Wednesday, October 20, 2010

My 99 cent experiment continues...

You're probably tired of this by now, but I wanted to give another update on how things are going for me this month, with my 99 cent price experiment.  If you remember, to match my best month in sales priced at $2.99 I need to sell 32 books a day priced at 99 cents.

I just sold my 800th book for this month.  Since it's the 20th, it's easy math.  I'm averaging 40 sales per day.  Now, the first four days of the month were fantastic, and it did slow down from there.  So, I calculated out just the 5th to the 19th to get a more accurate picture of what my average sales per day are.  In that snapshot I averaged 32 sales a day.  Right were I need to be to tie my biggest money maker month.  Yay!

Now, I want to address the issue of "cheapening" by work by selling my book at only 99 cents.  I know some people think it devalues my novel, or conditions people to expect a low price for my future works.  I don't take much stock in that thought. 

I'm a totally unknown author.  People don't know my name, they don't know if they like my work.  If I can get several thousand people to try my book, and they do enjoy it, they'll pay more for future books.  It's a marketing strategy, and in my case, it's working.

Now, I don't know how many people buy my book and add it to an already long to be read pile.  But I do know that some people are reading it.  I'm getting feedback from people.  I'm getting reviews.  More people are joining my Facebook fan page.  (Yay!)  So I know that not everyone is buying and not reading.

Which is fantastic.  When I get an email telling me how much someone enjoyed my book, it makes all of this worth it.  :)

Vicki

5 comments:

  1. Hi Vicki,

    That's absolutely fantastic! Congratulations on such a great sales month. I agree with you - being an unknown author has its challenges. Pricing the first book at .99 is a good strategy for gaining new fans - that's what every author wants. Your next novel can be priced higher and hopefully all those readers who bought the first book will also buy the second even at the higher price.

    So, when is the next novel going to be finished?

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  2. Thanks, Debra! I hope to have it finished by the end of the year. I'm kind of slow though, with the business and four kids... it gets interesting around here! :)

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  3. Congrats on the great sales Victorine. I wish I had your luck. I changed my price the beginning of the month, posted about it, had a few more good reviews, but the sales are not ramping up. In fact, I had 48 sales the first full day, and I was thrilled, but it's been declining by half every day since. I have 23 five star reviews and only one bad review so I don't think that's the problem. I wish I could figure it out. :-/

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  4. I'm sorry Mary! I wish I had the secret formula, I'd give it to you. I know you're active on the Amazon boards, and that does help. I'm going to send you a PM. Vicki

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