July 2012 was by far the best month I have ever had since starting my focus on indie pub ebook career in June of last year. There are a couple contributing factors to July’s success. One is Stilettos & Scoundrels went free on Kindle, Nook, and iTunes. I know that free visibility (although it brought out haters) has helped my visibility with the other books and therefore resulting in better sales. I also dropped the prices of all my books to .99 cents. Prior to July my short stories were .99 but the rest were 2.99. I now wish I wouldn’t have done both things at the same time so I would have a better idea of which really drove my sales but my gut tells me it is both combined. I am now trying to decide of I should put my prices back to what they were and see if the momentum continues but then I hate to see it slow down because reaching new readers is super important! That leads me to the financial aspect. Because of the royalty aspect dropping my price to .99 means I have to sell almost 6 times as many to make the same amount. So although I had a record month in books sold I will make less in revenue than I normally do.
Anyone have an opinion?
Laina
I’m too new to e-publishing to offer advice from my own experience, but the received wisdom seems to be that it is well worth selling more for less if you intend to publish further books in the future, because more for less will help build up a “fan base” that may well turn into more for more later on.
That’s what I am telling myself, Bryan. The exposure is great and if I can market and capture these folks as readers the better I will do going forward.
I purchased your books, a) because I like you – obviously – but b) because I was able to buy them as a “box set.” I’m very strict with my e-book budget because it would be so easy to get out of control so love to jump on the “new favorite author bandwagon” when I can buy more than one at a time for a relatively low cost – I’ve done it for a number of series that I know are going to be quick, weekend reads. Now that I’ve read multiple books of yours, I know I’ll spend when a new one comes out but even as a friend of yours, I may not have ponied up the few dollars for just one when I hadn’t read anything previously.
Just my two cents.
Thanks! My goal is to entertain and that is where I get my satisfaction:)