkelley

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There's definitely a reporting delay in there. Seems to be between six and twelve hours.
 

merrihiatt

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When I changed the price to $1.99, I noticed an increase in sales within half an hour. Take that to mean what you will, but to me that is a clear indication that the $2.99 price was too high. Romance novels (which is the genre for this trilogy) are plentiful and I think people simply aren't as willing to pay that much, when they can get another book by another author for $.99 cents or free. Once they are committed to the trilogy and have read the first two e-books, they seem to be okay with spending $2.99 for the third and last book in the trilogy. They are invested at that point.

Another piece of the puzzle is that people like getting a good deal. Before I increased the price at Smashwords, I increased it at Amazon (to $2.99). Amazon price matched the B&N lower price of $.99 cents. So, on Amazon it was listed at having a retail price of $2.99, but was discounted to $.99 cents. Buyers were saving $2.00. I think seeing that made an impact on sales, as well. Especially when the first book was shown to be priced at $2.99 and they received it for free and the third book was listed at $2.99 without any discount. As a buyer, I would think I was getting a very good deal with the reduced prices and would be willing to spend more on the third book.

Or, it could all just be the way the moon aligned over the weekend. Ha!
 

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When I changed the price to $1.99, I noticed an increase in sales within half an hour. Take that to mean what you will, but to me that is a clear indication that the $2.99 price was too high. Romance novels (which is the genre for this trilogy) are plentiful and I think people simply aren't as willing to pay that much, when they can get another book by another author for $.99 cents or free. Once they are committed to the trilogy and have read the first two e-books, they seem to be okay with spending $2.99 for the third and last book in the trilogy. They are invested at that point.

Another piece of the puzzle is that people like getting a good deal. Before I increased the price at Smashwords, I increased it at Amazon (to $2.99). Amazon price matched the B&N lower price of $.99 cents. So, on Amazon it was listed at having a retail price of $2.99, but was discounted to $.99 cents. Buyers were saving $2.00. I think seeing that made an impact on sales, as well. Especially when the first book was shown to be priced at $2.99 and they received it for free and the third book was listed at $2.99 without any discount. As a buyer, I would think I was getting a very good deal with the reduced prices and would be willing to spend more on the third book.

Or, it could all just be the way the moon aligned over the weekend. Ha!

Merri, if I may ask a couple questions?

1) How many words are in each of your books?

2) I have three eSerial books that I am putting up in stages on Amazon. Your method got me to thinking:

The first eSerial book is priced at $1.99 right now. The others are not up yet (not time yet). How do you think it would do if I priced the first books, which is 34K words, at $0.00, and then combined the other two into one book of 70K words for $2.99?

My thinking is that for the $2.99 the customer gets a book that is twice the size as the first.

3) My original plan was to release each 34-35K word eSerial book for $1.99, but upon reading this thread I'm wondering if a change is in order.
 
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merrihiatt

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Pete, my first e-book is around 49,000 words, the second around 45,000 and the third around 47,000 (give or take).

The bottom line (for my experience, anyway), seems to be that people don't want to pay a higher price for my e-books (romance genre, your mileage may vary, especially in a different genre). The $1.99 price seems to have helped and the third e-book being offered at $2.99 has made no impact on sales at all, only my royalty. The $.99 cent price point was the best for the second e-book in terms of sales and I am trying to decide about reducing the price again.

My two cents would be to try offering the books separately and also offering them as a set and see where your sales are strongest. The nice thing about offering the first book free is that you will most likely see a large amount of downloads quickly. This gives you exposure that, quite frankly, is the best advertising around (speaking from my very limited experience). You can determine how long you want to keep the book free. Some folks only keep it free for a week, then put a price back on it. I believe my sales have continued to be fairly good because I have left the first book free. I'm still receiving around 1,000 downloads a day of the free e-book and today marks three weeks since it has been free on Amazon. EDITED TO ADD: Downloads in November have not equaled 1,000 a day for the free e-book. I just checked my stats and realized there have been 1772 downloads in the first week of November, which on average would be 197 downloads per day. Sorry about that, I did not intentionally misreport the number of downloads, I simply hadn't checked in several days and thought they were still around 1,000. My apologies.

Another thing to note is that when you purchase an e-book, you see the number of kb's not the number of pages. Many people seem to skim right over that information (hence the number of complaints you read about in the reviews when someone downloads a short story that they didn't realize was going to be so short they could read it in ten minutes).

I have two short stories (one is about 3,000 words, the other around 10,000 words) and I have noted the word count in the description so people know they are not getting a full novel. The stories are complete in themselves, not excerpts or anything, but if you read the Kindle boards, there are a lot of people who said they felt cheated because the e-books were too short.

