Sunday, September 23, 2012

Ebook Price Survey.


Ebook Prices.

Another seven weeks have passed since I last checked the prices of Amazon’s 100 best-selling ebooks. The trend of ebooks becoming dearer, that I reported in August, seems to have stabilised.

At the lower prices, six ebooks were 99c as compared to seven at that price in August and three in June. This is down from a massive 34 at 99c in February.

$1.99 has resurfaced as a price in the best seller list, with eight ebooks at that price. The last two times the number priced at $1.99 was too insignificant to mention.

The number at the ebook guru price of $2.99 remained steady at 16. In August there were 15, June 22, and in February 32 at that price.

$3.99 (14) and $4.99 (9) have been confirmed as popular selling prices for ebooks. For $3.99 the numbers were 17 in August and 13 in June. There were 11 at $4.99 in August.

Thirty ebooks were priced $7 or more this time, compared to 32 in August and 47 in June.

The mid-range of prices, $3.99 to $6.99, with 36 ebooks, seems to be becoming more popular.  
 
The three "Fifty Shades" ebooks were at $9.09, which is interesting as I saw the paperback version of the first book in that series selling for $8 in Kmart. Most lovers of books would normally buy the paperback version, but many might prefer the anonymity of an ebook. So perhaps the publishers can get away with the ebook being more expensive than the paperback version.

Ebooks Sales.

Aussie author Graham Storrs is having some success selling his very good ebook Timesplash using the Kindle Select scheme. I have mentioned this scheme before. The scheme allows an author to temporarily make the ebook free which hopefully sees it rise up the bestseller lists, raising the ebook’s profile and leading to increased paid sales when the price comes back on.  

Graham says that once the free book giveaway was over, “TimeSplash started selling. In the weeks that followed, it peaked at 400 sales a day and it stayed in the Amazon.com top 100 for ten weeks.”

400 sales a day! Not bad at all.

In previous posts, I have reported on a few other authors who have successfully boosted their sales using the KDP scheme.

3 comments:

Anthony J. Langford said...

Interesting stats Graham. You've obviously done a lot of research.

400 sales a day is awesome! He must have reached a lot of people somehow, perhaps he networks hard, or even advertised as many self-publishers don't get close to that. (I'm assuming a self-publish).

Anyway, good luck to him.

Graham Clements said...

Originally his ebook was brought out by Lyrical Press - which is the version I bought. Lyrical Press seems to only publish ebooks. Graham Storrs is no longer listed as one of their authors and I could not find Timesplash on their site. The version of Timesplasb currently on Amazon says Graham Storrs is the publisher, so he must have taken/been given his rights back from the publisher.

Anthony J. Langford said...

It's hard to know which path to take. You hear the success stories, but never the man failures. There is no right path. Whatever works best for you. Personally I struggle with the self-promotion. To self publish you have to be very good at that stuff. I do it but not as much as I should. It bothers me.