To Our Authors: Interesting Pricing Fact

[CS]

From Amazon's Kindle Board:

If you price the book at $1.00 instead of $0.99, Amazon will discount it to $0.80 (20% off). Only 99 cent books get no discount (at least, currently).

Karen
http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com/

I believe if Amazon discounts the price themselves, the author still makes the same amount no matter what. Is this correct? If so, it's a handy tip for you authors with $1 books.

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

Interestingly enough, Amazon isn't always so generous. One of our unfortunate authors here on KB priced his book at $1.00 and Amazon decided to charge more than he priced it for! Call it a glitch if you want, methinks something is fishy!

edit: Looks like 'zon caught its mistake. They've now reduced the aforementioned book's price to 80 cents.

[Dave Dykema]

Yep. That's a win/win situation, because the author still makes the same royalties, while the reader saves $0.20. Amazon pays royalties on the list price, not the sell price.

[Greg Banks]

Had no idea! I'm definitely going to take advantage of that right now!

[koland]

Glad you guys saw my tip. It takes several hours for Amazon to catch up on the price it charges after you change your list price (just as it takes them a while to first list your book after you publish it).  For now, all books, other than 99 cent books, get at least a 20% discount.  I have found some with higher discounts (and in odd areas, such as a book on genetics in farm animals had a 28% discount), but none with less.

Also, if you want to get a book listed at a penny, publish it on Mobipocket.com. That's the lowest price allowed there and the books can be cross-listed into the Kindle store (I don't know if it is automatic or a setting you choose, but do know that several authors have used this trick to get their books listed for "nearly free".


Karen
Books On The Knob

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

So much good info.  I think we may need a tips, tricks and troubleshooting thread right here in the book bazaar. 

Thanks.

Gertie

[Keith Blenman]

I've been taking full advantage of that for a while now, and I have to say it's really paid off! Thanks for sharing though. Whenever I see a ninety nine cent novel I always want to tell the author "You know..."

[jonfmerz]

Does the same tip apply to 49 cent stories if you price them at 50 cents?  Curious because I'm getting ready to release a substantial backlist of my previously pub'd stories for Kindle.

Thanks!

[Edward C. Patterson]

CS:

You learn something new every day. Thanks for the info.

Edward C. Patterson

[Dave Dykema]

Does the same tip apply to 49 cent stories if you price them at 50 cents?  Curious because I'm getting ready to release a substantial backlist of my previously pub'd stories for Kindle.

Thanks!

I don't think Amazon's discount starts until the price is listed at $1.00.

[Keith Blenman]

Wait a minute?! You found a fifty cent story on Amazon? I've been wanting to make my stories fifty cents since I published my first one, but the lowest price Amazon let's me set is a dollar. I must be doing something wrong!

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

Also, if you want to get a book listed at a penny, publish it on Mobipocket.com. That's the lowest price allowed there and the books can be cross-listed into the Kindle store (I don't know if it is automatic or a setting you choose, but do know that several authors have used this trick to get their books listed for "nearly free".


Karen
Books On The Knob

Keith,

Just wanted to make sure you saw Karen's post. By publishing your book on MobiPocket, you'll be able to bypass Amazon's price threshold and get you to your intended price range.

[jonfmerz]

Don't know if it's possible to price a short at 49 cents, but that was the price Amazon itself used to use for the shorts they selected for the earlier program. 

My problem with Mobipocket is that by publishing with them, you agree not to sell the book anywhere else on the Internet.  I don't like that.  Anyone use them and ignore that clause in the contract?

[Edward C. Patterson]

That $ .50 book may have been from an author on the now discontinued AmazonShorts program.

Edward C. Patterson

[louiseb]

Jon, just FYI clicked on your kindle book in your sig, looked intriguing, the price was good, so bought it.

[jonfmerz]

Thanks very much!  I hope you have a blast with it!   

[David J. Guyton]

I lowered my price a few hours ago to take advantage of this, and Amazon discounts my $1 book 1 Cent....so it's still $0.99

Maybe it will go lower still, I don't know...but it looks like it doesn't work for me.

[Carol Hanrahan]

That happened to me too.  Wait a little longer, it'll go down.

[Edward C. Patterson]

Mchael:

Let me know if the price change goes through. DTP is stuck and my price change back for No Irish need Apply is in limbo for 2 days now.

Ed Patterson

[koland]

Don't know if it's possible to price a short at 49 cents, but that was the price Amazon itself used to use for the shorts they selected for the earlier program. 

My problem with Mobipocket is that by publishing with them, you agree not to sell the book anywhere else on the Internet.  I don't like that.  Anyone use them and ignore that clause in the contract?

I know several authors who are on both Kindle and Mobipocket (they do Kindle first, perhaps that's the "trick"). Those with agents and publishers are often sold in several formats, including mobipocket, but perhaps not in the "mobipocket store" (I don't know, as I seldom shop there).

My problem with shorts is their format - If you have a big backlog to publish, I'd much prefer you reformat it (properly for an ebook) and sell one or more collections on the Kindle. I suspect you'll get a LOT more sales, as well (there is a reason Amazon has discontinued almost all the other digital publishing formats they had before).