$1.99 for a 34,000 word book seems reasonable to me. At that price point, though, you won't be able to receive seventy percent royalties. The price must be set at a minimum of $2.99. If you set the price point at $2.99 and then priced it at $1.99 using Smashwords, you could ask Amazon to price match. When (and if) they agree to price match, you would receive seventy percent royalties on the $1.99 amount, which would be about $1.40 in royalties. If you price it at $1.99 everywhere, you will receive the thirty-five percent royalty and receive $.70 cents on that book. Your readers would pay the same price ($1.99); however, you would receive twice as much in royalties by using the price match method.
 
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merrihiatt

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Pete, exactly what J. Tanner said. You may need to check back and give them the link several times. Give Amazon half a day and if nothing has changed, repeat the process. It took me (if I recall correctly), three times before it was listed free.
 

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amazonkdpstats9-2011to11-9-2011.jpg


I thought it might be easier to compare stats by seeing them all together in one place. September is when I began self-publishing, both in e-book (Smashwords and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing) and POD trade paperback (CreateSpace).

It has been three weeks since the first e-book in the trilogy was listed as free at Amazon. As you can see, until that happened, I was selling very few e-books at Amazon, mostly to friends. I met several new readers through my Facebook page. I have a few members at my website, but again, these are people I know, not new people registering, so the main reason my e-books are selling is because I offered the first book in the trilogy free.
 

merrihiatt

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Sometimes I need to visually see stats, rather than getting bogged down in the day-to-day numbers game. I found this fun feature at Amazon's Author Central that charts the number of downloads for a book. Here are the three books in the trilogy. The first chart is for the free e-book, the second for the second book in the trilogy, and the third for the third book in the trilogy. If you look at the spikes before the free e-book was offered and the steady line after, it's easy to see that the free e-book has definitely been the highest booster of sales. The only other promotion I have done is blog on my website and interact with folks on a Facebook page specifically made for my books.

amazonwlawwlahwlapchartofdownloadscombined11-13-11.jpg
 

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This is incredibly interesting. Thank you so much for taking all the time to post your experience and I hope the sales keep going for you!
 

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I just put my three books on smashwords. The first is non-fiction (free download), but I included a free preview at the end of it for my first novel in a series.

since late last night (so basically today) I sold 4 of the first book and 2 of the second book.

Priced at $1.99.

Was going to put them on Amazon today, but the upload script for .doc there as not working this morning.
 

merrihiatt

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Thanks, Tempo. I hope the info. is helpful to others as we all try to work our way through the self-publishing process.

Congratulations, Pete. I'm not sure what you mean about Amazon's upload script not working. I usually save my .doc file as web page, filtered and then use MobiPocket's converter (free download) to make e-books for Kindle. I wonder if that might be the problem, rather than Amazon's upload script?
 

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Thanks, Tempo. I hope the info. is helpful to others as we all try to work our way through the self-publishing process.

Congratulations, Pete. I'm not sure what you mean about Amazon's upload script not working. I usually save my .doc file as web page, filtered and then use MobiPocket's converter (free download) to make e-books for Kindle. I wonder if that might be the problem, rather than Amazon's upload script?

I tried uploading the .doc files...it started processing and then said there was an error and they were notified, and that I should try later. It might be fixed now...haven't checked.

Also, after thinking about it, I've not sure those were sales on smashwords (as I posted in my new road to success thread).
 
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merrihiatt

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Latest stats.
amazonkdpstatsthrough11-15-11.jpg


Today marks one month since the first book in the trilogy was listed as free at Amazon. To date I have sold about 970* e-books (I began this journey in September, 2011, although sales did not take off in a notable way until I offered the free e-book in October, 2011).

My sell-through rate did not stay at ten percent, but has reduced to eight percent. The drop occurred when I changed the price to $2.99 and I have not been able to get Amazon to price match the second book at $.99 cents yet. I have been trying for two days. I tried $1.99 and that received adequate sales, but I believe the $.99 cent price point would be better. I also want the seventy percent royalty rate. In order to receive that at the $.99 cent price point, Amazon must match B&N, where the e-book is listed at $.99 cents. I will be sending an e-mail to Amazon in a few minutes. I have used the "tell us about a lower price" option three times in two days and it has not rendered any change. Previously, a change has occurred much more quickly.

*This number does not include the free e-book downloads, which are around 30,000.
 
