# An Important New Article About How Price is Factored into the Algorithms



## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Written by KB's own Ed Robertson, this is important information.

http://www.edwardwrobertson.com/2012/05/amazons-ever-changing-algorithms-part-3.html


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Really interesting article. Thank you for sharing, Michael.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Heh, well that was fast.

Let me state this right up front--I don't think this is the end of the world. It's just one piece of the equation. And I do not think Amazon is specifically punishing indies or anything like that. If I had to guess, I'd think we're just innocent bystanders of a change meant to maximize Amazon's overall revenues. No more and no less.

But I don't see how this is any good, either.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Interesting.  Thanks for doing the legwork on that Ed.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Alarming, but it explains a number of things I've seen recently such as a strange (to me) dearth of 99 cent novels high on lists.

It leaves a number of questions unanswered, because we don't know, things like does being higher on the "indie" price spectrum help at all. I suspect not, but I don't think we can be sure at this point.

Thanks, Ed.


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## AmberC (Mar 28, 2012)

Is it too early for wine?


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## 39179 (Mar 16, 2011)

Thanks for this, Ed. Disturbing but good to know. Knowledge is power. Well, when you're up against Amazon, maybe it's just knowledge...but still good to know.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Sweetapple said:


> Is it too early for wine?


Yes, but I'm all for Scotch. I don't care if it's early.

Edit: I wonder what would happen if I raised _Freedom's Sword_ to $9.99. A drastic step I am actually considering. *gasps with horror*


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## MBlack (Mar 12, 2012)

Sweetapple said:


> Is it too early for wine?


It is where I'm at. But it's not too early for whine.

Waaaaaaaa!


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Edit: I wonder what would happen if I raised _Freedom's Sword_ to $9.99. A drastic step I am actually considering. *gasps with horror*


This, maybe?


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

This is interesting and timely.  I did a giveaway last weds and thurs and lowered my price from 3.99 to .99 so that when I came off free, maybe i'd move some copies and up my visibility.  So far, it seems to have worked well.  I'm maintaining around #5000 in the store (was in the 50,000-100,000 range before last week).  I've always intended this to be a short sale, but I have no idea when I should pop my price back up again.  I dont want to kill any momentum.


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## lorelei (Feb 25, 2012)

Thanks, Michael and Edward,
    It confirms something I've suspected myself. Recently I tried dropping my price from 2.99 to .99. I sold more copies, but I was still really low on the popularity lists. Maybe this is why . . .


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## EpubWorld (Dec 30, 2011)

Thanks Ed, for such a great post! This is really scary. Perhaps this is Amazon's way to drive an increase on e-book prices overall, but still... It will affect many indie authors, as most of us rely on pricing strategies to gain readership.

On a different subject, I love the new breakers cover.

Finally, I want to subscribe to your blog, but I'm currently in Bahrain and for some reason blogspot sites are all blocked. I barely manage to read the posts on the home page, but anything else is blocked (is not your blog's problem, it is any .blogspot site). Can you perhaps subscribe me so I can receive your news via email? Thanks!!

And keep the good intel coming.


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## Steven Stickler (Feb 1, 2012)

This is a really good and timely post. I had been noticing something similar and my basic conclusion was that marginal return (to amazon) was being factored in somehow. It seemed logical, as that's what drives placement in almost every other retail environment. If that's true, though, it would suggest that a $2.98 title would fare better than a $2.99 title that sells equally well. So it wouldn't necessarily be a bias against lower prices, just toward titles with a higher predicted return (again, for amazon). I'm not sure my logical exercise fits with your data, though, so this is really good to see.

(also, as you mention, there is a big difference between pricing for placement and pricing for sale, so indies would need to consider that tradeoff if it exists)


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

Interesting article, although it doesn't really surprise me (gives me something to think about, though). Thanks for sharing!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

MichaelWallace said:


> This, maybe?


With victims jumping to escape the flames? Could be.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Adam Pepper said:


> This is interesting and timely. I did a giveaway last weds and thurs and lowered my price from 3.99 to .99 so that when I came off free, maybe i'd move some copies and up my visibility. So far, it seems to have worked well. I'm maintaining around #5000 in the store (was in the 50,000-100,000 range before last week). I've always intended this to be a short sale, but I have no idea when I should pop my price back up again. I dont want to kill any momentum.


To me, this is a really good example of how this information could be dangerous. What if your visibility on the bestseller lists is enough to maintain momentum by itself? Eventually, all those sales will help drag you up the pop list, even if you're priced at $0.99. A bunch of sales is still a bunch of sales.

That's part of why I was hesitant to post this or even to wade in when people like NathanWrann were asking very pointed questions about what they were seeing. Ultimately, however, I thought it was better for everyone to know than to not know. And there's still an incredible amount to learn--this is really just the first step in figuring out what, if anything, there is to be done about it.


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

I just checked the top 10 books on the popularity list for Hard Boiled Mysteries, and they seemed to go directly in order of bestseller rank regardless of price.  By your logic, shouldnt An American Spy, priced at 12.99 be above the 2.99 books priced ahead of it?


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> To me, this is a really good example of how this information could be dangerous. What if your visibility on the bestseller lists is enough to maintain momentum by itself? Eventually, all those sales will help drag you up the pop list, even if you're priced at $0.99. A bunch of sales is still a bunch of sales.
> 
> That's part of why I was hesitant to post this or even to wade in when people like NathanWrann were asking very pointed questions about what they were seeing. Ultimately, however, I thought it was better for everyone to know than to not know. And there's still an incredible amount to learn--this is really just the first step in figuring out what, if anything, there is to be done about it.


I appreciate it, Ed. Tough to know what to do and I dont want to overreact. But the best bet is to learn as much as possible.


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

Seems like popularity list is now being driven by gross book sales within a time period rather than the quantity of sales within a time period.

Both List B and C are better for consumers in the long run, as they do not overwhelmingly augment the Select titles and List C reflects the perceived utility of the transactions (i.e., customers seem to value the experience more and are paying more overall money for that book). If customer experience with the book is really the goal of List C though, Amazon might try changing the popularity list algorithm to take into account reviews and ratings, which would swing a bit in our favor I think but also would encourage blatant sock puppetry.

Not sure which version of C I would prefer: gross sales or review-augmented. Both have obvious downsides. Nothing will be perfect.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Very interesting!

