Have you overpriced your ebook? There are several
schools of
thought on this. One, you want to be
taken as a professional, so you don’t want to give away your book, but until
you have a name, you’re not going to sell very many $6.99 or $8.99 novels. The
sweet spot for e-book prices seems to be $2.99.
This keeps your profits in the 70% range, but it’s easily affordable to
readers.
Now you have several books for sale at $2.99, you know they’re good books, but
they’re still not selling like they should.
First you’ll want to be sure to list all your books in the back of the
books with links. Make it easy for the reader to buy more of your books. Now slash the price of
one of those books to 99¢. Yes, your
profit will drop considerably per book, but you’re trying to drum up readers.
At 35% profit at that price you may not make a lot on this book, but you will
sell many more books. If readers like
your work, they will then start buying that $2.99 backstock. WF recently did
this with Frank Roderus’ Leaving Kansas and the results have been
fantastic. This week we’re adding Clay
More’s Double Dealing at Dirtville to the 99 cent list. A great bargain for a
fun western. If you want to be extra kind, give him a review when you finish.
Authors need those reviews.
Okay, you tried the 99 cent trick, but you need more reviews
and readers for your other books. There
is one more price trick you can try. Make the book a Kindle Select, which means you won’t be able to sell it
as an e-book anywhere else, but you can schedule it for free 5 days out of every
90 days.
Now you’ve done this and your sales have increased, and you
even have 10 or more reviews. Things are
looking pretty good. There is one more
trick. There are several book promotional sites you can now use. Some charge a flat fee while others charge according
to how many books you sold. WF recently used EReader News Today which charges
according to sales. We dropped the price to 99 cents on West of the Big River: The Artist by Jackson Lowry. When the book had 10 reviews, we put an ad here
and sales jumped considerably. 
Right now we have Wind River by James Reasoner
and Livia J. Washburn which picked up it’s 10+ reviews during its 99 cent
level and is now an Amazon Select and free through February 4th. We advertised Wind River at BookBub during this giveaway.
BookBub charges a flat fee, but a friend recently gave away 19,000 copies of one of his books. That increased the sales of his
other books considerably. Go get your free copy of Wind River by following the link on the book title.
These are just a few tips for getting the word out that you have a novel you think readers would like.
What else can you do? Get your name out there. Facebook, blogs, guest blogs, giveaways, Twitter, Goodreads, Yahoo Groups, comment on others. Get that name in the public eye. You want reviews, review books yourself. If I read a book I really like, I try to give it a review. Amazon won't always allow me to since I publish so many people, but I try. And I'll talk about their books elsewhere. Even if it's just a comment on Facebook. Talk up others, and they'll be more likely to remember your name when they're looking for a new book to read. Let's face it, some of the biggest readers are writers. We love books.