[Edward C. Patterson]

I have my books on Kindle, Mobipocket and Smashwords. I sell very few Mobipocket and less on Smashwords. You can have your books on multiple platforms. Mobipocket is owned by Amazon. You sign up for Kindle first. The only constraining agreement is that you cannot offer your book lower than the Amazon SRP anywhere else. So I religiously assure that my price matches the Kindle price on the other platforms. It IS important however when setting up Mobipocket to disengage the Kindle Book option. Otherwise you'll have 2 product pages and a cross referencing nightmare. Mobipocket does let you set the price at $ .01 (that's how the penny book comes about), and by leaving the Kindle option checked you will get a rogue page on Amazon with a Kindle Book for one cent. (Thanks Dennis Betchelder for that technique). I urge authors to set up Smashwords (and adhere to the Amazon pricing agreement). In this way you can offer your work for Sony Reader and .pdf, and in other formats. I like this, because although I haven't sold many books on Smashwords, it allows me to download these formats (including Kindle) for free, so I can give away eBooks to deserving customers as premiums or for contests. A penny might be great (and a hassle to bring off), but FREE is better, especially when it's a Thank You to a reader who has been supportive or "bought the first book." Pricing, discounting and giveaways in this industry, especially with the cost savings should not be a source of greed, but be passed along to the reader in a spirit of generosity. After all, readers are being generous when they give us a chance and buy the book in the first place, unless my name changed overnight from Edward to James.

Edward C. Patterson
PS authors, don't forget to donate to Kindleboards

Edward C. Patterson

[Meredith Sinclair]

I have my books on Kindle, Mobipocket and Smashwords. I sell very few Mobipocket and less on Smashwords. You can have your books on multiple platforms. Mobipocket is owned by Amazon. You sign up for Kindle first. The only constraining agreement is that you cannot offer your book lower than the Amazon SRP anywhere else. So I religiously assure that my price matches the Kindle price on the other platforms. It IS important however when setting up Mobipocket to disengage the Kindle Book option. Otherwise you'll have 2 product pages and a cross referencing nightmare. Mobipocket does let you set the price at $ .01 (that's how the penny book comes about), and by leaving the Kindle option checked you will get a rogue page on Amazon with a Kindle Book for one cent. (Thanks Dennis Betchelder for that technique). I urge authors to set up Smashwords (and adhere to the Amazon pricing agreement). In this way you can offer your work for Sony Reader and .pdf, and in other formats. I like this, because although I haven't sold many books on Smashwords, it allows me to download these formats (including Kindle) for free, so I can give away eBooks to deserving customers as premiums or for contests. A penny might be great (and a hassle to bring off), but FREE is better, especially when it's a Thank You to a reader who has been supportive or "bought the first book." Pricing, discounting and giveaways in this industry, especially with the cost savings should not be a source of greed, but be passed along to the reader in a spirit of generosity. After all, readers are being generous when they give us a chance and buy the book in the first place, unless my name changed overnight from Edward to James.

Edward C. Patterson
PS authors, don't forget to donate to Kindleboards

Edward C. Patterson

And &, & you all are so generous to us in sharing your "world" with us. It does not bother me to see you all on here discussing formatting issues and spell-check issues at all, I think it's loverly to know that you guys/gals are real people, because I can see your wheels turning... AND I can say I knew him/her when they were on the KB having problems with formatting issues  .... when you are on the Best Sellers List! I also think that PMs are wonderful things.... we can privately give you a heads-up  to a problem so that you know the problem and can fix it. I mean you all seem to air your own mistakes enough, seems if I PM you it always comes out on one of these threads anyway that you noticed a mistake and corrected it.... and how silly it was that you did it...

Anyway, I appreciate all of you and I love to follow your threads.

[jonfmerz]

Interesting stuff, thanks everyone!  Here's a question I just asked in another thread: I routinely do giveaways of my print books, but is it somehow possible to do the same with a book for the Kindle?  The way it looks right now, I'd have to buy a gift certificate and "hope" that the person I give it to would use it for a book of mine like PARALLAX.  But is there a way to "target" the GC so it's only used for what you specifiy?  or is there another way to do giveaways?  Any input would be great!

Thanks in advance!

[CS]

Jon, only way I can think of is to give away your book as a Mobi/PRC file (compatible with Kindle).

[marianneg]

Interesting stuff, thanks everyone!  Here's a question I just asked in another thread: I routinely do giveaways of my print books, but is it somehow possible to do the same with a book for the Kindle?  The way it looks right now, I'd have to buy a gift certificate and "hope" that the person I give it to would use it for a book of mine like PARALLAX.  But is there a way to "target" the GC so it's only used for what you specifiy?  or is there another way to do giveaways?  Any input would be great!

I replied on the other thread   (BTW, my answer was the same as CS's - use the free software from mobipocket.com to create a Kindle-compatible file.)

[jonfmerz]

Cool!  Thanks!

[David J. Guyton]

Took about 24 hours but my price did drop from 99 cents to 80