I'm planning to raise my price July 1st, and the WIP will come out at a higher price later this year (hopefully). But I'm not sure what price point to aim for.

By then, maybe our good friend Ed will have more data for us!


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Thanks for this Edward. Over the past month I had noticed how very few 99 centers were in the Top 100 and seemed to be less 2.99's. I had guessed the 99's had increased their price? Some time later I noticed less at 2.99. 

If higher priced books are given more scaling weight then the lower priced indie books will have less exposure in the store.

Do you think this scaling is an unintended consequence or are they deliberately giving lower priced books less exposure which get less sales?


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

Great post, Ed. Thanks for taking the time to crunch through all that. I wonder if this kind of tinkering from Amazon is more due to them wanting to maximize dollars or somehow due to their current obligations/relationships with traditional publishing? Or something else?

In either (or any) case, it underscores the fact that, as a small biz-owner/author, one can't establish a business model, wind it up, and then let it go running. Natural selection at work.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Adam Pepper said:


> I just checked the top 10 books on the popularity list for Hard Boiled Mysteries, and they seemed to go directly in order of bestseller rank regardless of price. By your logic, shouldnt An American Spy, priced at 12.99 be above the 2.99 books priced ahead of it?


The data for all of this is really, really fuzzy. Current bestseller rank may be totally out of whack with how the book's done over the last 30 days. There are other factors, too, like how recently the book's been released (it may have had a huge launch day and lesser sales since, or done poorly before suddenly picking up steam), whether a book's given away a bunch of free copies lately, etc. etc. I'm sure you can find what look like exceptions all over the place. And maybe they're not exceptions at all and I'm totally, totally wrong. If that's true, I'll cheer. In fact, if anyone's got good evidence otherwise, please, please tell me I'm an idiot. 

But I looked at hundreds and hundreds of books across several different pop lists. For all the exceptions, the overall trend is what pointed me to this conclusion.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I must admit (with no foundation whatsoever except what *seems* to be logic) I wonder:

Since Amazon prices their own imprint novels at $7.99, if $7.99 might not be some sort of breaking point.

I'm not rushing out to make changes in prices, especially since it's less than a month since I raised my historicals to $4.95. 

But... I'm watching this and will seriously consider raising prices. On top of other recent changes, we need to keep a close eye on what is happening and adjust accordingly.

Thanks again, Ed! MUCH to think about.


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## Dave Adams (Apr 25, 2012)

Thanks for the investigatvie work.

Sigh...disappointing, I suppose. Just another (potential) hurdle to jump.


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## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

Thanks Ed for taking the time and trouble of delving into this, it's certainly an eye-opener.


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I must admit (with no foundation whatsoever except what *seems* to be logic) I wonder:
> 
> Since Amazon prices their own imprint novels at $7.99, if $7.99 might not be some sort of breaking point.
> 
> ...


I think a more interesting hypothesis to test right now would be if changing price to 9.99 or 7.99 before a free period results in significant changes to the popularity list for the same number of downloads. In other words is the free downloads component similar to this (assuming that higher utility results in lower ranking--i.e. better placement--on the popularity lists):

U(b) = f(b) * pf(b) + ...

where U is utility, b is the book, f is the free downloads and pf is the price during free (the discounted amount to free, basically)

or this:

U(b) = f(b) * C + ...

where U is utility, b is the book, f is the free downloads and C is a multiplicative constant that is applied to the free downloads.

We'd need a set of 0.99 books and higher priced books that went free and received comparable downloads to form a control and experiment group.


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## williamvw (Mar 12, 2012)

If this bears out, perhaps it'll force indies to think more in omnibus/collection terms, which seems a bit sad. What would happen to the mystique of Dark Side of the Moon as an album if Pink Floyd's publisher were more interested in putting out multi-disc collections? (Come to think of it, this is exactly what's happened for the past decade.)


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Adam Pepper said:


> I just checked the top 10 books on the popularity list for Hard Boiled Mysteries, and they seemed to go directly in order of bestseller rank regardless of price. By your logic, shouldnt An American Spy, priced at 12.99 be above the 2.99 books priced ahead of it?


Okay, I just looked at the Hard Boiled Mysteries pop list, and the wild card here is that so many Select books are on that page. Have they been free lately? How many copies did they give away? Thrillers are damn popular--if these guys gave away 10K-40K, that may be enough to put them on page one even in this day and age.

But look at this. Title / Price / Popularity List Rank / BS Rank:

An American Spy / $12.99 / #6 / #2,101

Sweet Dreams / $2.99 / #11 / #727

Lost Light / $7.99 / #12 / #1205

A Bad Day for Pretty / $2.99 / #15 / #373

Blood Harvest / $2.99 / #17 / #362

The Narrows / $9.99 / #19 / #1,970

If you toss out the Select books, the ones that may have free downloads mucking up the results, there's not a single exception through the first two pages. :/


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## Guest (May 15, 2012)

Well, well, well. Another thread about the strange Amazon algorithms. Because Amazon never manipulates algorithms and never make differences between books and books. Yeah, right. And last time I was the great conspiracy nut, because I dared to take up questions when something wasn't right with the sales. Hah! I'm gladly see that time always proves my right.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Rex Jameson said:


> I think a more interesting hypothesis to test right now would be if changing price to 9.99 or 7.99 before a free period results in significant changes to the popularity list for the same number of downloads. In other words is the free downloads component similar to this (assuming that higher utility results in lower ranking--i.e. better placement--on the popularity lists):
> 
> U(b) = f(b) * pf(b) + ...
> 
> ...


I wish I'd known this soon enough to test. I actually have one of my more popular (such as their popularity is) historical novels free today and tomorrow and I would have LOVED to test this theory by raising the price to $7.99 before the free started.

I could raise it today, but I'm not sure that would work at this point.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Guardian said:


> Well, well, well. Another thread about the strange Amazon algorithms. Because Amazon never manipulates algorithms and never make differences between books and books. Yeah, right. And last time I was the great conspiracy nut, because I dared to take up questions when something wasn't right with the sales. Hah! I'm gladly see that time always proves my right.


Of course, Amazon "manipulates" algorithms. There have been discussions here for years about how Amazon does EXACTLY that. Most of us are well aware that Amazon is constantly tweaking their algorithms for their own benefit.

