Correct pricing for fiction eBook series

[Cyberseraph]

Hello everyone,

this week I have released my first fiction series on Amazon. They are 3 books and my pricing strategy is to sell the first book for 99 cents and the other two for 2.99. Basically this is my product funnel, in the first 99 cent book is a link to the other (more expensive) books.

Question for experienced self-publisher: Would it make sense to price all 3 books at 99 cents for the first few days or even a week?

The idea is to let all 3 books climb up the rank equally and to price the 2nd and 3rd book at 2.99 later on after a few sales. What is your experience when it comes to pricing?

 

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[U.P. Author]

I am not experienced, but have you considered perma-free for your first book?

 

[Cyberseraph]

I am not experienced, but have you considered perma-free for your first book?

Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, I have considered this. But recently I spoke to another author and she told me that perma-free books are ignored by Amazon regarding ranking them and therefore can not climb up the bestseller ranks.

 

[U.P. Author]

They can climb the free rankings and drive readers toward your other two books. I don't know all of the benefits, but I've seen a bunch of books that are first in a series on the free lists, while the other books do pretty well because people who read the first for free have to find out what happened in the rest of the story. So, it will drive the second and third books up the best seller rankings, but you'd have to sacrifice that for your first book.
I have heard some bad things about perma-free though and I've only published one book, so I am extremely inexperienced. However, once the 90 day select period is over for my first book, I plan on making it perma-free myself. I had 500 free downloads of the book in the two day free promotion. If I can replicate only a third of that success, that's 84 books a day. Assuming that only 50% actually read the book and only 50% of that enjoyed the story and want to know what happens next, that's 21 new readers per day. 21 people, per day, buying the other books in my series. If it's only two more books, that equates to 1,260 sells per month.
No, having said all of that, I am positive that I high balled the number of people who would actually read the book and the number of people who would like it. It's also likely that the free downloads would trickle as time went by. It's all trial and error. Good luck, though. I look forward to reading about your progress.

 

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[Lauryn]

Free for 5 days, starting on a Saturday... Free ends at noon. (assuming you agree to kdp select)
99 cents for 7 days to drive sales and momentum.
Keep at free and publish the second... and then the third.

 

[Cyberseraph]

Free for 5 days, starting on a Saturday... Free ends at noon. (assuming you agree to kdp select)
99 cents for 7 days to drive sales and momentum.
Keep at free and publish the second... and then the third.

Thanks Lauryn! Yes, I do have KDP Select agreement.
When you say 99 cents for 7 days, do you mean also the second and third book?

 

[Lauryn]

You can do that too if you would like.

 

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[Thriftypreneur]

Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, I have considered this. But recently I spoke to another author and she told me that perma-free books are ignored by Amazon regarding ranking them and therefore can not climb up the bestseller ranks.

With my 3 book novella trilogy, I didn't really see any tangible results until I made the first perma-free. Now, the series just makes a little money every month on autopilot. I've tried 'Free-.99-$2.99' and 'Free-$2.99-$2.99'. Every time I've lowered my price, I found that while I made more sales at .99, I made less money.

The only way I can see this being beneficial is if the .99 book is receiving enough sales to push it up the rankings, but, with my perma-free having steady, non-impressive rankings, changing the price of book two doesn't really change anything except reducing my income.

One thing I can say for sure though, is that if it wasn't for the consistent, albeit small amount of new readers that my perma-free keeps bringing in, I wouldn't be making any sales at all. The key to a perma-free title is being in the top #100 in free categories... without those, the downloads dry up fast.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[Cyberseraph]

With my 3 book novella trilogy, I didn't really see any tangible results until I made the first perma-free. Now, the series just makes a little money every month on autopilot. I've tried 'Free-.99-$2.99' and 'Free-$2.99-$2.99'. Every time I've lowered my price, I found that while I made more sales at .99, I made less money.

@Thriftypreneur: Thank you for sharing your experience! That is really helpful and helped me to make a decision. I will make the first book free for 5 days and leave the 2nd and 3rd at 2.99'. In the meantime I can start writing my next novels and publish them as soon as I can.

 

[Lauryn]

It's a numbers game baby... get it!

 

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[Cyberseraph]

Quick update:

I did 1st book free for 5 days and the results were great:
- around 400 free downloads per day
- good sales for 2nd and 3rd book
- after the 5 free days my book was in the top #100 (in the genre that I am writing)

Thanks everyone for your input before!