Sometimes the simplest book marketing strategy an indie author can employ is playing around with pricing your book.
Because it’s one thing to have a book, but it’s entirely different to have one that actually sells.
You’ve probably heard this from other indie authors, or even experienced it yourself, your book gets added to Amazon, full of pomp and circumstance, and then, nothing.
It’s disheartening to see your hard work just sit there. But here’s the good news: it could be an easy fix.
Pricing your book is something we don’t often think of as a trigger for book marketing, or how to sell more books, but it definitely is. Here are some things you need to take into consideration:
Check Out the Competition
See what others are charging in your market.
And not just any books, top books, but not by household names – find the sweet spot. You may be surprised what you find out.
But no matter what, it’s never a good idea to price your book outside of what the market can bear.
Price Rotations
Changing your book price is a benefit you have as an indie author, and it can help spike your exposure on Amazon, because it triggers the algorithm.
Look at changing your price once a month – shift between the $2.99 and $5.99 sweet spot reported by Amazon sales data, unless you’re doing a special promo, which I’ll discuss below.
Limited Time Price Drops
Indie authors should also dip below the sweet spot once a quarter and really do a big book marketing push to support it.
I recommend $.99 but sometimes $1.99 can get you decent exposure as well. And plan to keep it at that price for a solid 3-10 days.
Get the limited time price drop listed on a number of eBook promotion sites as well and be sure to promote it on your social media, your blog and your newsletter, whatever communication options you have at the ready for your book marketing efforts.
The Value of Free
But my book is worth more! Yes, your book is worth a heck of a lot more, in fact, if you add up all the hours you spent working on it, you probably couldn’t charge enough for it.
Here’s the thing though: you can’t focus on your worth or your book’s worth – you have to focus on what triggers sales, and buyers love a good deal.
So I urge you to consider freebie eBook promotions as well. For these you can drop the price for just a day or two and really promote the hell out of it.
This book marketing strategy is especially effective for indie authors with multiple books, doing freebie promotions introduces your work to more people, and assuming that book was damn good, you’ve now made a new fan that will continue to buy what you publish.
Permafree Strategies
So what’s permafree? Basically it’s an eBook that’s always free on Amazon.
Enroll in Kindle Unlimited. It’s a good one for indie authors who write in genres that tend to be really popular for KU.
Note that this isn’t beneficial to all authors so do your research, and then give it a shot if it looks promising. You commit to 90 days at a time.
Another, unofficial option to get a free book on Amazon, that’s free for anyone, is to ask Amazon to price match it.
I recommend choosing an older book, or book one in your series. Make sure you have published it everywhere. Not sure how to do this? Sites like Draft2Digital and Smashwords offer simple platforms to upload your book make it free.
These sites will publish the book on Nook, iTunes, Kobo and anywhere else you indicate.
Let Amazon know by clicking the “tell us about a better price” link. You can find this under the book details on your Amazon page. Sometimes you have to submit a few times so be diligent and check back every few days.
Once the book is free you’ll begin to see it surging up the Amazon ranks (under free eBooks).
Just make sure readers know you have other books. Keep your About the Author section current. Ensure your Amazon Author Central bio current. If it’s a series, make it easier for readers to find the paid ones in the series. Achieve this by naming the other books in the description of book one.
As a book marketing company, it is our job to help guide and direct you in pricing your book for success. Let our book promotion services help you assess why your sales may still be lackluster.
The Takeaway
Book marketing as an indie author is both complicated and exciting. So many options, so many opportunities, and only so many hours in a day.
Try different strategies for pricing your book. It can really help give you a boost when you feel like you’re doing everything else right and it’s not making an impact.
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