What it ISN"T is some kind of conspiracy against indie authors.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

I think this change in algorithms (which now completely destroys John Locke's "their books have to be ten times better than mine" logic) is probably a direct result of Amazon's last quarterly report (I think), where they reported a massive increase in transactions but a decline (or static) in gross (or net) income*. Amazon is in it for the long haul and doesn't usually do things to appease investors but sometimes a compromise needs to be made. I think this was it. 

It'll be interesting to see how this affects their 2nd quarter earnings. Will kindle sales decline because .99 books aren't flooding the pop lists? Or are there enough .99 books out there that their individual visibility on pop lists doesn't matter for kindle device selling points? Did the ability to say 130,000 exclusive titles and 30,000 FREE per day prove to be a better marketing weapon than ebooks priced way below their paper counterparts? 

*(obviously my specifics are off, just trying to relay what I remember from the articles I read at the time)


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> I think this change in algorithms (which now completely destroys John Locke's "their books have to be ten times better than mine" logic) is probably a direct result of Amazon's last quarterly report (I think), where they reported a massive increase in transactions but a decline (or static) in gross (or net) income*. Amazon is in it for the long haul and doesn't usually do things to appease investors but sometimes a compromise needs to be made. I think this was it.
> 
> It'll be interesting to see how this affects their 2nd quarter earnings. Will kindle sales decline because .99 books aren't flooding the pop lists? Or are there enough .99 books out there that their individual visibility on pop lists doesn't matter for kindle device selling points? Did the ability to say 130,000 exclusive titles and 30,000 FREE per day prove to be a better marketing weapon than ebooks priced way below their paper counterparts?
> 
> *(obviously my specifics are off, just trying to relay what I remember from the articles I read at the time)


*nods*

They are in it for the long haul but have to at least take the short haul into consideration.

Edit: I just raised the price on KDP for _A Kingdom's Cost _ (free today and tomorrow) to $7.99. It's too late for a really good test (and God knows I could lose money on it) but I am just plain ol' curious what happens. Not sure how long it will take for the price change to show.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Of course, when agency pricing goes away, these algorithms now hurt Amazon's discount book pricing (if they play fair) because lowering the retail price of a book will now put it at a disadvantage to ascend the charts. ETA: which then hurts the discounted books' visibility.

Funny how now that Agency pricing is in jeopardy Amazon finally applied a way to take advantage of publisher's self-set high e-book prices.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> In other words, say you've got a $0.99 book at #10 on the Epic Fantasy list. (Popularity list, not bestseller.) Say its sales rank (bestseller list) is #1000. The books at #9 and #11, meanwhile, are both listed at $9.99--and their sales ranks will probably look more like #3000, say.


Ed,

In late dec I was looking at differences between the lists shown on Kindle and those on the PC. In terms of sales ranking of books in the pop lists, the phenomenon you describe above ran all through the pop lists. It was too prevalent to be just normal sales variations. I didn't pursue it any further, nor did I correlate to price.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Since Amazon prices their own imprint novels at $7.99, if $7.99 might not be some sort of breaking point.


This is a good question, but I would be cautious to assume that every one of Amazon's actions is taken with the self-interests of its own imprints in mind. They still make up a small fraction of Amazon's storewide book sales. The overlords may well decide their house authors can survive a small hit to visibility (and $7.99 seems to compete pretty well with $9.99 - $14.99) if it's worth it to the health of the overall store. The imprints may well not even have known about this change.

That said, experimenting's cool. Please share results. Even if they wind up all Hindenburgy.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> This is a good question, but I would be cautious to assume that every one of Amazon's actions is taken with the self-interests of its own imprints in mind. They still make up a small fraction of Amazon's storewide book sales. The overlords may well decide their house authors can survive a small hit to visibility (and $7.99 seems to compete pretty well with $9.99 - $14.99) if it's worth it to the health of the overall store. The imprints may well not even have known about this change.
> 
> That said, experimenting's cool. Please share results. Even if they wind up all Hindenburgy.


I agree that we can't assume that and with the possibility that this could be their thinking as well. It is one possibility though.

Raising the price mid-giveaway isn't ideal as a test by any means. I don't think we'll get a good test (but better than none  ) This novel doesn't get HUGE sales, but quite steady. It sold 109 copies last month and has sold 55 this month, so, as I said, steady sales but not spectacular.

The giveaway has started rather weak. I'll do some stuff to try to get them out. I haven't checked to see if any blogs picked it up.


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

I'll definitely be interested in those results, JR. I have both Lucifer's Odyssey and The Goblin Rebellion going free on May 25-26 so I might be able to contribute some data points, if I can remember to tweak the prices on the 24th.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

@JR - LOVE the blue cover! So eye-catching!

@Everybody - AAAAAAAGGGGHJHHHH!! [Runs around tearing at hair and gnashing teeth.]

Seriously. Now what? It's all over. There's no hope. Tears. Okay, we can deal with this. Oh, please Amazon, I'll do anything, just tell me what to do. Wait, screw you, Amazon, I'm going elsewhere. WAH. Wait, Amazon, I didn't mean it! I'll change my prices. AGAIN.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

I just wish the changes to these algorithms actually affected me.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Of course, when agency pricing goes away, these algorithms now hurt Amazon's discount book pricing (if they play fair) because lowering the retail price of a book will now put it at a disadvantage to ascend the charts. ETA: which then hurts the discounted books' visibility.
> 
> Funny how now that Agency pricing is in jeopardy Amazon finally applied a way to take advantage of publisher's self-set high e-book prices.


Nathan, I think you're getting close as to the reason for the new algorithms, but I don't agree with the disadvantage because we're seeing something else that might well have a play in all this too, that turns discounting into an advantage -- for some.

I've posted my thoughts here for anyone interested:
http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com/2012/05/price-bias-new-wrinkle-in-amazons-ever.html


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I'm looking at the Contemporary Romance popularity list right now.. and it makes sense. 

#4 in popularity is Danielle Steel "Betrayal" which has a #89 in Paid Kindle ranking. Price? $12.99

#5 in popularity is Bared To You by Sylvia Day, which is #36 in Paid Kindle rankings. Price? $3.82

That's a big difference in Paid Ranking.... 