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pengwinz

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...I have not been able to get Amazon to price match the second book at $.99 cents yet. I have been trying for two days. I tried $1.99 and that received adequate sales, but I believe the $.99 cent price point would be better. I also want the seventy percent royalty rate. In order to receive that at the $.99 cent price point, Amazon must match B&N, where the e-book is listed at $.99 cents. I will be sending an e-mail to Amazon in a few minutes. I have used the "tell us about a lower price" option three times in two days and it has not rendered any change. Previously, a change has occurred much more quickly.

I'm sure Aunt Ammy is aware of people using these strategies to get the 70% royalty on books under 2.99, so you may find yourself either frustrated by getting them to change or the recipient of message reminding you of your KDP agreement (regarding publishing elsewhere at a lower price). You may want to back off a bit on the price adjustment. Just my 2c worth.
 

merrihiatt

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Thank you, Pengwinz. I will check the Amazon KDP terms. I did not realize I was breaching the contract by using this strategy. FWIW, the second book in the trilogy has been price matched by Amazon.

ETA: I re-read the Amazon KDP Terms and Agreements, as well as the Pricing Page. It seems clear to me that an e-book may be offered at a lower price (or free) elsewhere for means of promotion.

From Amazon KDP's Pricing Page:
From time to time your book may be made available through other sales channels as part of a free promotion. It is important that Digital Books made available through the Program have promotions that are on par with free promotions of the same book in another sales channel. Therefore, if your Digital Book is available through another sales channel for free, we may also make it available for free. If we match a free promotion of your Digital Book somewhere else, your Royalty during that promotion will be zero. [This pertains to the 35% royalty --notation added by Merri] (Unlike under the 70% Royalty Option, if we match a price for your Digital Book that is above zero, it won't change the calculation of your Royalties indicated in C. above.)


By "price-match" we mean where we sell the Digital Book in one or more of the Available Sales Territories at a price (net of taxes) that is below the List Price to match a third party's sales price for any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book, or to match our sales price for any physical edition of the Digital Book, in any one of the Available Sales Territories.

From Amazon KDP's Terms and Conditions Page
5.3.1 List Price. You will provide a list price for each Digital Book you submit to us in accordance with the then current Program procedures for list price submission ("List Price"). The List Price you provide will be exclusive of value-added or similar taxes which are included within the purchase price of a product ("VAT"). If we display a digital list price to customers, we may add applicable VAT to the List Price you provide to determine the digital list price that we display. If we offer your Digital Book for sale in a currency (the "Sale Currency") other than the currency in which you have submitted your List Price, we may convert the List Price to the Sale Currency at an exchange rate we determine, and periodically update the converted List Price in order to reflect current exchange rates. If we convert your List Price to another Sale Currency, the converted List Price in the Sale Currency will be your List Price with respect to the offer and sale of your Digital Book in the Sale Currency for all purposes under this Agreement (for example, your Royalties will be calculated based on the converted List Price in the Sale Currency). If the converted List Price would be outside of the minimum or maximum List Price we accept for the Sale Currency, your List Price will be converted so that it is equal to the applicable minimum or maximum List Price for that Sale Currency. Minimum and maximum List Prices are specified on the List Price requirements page. We may give you the option to provide multiple List Prices for a Digital Book in different currencies or for different Amazon websites. If you provide multiple List Prices for a Digital Book, where we sell your Digital Book to customers in a particular country from more than one Amazon website, we may use one of those List Prices for sales to customers in that country on all of our websites, to provide consistency across those websites. For example, if you provide us with a UK Pounds List Price and a US Dollar List Price for a Digital Book, we may use the UK Pounds List Price for sales to UK customers from all of our websites, including Amazon.com, and we may convert it as provided above. You will adjust the List Price as required to ensure that, at all times that the Digital Book is available for sale through the Program, the List Price meets the requirements provided in the Pricing Page. Any increase in List Price you provide to us will be effective within 5 business days following the date on which you submit it. We may provide other requirements for List Prices in the Program Policies which your Digital Books must meet in order to be accepted and remain in the Program, in addition to the requirements provided in the Pricing Page.

I may have missed something somewhere about the requirement noted. If you are reading this and know of specific wording I have overlooked, please advise me as to where it is located in the Terms and Agreements, as I do not want to breach any contract I have agreed to.

It would seem, from what I have posted above and what I read in the Terms and Agreements, that Amazon KDP realizes books may be offered at a lower price elsewhere and has added the price matching for that very purpose..
 
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PeteDutcher

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I have also been trying for 3 days to get the price matching. Maybe it's because they are busy trying to fill Kindle Fire orders ;)

Personally, I decided on the Nook Tablet and Simply Touch.
 
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