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.

My Writing Week: Issue 10, Year 5

Hi all,

Another week has passed without much progress on my novel. The past two weeks have seen my writing output drop back to the low word counts of before National Novel Writing Month. Computer problems have been the major reason. But they should soon be over as I have ordered a new laptop. Not unexpectedly, since I ordered the laptop two days ago my desktop has behaved itself.

New Article on Divine

I have a new article on Divine. The article is about free and cheap travel to medical appointments for people with disabilities. It mentions Red Cross cars, community cars, and state government reimbursement of travel and accommodation costs.

I have started researching my next article. This one is on the health effects of global warming. I have sections of IPCC and Garnaut reports siting on my desk to read.

Authors Increase Sales With Free ebooks

A couple of posts ago I mentioned Amazon’s KDP select. It’s a program where authors make their ebook exclusive to Amazon for ninety days. During those ninety days they are allowed to make the ebook free for five days. Authors hope that while their ebook is free it will rise up the bestseller lists and be noticed by more readers. They then hope the ebook’s high ranking will lead to many paid sales when the ebook is no longer free.

I mentioned in that previous post how David Kazzie sold a lot of ebooks after using this method. Aussie science fiction writer Graham Storrs tried the same method with his novel Timesplash and was happy to make some money. In a thread on LinkedIn.com other authors have mentioned that they are trying to do the same. I have no doubt that many authors will try converting free downloads into paid sales.

With my computer problems gone, I aim to get back to posting my weekly post on Mondays, assuming I am not too busy playing with my new laptop.