Then you have #11 in popularity Weekends Required by Sundney Landon, which is ##49 in Paid Kindle ranking. Price $2.99

But #10 in popularity? Sophie Kinsella's latest "I've Got Your Number" which has a #228 in Paid Kindle ranking Price $12.99


Wow. But it makes sense. If I was selling book on my website, and judging popularity, why not count votes by dollars? Because is 100 people will by Book X at $2, but 100 people will buy Book Z at $6, Book Z got more "votes." And it makes sense for my bottom line because *I* make more on $6 than I do on $2 (unless $2 customer buys 3 books for $2 and $6 customer only buys 1 book).

What I really see though? They're propping up the higher prices, because without factoring in revenue, the lower priced indies are out selling the trad pubbed significantly and would have all of the top spots.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Sometimes it's fun to put on the Amazon hat. If someone showed me this thread, I'd probably say, "_Yeah. The lesson is simple. You guys who can support a higher price should raise your price. You make more and we make more. We're not going to pick and choose. You do it. Get the picture?"_


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

D. said:


> @JR - LOVE the blue cover! So eye-catching!
> 
> @Everybody - AAAAAAAGGGGHJHHHH!! [Runs around tearing at hair and gnashing teeth.]
> 
> Seriously. Now what? It's all over. There's no hope. Tears. Okay, we can deal with this. Oh, please Amazon, I'll do anything, just tell me what to do. Wait, screw you, Amazon, I'm going elsewhere. WAH. Wait, Amazon, I didn't mean it! I'll change my prices. AGAIN.


LOL D. You're so funny. Thanks for the chuckle.

Thanks for the comment on the cover! I am just amazed at how the blue makes the black & white art pop out, much better than the old cover. I'm really pleased with the change.


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## ToniD (May 3, 2011)

Michael, thanks so much for posting this.

Ed, thanks so much for the analysis. Wow.

JR, thanks so much for being a guinea pig on pricing for a freebie.



Adam Pepper said:


> This is interesting and timely. I did a giveaway last weds and thurs and lowered my price from 3.99 to .99 so that when I came off free, maybe i'd move some copies and up my visibility. So far, it seems to have worked well. I'm maintaining around #5000 in the store (was in the 50,000-100,000 range before last week). I've always intended this to be a short sale, but I have no idea when I should pop my price back up again. I dont want to kill any momentum.


Adam, that is exactly what I'd planned to do tonight, before my free run starting tomorrow with Badwater. That is, I planned to lower Volcano Watch from 3.99 to .99 to snag some bargain-hunters, and then lower Badwater from 3.99 to .99 at the end of the second day free--to capitalize on any momentum the free run gives it.

Obviously, more hand-wringing is in order.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Nathan, I think you're getting close as to the reason for the new algorithms, but I don't agree with the disadvantage because we're seeing something else that might well have a play in all this too, that turns discounting into an advantage -- for some.
> 
> I've posted my thoughts here for anyone interested:
> http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com/2012/05/price-bias-new-wrinkle-in-amazons-ever.html


Read it. Made perfect sense.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

Thanks for the post. This was an eye opener. I suppose this is where building an email list and working on a platform becomes very important instead of putting books on a retail site and looking for the money to keep rolling in. In any case I am definitely thinking more closely about pricing for my next series.


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## 41352 (Apr 4, 2011)

So... let me get this straight. We should price our books at $7.99 at the very least? And readers would buy them? Because it's this last I'm concerned about... Maybe it would work if your book is already at a high ranking, but would it work for most of us?  

I have my doubts...


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Chrystalla said:


> So... let me get this straight. We should price our books at $7.99 at the very least? And readers would buy them? Because it's this last I'm concerned about... Maybe it would work if your book is already at a high ranking, but would it work for most of us?
> 
> I have my doubts...


I don't draw that conclusion. It does point to one more obstacle a new indie writer has to overcome vis a vis more established writers whose publishers price their books higher.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Sometimes it's fun to put on the Amazon hat. If someone showed me this thread, I'd probably say, "_Yeah. The lesson is simple. You guys who can support a higher price should raise your price. You make more and we make more. We're not going to pick and choose. You do it. Get the picture?"_


Dead on.

I don't think they single out specific prices, genres, types of books, etc. etc. for elevation or abuse. I don't _think_ they wake up and say, "And now we slay John Locke and all his cheaply-priced offspring." That's why I'm suspicious of any theory that hinges on Amazon pursuing overly specific goals.

I think they set up a few simple rules for their sales environment, then let all the animals in that environment duke it out. The ones that thrive encourage similar animals to follow suit. And as all these signatures attest, they'll never be in a shortage of new beasts willing to jump into the fray. 

All right, that metaphor's getting silly. Time to get back to writing fantasy.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Chrystalla said:


> So... let me get this straight. We should price our books at $7.99 at the very least? And readers would buy them? Because it's this last I'm concerned about... Maybe it would work if your book is already at a high ranking, but would it work for most of us?
> 
> I have my doubts...


I don't think he's saying that, Chrystalla. It's really too early to be sure WHAT we should do except maybe experiment or watch the results of other people who experiment.

I'm throwing myself on the sacrificial fires (or one of my novels anyway). I won't by any means necessarily keep the price of _A Kingdom's Cost_ at $7.99 but I do want to get some numbers to share. It's not that I"m going to raise all my prices. I just want to see what happens and then I'll analyze it (or let Ed analyze it  ) and share. I would suggest that everyone NOT do the same thing.

Pheonix's blog post adds some more to think about. One possibility (once we're out of Select those of us in it) would be to raise prices on Amazon, lower them elsewhere and try to get Amazon to price match. 

There are a lot of possibilities. Right now, I'd say it's mostly a matter of watch and wait.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Chrystalla said:


> So... let me get this straight. We should price our books at $7.99 at the very least? And readers would buy them? Because it's this last I'm concerned about... Maybe it would work if your book is already at a high ranking, but would it work for most of us?
> 
> I have my doubts...


nope. What this is saying is that a book priced at $7.99 needs to sell less copies to move up faster on the popularity lists (Amazon's "front of store" so to say) than a book priced at $2.99. Apply as necessary.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

It doesn't surprise me and I said as much on a thread earlier without any figures. Where does this leave the guys going for apple and the big six for banding together to raise prices? I suppose it doesn't figure as it is just one company achieving the same effect, but working alone. Maybe after a viral select free promotion, its best to go for a $9.99 price? rather than 99c


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## 41352 (Apr 4, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> nope. What this is saying is that a book priced at $7.99 needs to sell less copies to move up faster on the popularity lists (Amazon's "front of store" so to say) than a book priced at $2.99. Apply as necessary.


Aha! Thanks. I knew I wasn't getting it.


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## Louis Shalako (Apr 13, 2011)

It is interesting, but I'll be holding the line on pricing at least until the end of summer.


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## Phyllis Lily Jules (Dec 5, 2011)

D. said:


> Seriously. Now what? It's all over. There's no hope. Tears. Okay, we can deal with this. Oh, please Amazon, I'll do anything, just tell me what to do. Wait, screw you, Amazon, I'm going elsewhere. WAH. Wait, Amazon, I didn't mean it! I'll change my prices. AGAIN.


I'm with you, D. 
With a little Zen meditation thrown in when needed.


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## phil1861 (Dec 22, 2011)

Interesting, Ed. 

That also explains why TMAS a few weeks ago prior to a price pulse of .99 was at #35 on the history popularity list but had already been on the downward spiral of sales, but I'm priced at 4.99. I was also waffling on raising my price again after my next freebie to 5.99 at the peak. Perhaps now I will.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Keep in mind the popularity list is only one list some people shop from. Is it beneficial to be on it? Oh yes. Is it the end all be all of success on Amazon? No. I've never been very high on the pop lists as far as I can tell, except for right now because I have a price matched free book. Still, the last three months have been amazing sales. I have been running promotions and contests to get visibility, but mostly my sales are coming straight from bestseller lists and also boughts.


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## portiadacosta (Feb 28, 2011)

Is it possible that this new change might be affecting all sales, at a variety of price points? That is causing already slow sales to get even slower?


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

portiadacosta said:


> Is it possible that this new change might be affecting all sales, at a variety of price points? That is causing already slow sales to get even slower?


Although I'm having the worst month I've had in a year I don't think it has anything to do with this since I can't be found on any popularity lists anyway. Unless the price bias algorithm also affects what is visible in the first few also-bots. But even then my books are $3.49 and $3.99 so I should be in decent shape there, comparatively speaking.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

Chrystalla said:


> So... let me get this straight. We should price our books at $7.99 at the very least? And readers would buy them? Because it's this last I'm concerned about... Maybe it would work if your book is already at a high ranking, but would it work for most of us?
> 
> I have my doubts...


Actually, Ed had an entire paragraph that said exactly the opposite. Or, rather: (paraphrasing) I don't know if raising your price will help. Don't do it just because I said so. This is not a confirmed fact, but an observation based upon the evidence at hand.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Honestly, I've always expected books to be weighted in some ways to favor the higher prices. It seems to make financial sense for Amazon to give a better push to books that make the most money. Besides, when readers are willing to pay $8.99 for a G.R.R. Martin book and only $0.99 for an indie book, even if more people buy the cheaper book, it seems to me that a book with fans willing to pay a higher price can rightly be called more popular. I suppose there wouldn't be much point in having a popular and a best-seller list if they were the same. 

One thing it does make me think about is the way I price my books. It seems like more and more the $0.99 point is growing less profitable for indies and it may be time to push upward a little.


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## Guest (May 15, 2012)

Chrystalla said:


> So... let me get this straight. We should price our books at $7.99 at the very least? And readers would buy them?


No, because whatever you do, even if you raise your price, your book won't get any priority and you're lucky if your book will appear on the recommendation or other lists. Seemingly the scenario is the same what I told few months ago; the algorithms simply deciding which book may appear and which not, regardless what advertisements you make, how many tags or likes you have, etc, etc... (So, your book won't get the same chances as others as some moron is going to decide which book is going to get a chance to be more visible and which not.). This was in the past and now its happening now in the present. The only difference, this time not I'm the only one who says that there is something wrong with these things.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Thanks for this interesting info


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## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> That makes a lot of sense to me. Simple and straightforward. While quality is different for every book and Indies certainly can't be painted with a broad brush, there is still a lot of truth in the quality issue if you take it as a whole. Having 99 cent books dominate the bookshelves really does change the store in a way that Amazon probably wasn't looking for. What's that expression, "the most obvious thing is usually the right answer."


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Heh, well that was fast.
> 
> Let me state this right up front--I don't think this is the end of the world. It's just one piece of the equation. And I do not think Amazon is specifically punishing indies or anything like that. If I had to guess, I'd think we're just innocent bystanders of a change meant to maximize Amazon's overall revenues. No more and no less.
> 
> But I don't see how this is any good, either.


I wonder if it's weighted not so much by price, but by earnings?


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Here's another thought. People who spend more money per book may also be more likely to spend more money on Amazon overall, and so they are shown more expensive items. If a customer shows a preference for thrillers, and they tend to buy books priced higher than $7.99, it makes sense that if two thrillers are close in sales rank, that the more expensive book is one that is shown to the customer.


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## eBooksHabit (Mar 5, 2012)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I wonder if it's weighted not so much by price, but by earnings?


This was my thought too... it may not be direct earnings, and it may be something compared to the correlation of the earnings, and it's price point and some calculation to determine.


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## teashopgirl (Dec 8, 2011)

I have a freebie tomorrow and I just changed the price of the book to $7.99. I'll report back. I'm not sure if my data will be very useful, however, as the novel doesn't have reviews yet. But I like experiments, so this will be fun!


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

teashopgirl said:


> I have a freebie tomorrow and I just changed the price of the book to $7.99. I'll report back. I'm not sure if my data will be very useful, however, as the novel doesn't have reviews yet. But I like experiments, so this will be fun!


I'm having a freebie tomorrow and my book is priced at 99c. Will be interesting to see the number of downloads, but I expect there will be more to it than price alone.


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## Guest (May 15, 2012)

You guys with the statistical analysis and crystal balls gazing into imagined algorithms (_what if there ARE none_?) slay me.  What does any of that have to do with the craft of writing good fiction?  Nada. Being popular for this writer was left behind in high school.  Now that doesn't mean that pricing is easy or at times a dilemma. It is.  Nor does it mean we all don't care about selling books, save for those ultra-liberals who believe in making all books free and camping out in parks in the name of "fairness." 

*Ed McBain* (God rest him) has a bunch of his backlist up now, most at 4.99 although there are a few weird prices also, like $6.15. WTF is with that? Now my readers tell me my stuff is good, well written, why haven't they heard of me?, yada yada, but I'm no Ed McBain or *"Dutch" Leonard*. Still, when I first put a couple novels up on Christmas Eve, 2010, I priced them at $7.77 .  I was ignorant you see, and hadn't yet caught the lemming qualities of this board. (Please note it wasn't me that called it a *hen house*--some man who complains about not getting laid by his wife. I have no such complaints. (I think his wife is a lovely woman.  ) Anyway, after hanging out here and having my Road to Damascus moment, I brought the prices down to 2.99 and experienced slow sales growth.  At the end of Feb. I pushed them up to 3.99 save for the first in the series, then dumped a bunch of short stories up at .99 and 1.99. I'm wondering though, what would have happened if I'd left them all 7.77.  Maybe I'll try to be ignorant again. Often the man who knows no better succeeds against all odds without knowing the odds. (That's not a Twainism, but I can hear him saying it.)


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

What's with the false dichotomy that you can EITHER spend time studying Amazon OR spend time learning how to write books? I spent a decade learning how to write. I've spent three months watching Amazon.

I won't claim mastery of either, but it turns out there are 24 hours in a day. Wizard of time-management that I am, I somehow manage to pack both writing and number-watching into a single day.

EDIT: Sorry, apparently it's my cranky hour. Been up since 3:30. Still, it's bogus to dismiss all interest in the way Amazon works. It's really, really interesting, isn't it? This is the largest online retailer in the world, and this is how they're choosing to sell books. And they're changing all the time! I'd find that interesting even if I didn't have a financial interest in what those changes meant. Even when it hurts our sales, the upheaval we're going through--sometimes on a monthly or even daily basis--is fascinating.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

MikeAngel said:


> What does any of that have to do with the craft of writing good fiction?


Nothing. But it does have a little to do with selling good fiction.


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

And I'm back. I wonder how important the "popularity" sorting is anyway. If you type anything into Amazon's main search box, the first sorting you get is by 'relevance,' not popularity. It takes an extra step to sort by popularity. Because 'relevance' is the default and because people also browse the bestselling lists and the top-rated lists (and alsobots and listmania and whatever else I'm forgetting), I wonder how much 'popularity' sorting matters.

Maybe this algo change affects something else besides just sorting by popularity? And then there was someone up thread who said he noticed the same issue seemed to exist in December. Can we be sure this is a new change?


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## pamclaughton (Feb 21, 2011)

This is a fascinating thread. I could be way off base, but I'm also finding it an optimistic one as I'd love to see Indie's able to command higher ebook prices. Imagine if consumers got used to the 7.99 price point? How sweet would that be? I may be an exception, but I don't hesitate to spend up to 12.99 on an ebook if it's an author I like. Though I am looking forward to those 12.99 price points dropping to 9.99 as soon as the agency term expires. If Amazon decides to do that...could be they opt to leave the higher prices as they are.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

pamclaughton said:


> This is a fascinating thread. I could be way off base, but I'm also finding it an optimistic one as I'd love to see Indie's able to command higher ebook prices. Imagine if consumers got used to the 7.99 price point? How sweet would that be? I may be an exception, but I don't hesitate to spend up to 12.99 on an ebook if it's an author I like. Though I am looking forward to those 12.99 price points dropping to 9.99 as soon as the agency term expires. If Amazon decides to do that...could be they opt to leave the higher prices as they are.


It isn't that Indies can't command higher prices, it's that lower prices were a weapon in the battle for customers.


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## Feenix (Jan 14, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> Edit: I wonder what would happen if I raised _Freedom's Sword_ to $9.99. A drastic step I am actually considering. *gasps with horror*


JR! Do it!

I will follow with Betrovia! (uhm... just kidding)


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## Feenix (Jan 14, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Even when it hurts our sales, the upheaval we're going through--sometimes on a monthly or even daily basis--is fascinating.


True, so very true.

BTW Ed, the new cover for Breakers is awesome!


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> And I'm back. I wonder how important the "popularity" sorting is anyway. If you type anything into Amazon's main search box, the first sorting you get is by 'relevance,' not popularity. It takes an extra step to sort by popularity.


*Moses:* the popularity list is the main list by which folk browse through the store, either via a browser or through their Kindles. It's also the list that's served up in emails touting the top sellers in specific genres. There are a number of threads here now that discuss the importance of the list and plenty of evidence to support its relevance to sales.

*All:* For anyone contemplating jacking up your prices just because it's been pointed out the algos now have a price bias built into them, please keep in mind three things:

1) Price is only ONE of the variables in the equation.

2) You have to actually be able to move books at the price you're jacking them to. If you can't sell copies quickly coming out the gate at the higher price, your rank may become more screwed than it is now.

3) The algos appear to be based mainly on sales in the past 30 days. They could be averaging your sale price across all those days OR simply calculating on the price your book was at the majority of those days. Without a full month of data yet, it's hard to say. But it also means that if you jack your price now and the algos are either averaging or going with the majority price, you won't see immediate improvement. In fact, the algos may not kick in to your favor until you have a full 30 days at the new price behind you. And if your book can't sustain a higher price ...

Test away, of course, but be sure you give the test enough time to make a difference. And be sure you understand that the results may not be immediate. Please don't come back here in a week and complain that raising your price did absolutely no good and that your sales are in fact down and blame Ed or the algorithms or anyone cheerleading you, because one week or two or three won't be enough. Unless of course, your book can't sustain that price and heads into oblivion. But that won't be because of the algorithms -- and blaming them won't help .


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## eBooksHabit (Mar 5, 2012)

MikeAngel said:


> What does any of that have to do with the craft of writing good fiction?


1) While the majority of those on this forum are indeed fiction writers, not all are. I'll extend you the grace that you meant that writing well is important too.

2) There are plenty of people, in all sorts of businesses, that could very well be one of the best in their trade, but due to a lack of knowledge about the marketplace in which they operate, do not succeed despite their apparent higher skill level. Even without a formal gatekeeper to publishing like there has been traditionally, there are plenty of great authors who are not selling because they do not understand the marketplace in which they are trying to sell.

Like Ed said above, writing well and understand Amazon are not mutually exclusive. Ignoring one or the other will require a lot more luck to succeed in this (or any) business in the long run.


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Since Amazon prices their own imprint novels at $7.99, if $7.99 might not be some sort of breaking point.


Sorry if this has already been answered (I'm in a hurry and skimming the thread), but Amazon imprint books are NOT all priced at $7.99. Just in the romance category (Amazon's Montlake Romance imprint) ebooks are generally priced between $2.99 and $4.99 with discounts occasionally to $1.99. My own books are priced at $2.99 and $3.19 respectively, not discounted. I can't speak for other imprints.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> *Moses:* the popularity list is the main list by which folk browse through the store, either via a browser or through their Kindles. It's also the list that's served up in emails touting the top sellers in specific genres. There are a number of threads here now that discuss the importance of the list and plenty of evidence to support its relevance to sales.
> 
> *All:* For anyone contemplating jacking up your prices just because it's been pointed out the algos now have a price bias built into them, please keep in mind three things:
> 
> ...


Absolutely, Phoenix. We're still very much in the stage of figuring out exactly what these changes are and how we should adjust to them (or letting you and Ed figure it out for us  ). But to figure that out we're going to need some kind of comparative figures. It makes me wince to even think about, but I don't see how we can get a good idea without at least a month of data, although who knows? Amazon could change the algos again within the next mont.h 

In the next days and couple of weeks, I'll let everyone know what the ongoing effect or lack of effect is on the one novel I've changed my price on.

That one has 28 reviews, a 4 star review rating, and a history of steady though modest sales. It should be a reasonable test case or so I hope. What that will do to the sales of the rest of my novels makes me shudder a bit, but _Freedom's Sword_ is my bread and butter novel and that I ain't raising.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

So just for reference, JR, A Kingdom's Cost is currently #256 in Genre Fiction > War. Oh, and I see it's mid-free run. That should be fun to try to make sense of. 



Feenix said:


> BTW Ed, the new cover for Breakers is awesome!


Thanks! I'm really happy with it, too. Stephanie Mooney did the new design. I definitely recommend her.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

Nice work, Ed. Did you happen to notice if any higher-priced indie books were getting this popularity bump? In other words, if it was price alone that seemed to be the X factor? Is it specific publishing houses? I couldn't tell from your article. In other words, all things being equal, would a $4.99 title from a major press still beat out a better-selling indie at the same price?

(I've seen speculation that the new deals Amazon is signing with some publishers give them some marketing advantages in exchange for their second offspring and left arm...)


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## VincentZandri (Apr 21, 2010)

Thanks Mike,
Vin


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> ... the popularity list is the main list by which folk browse through the store, either via a browser or through their Kindles. It's also the list that's served up in emails touting the top sellers in specific genres. There are a number of threads here now that discuss the importance of the list and plenty of evidence to support its relevance to sales.


Thanks. I've been out of the loop for about six months (new baby and stuff).

I searched for some of the recent threads on the popularity list, and I can see how important it must be now, particularly with popularity being the default list on a kindle fire as well as the default list if you click through to a category from the kindle store online. I'm not sure if more people view 'popularity' over 'bestselling,' or if popularity drives more sales than alsobots, but it has to be very important.

So is this the reason why books get good sales rankings after a free run? It's not from the free downloads themselves, but from the sales and borrows they get after going to the top of the pop lists?


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## MH Sargent (Apr 8, 2010)

Edward thanks for all the hard work to put this together. Very interesting. And thanks Michael for posting it.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> What does any of that have to do with the craft of writing good fiction?


Nothing. That's not what we are discussing.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> So just for reference, JR, A Kingdom's Cost is currently #256 in Genre Fiction > War. Oh, and I see it's mid-free run. That should be fun to try to make sense of.
> 
> Thanks! I'm really happy with it, too. Stephanie Mooney did the new design. I definitely recommend her.


Oh, yeah. I thought it would be fun to complicate things. 

But we know where it is starting, so it will be interesting to follow exactly what happens from here. How being $4.95 has affected its placement at #256 I have no clue.

The new digital price has gone through and shows as $7.99--reduced to zero for the free run today & tomorrow.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> Thanks. I've been out of the loop for about six months (new baby and stuff).
> 
> I searched for some of the recent threads on the popularity list, and I can see how important it must be now, particularly with popularity being the default list on a kindle fire as well as the default list if you click through to a category from the kindle store online. I'm not sure if more people view 'popularity' over 'bestselling,' or if popularity drives more sales than alsobots, but it has to be very important.
> 
> So is this the reason why books get good sales rankings after a free run? It's not from the free downloads themselves, but from the sales and borrows they get after going to the top of the pop lists?


Well, originally free downloads were weighted as sales, so the free downloads affected placement. They seem now to still have a little weight but very little. Ed says 1/10 the weight of a sale, but since they're factoring in price, maybe even less than that. VERY complicated to keep up with.

Welcome back.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

CJArcher said:


> Sorry if this has already been answered (I'm in a hurry and skimming the thread), but Amazon imprint books are NOT all priced at $7.99. Just in the romance category (Amazon's Montlake Romance imprint) ebooks are generally priced between $2.99 and $4.99 with discounts occasionally to $1.99. My own books are priced at $2.99 and $3.19 respectively, not discounted. I can't speak for other imprints.


That was in response to Ed's comment that their normal price was $7.99. To tell you the truth, I haven't followed their pricing.

Of course, since I don't do romances, that might make some difference and genre is something to definitely take into consideration. Not all genres are priced the same.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Just to keep our unknowns known, 1/10 is a ballpark figure--it fits pretty well, but it's really hard to get accurate without really detailed numbers from a bunch of different books.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I mentioned this in its own thread, but I think it also applies here. Today my mom asked me to download free ebooks on to her Kindle. I went to menu and selected the Kindle Free Ebook list.
The first five pages (five to a page) were free. Then something funky happened. All the paid best sellers were mixed in with the freebies. Only one or two freebies to three or four full price books. In some cases 9.99 to 13.49 each.

I think one of the reasons free downloads are down, is even if they are high on the free list, at the rate of only one or two per page, If you were number #75 on the free list, you're actually closer to fifty pages back on the list and fewer people are seeing your book now.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.


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## AmberC (Mar 28, 2012)

That's odd. I download free books from the top free 100 kindle list from various devices, phone, ipad, kindle, computer daily. I've never seen any paid books in that list. There are two lists I check on daily. The paid 100 and free 100 and I've never noticed those mixing.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Sweetapple said:


> That's odd. I download free books from the top free 100 kindle list from various devices, phone, ipad, kindle, computer daily. I've never seen any paid books in that list. There are two lists I check on daily. The paid 100 and free 100 and I've never noticed those mixing.


I went into Menu (on mom's Kindle), went to search, typed in "Free", and the suggestion the Kindle suggested was Kindle Free Ebooks. If this list is what Kindle is suggesting, and if this is what they're showing to readers, it explains partly why the allure of free and downloads have fallen. 
When I search for ebooks on my laptop, this doesn't happen.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> ... And be sure you understand that the results may not be immediate. Please don't come back here in a week and complain that raising your price did absolutely no good and that your sales are in fact down and blame Ed or the algorithms or anyone cheerleading you, because one week or two or three won't be enough. Unless of course, your book can't sustain that price and heads into oblivion. But that won't be because of the algorithms -- and blaming them won't help .


It's like you have a magical crystal ball! Heehee! Of course *I* wouldn't blame you or anyone else for the things I do, but ...


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> I went to menu and selected the Kindle Free Ebook list.
> I think one of the reasons free downloads are down...


My Kindle doesn't have a Free Ebook list you can access directly from the menu. But I have an old keyboard Kindle. Perhaps you have a different interface.

As to the number of free downloads being down and the allure gone, what makes you say that? I did notice last month that on one day when I ran 7 books free and I compared the download numbers it was taking to hit ranks in the Top 200 to previous months' runs, for that day, downloads were indeed down 20% across the store. However, last week when I ran 10 books free and compared the numbers and ranks against previous runs, there was a deviation of minus 5-10% from early runs in Jan and Feb and that same level of _improvement _ over April's run. And when we're talking numbers from 3,000 - 12,000, that's not a lot of deviation.

Of course, during one run one particular book may get 10,000 downloads and the next run it may get only 1500. But that can be attitributed to where the book was mentioned and how much exposure it received. It has all to do with the promotion around that book alone and naught to do with the relative health of free books that day.

What are you seeing around download numbers that I may be missing? I'm more than ready to adjust my research and results when new evidence comes in!



MosesSiregarIII said:


> So is this the reason why books get good sales rankings after a free run? It's not from the free downloads themselves, but from the sales and borrows they get after going to the top of the pop lists?


Absolutely correct!



D. said:


> It's like you have a magical crystal ball! Heehee! Of course *I* wouldn't blame you or anyone else for the things I do, but ...


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

D. said:


> It's like you have a magical crystal ball! Heehee! Of course *I* wouldn't blame you or anyone else for the things I do, but ...


Oh, silly me. Of course, it's all Pheonix's fault.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Some data for you:

Earlier today, I hit the button and raised the price of my books from .99 to 3.99.

Two of my books, which I have sold ZERO copies of for three days (Poke and Swarm), have risen in rank today. From 172k to 134k and the other from 183k to 133k. These are books I haven't sold a copy of in days. And the only thing that changed today was the price, from .99 to 3.99.

I've also had a lot of website traffic for those books in the last couple days (due to pirating, a lot of outside-north-america traffic), so I wonder if the pages are getting more views on Amazon, as that may muddy things, but I can't imagine that being beneficial if nobody's buying them.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

D. said:


> Some data for you:
> 
> Earlier today, I hit the button and raised the price of my books from .99 to 3.99.
> 
> ...


Wow. Looks like the theory vs. evidence vs. apparent results is holding true. Nearly 40,000 ranks due to a $3 change? Yikes.


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## Steven Stickler (Feb 1, 2012)

Presumably someone with a steady sales history in both UK and US could run a test by differentiating price in the 2 stores: leave U.S. as-is, change UK price up or down depending what you want to test. Assuming algorithms are somewhat consistent across the two stores, that would probably be a more valid test than comparing different books, where it is so hard to adjust for factors like cover, blurb, genre, writing style, etc.  There would need to be sufficient sales history and volume in the UK store, though, otherwise noise could look like causation. 

That assumes you can price them differently--I just let amzn set the UK price based on US price, but I believe one could set the UK price.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> My Kindle doesn't have a Free Ebook list you can access directly from the menu. But I have an old keyboard Kindle. Perhaps you have a different interface.


Mom has a wi fi Kindle touch screen.

If Amazon is putting paid bestsellers on the free ebook list they suggest on Kindle touches (which is one of their suggested options), this lowered visiblity is not good. Mom got sick of me paging through about fifty pages to find the free ones. I don't think most people will go that far in. Anyway, anyone with a Kindle is welcome to try it for themselves. Is it possible they are lumping authors into a different group, showing us different data than readers like my mom?
I know Facebook and Google now tailor what they show each individual.


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## eBooksHabit (Mar 5, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Mom has a wi fi Kindle touch screen.
> 
> If Amazon is putting paid bestsellers on the free ebook list they suggest on Kindle touches (which is one of their suggested options), this lowered visiblity is not good. Mom got sick of me paging through about fifty pages to find the free ones. I don't think most people will go that far in. Anyway, anyone with a Kindle is welcome to try it for themselves. Is it possible they are lumping authors into a different group, showing us different data than readers like my mom?
> I know Facebook and Google now tailor what they show each individual.


This is a search result, not the free listing. Yes, Kindle makes a suggestion but they would make a suggestion if you types in "weight loss" or "cotton candy"... while to optimal results for such a search would be free books, there are uses of the word "free" that make it harder for search results. I don't have a kindle so I can't test it myself, but unfortunately, i think the method you went about it, using the search function, is the issue.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

I like to imagine that some coder up in Seattle is reading this thread while laughing her arse off.*

B.

*To said noblest of coders: If you are indeed reading this thread. Please PM me with the answer. I won't tell anyone else. Honest.


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

@JR. If the rank is changing with current price, regardless of sales at that price, the rank will likely fall after you adjust from 7.99 to 4.99/4.95 when you come off free. Should be interesting to see the data.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

BrianKittrell said:


> Wow. Looks like the theory vs. evidence vs. apparent results is holding true. Nearly 40,000 ranks due to a $3 change? Yikes.


Thing is, that's bestseller rank, not pop list rank. I don't know whether any of this applies to BS rank.

D, how often do you check your rank? Is it _obsessively_? You might have sales that haven't registered yet--I've got two books that haven't had sales updates in about 48 hours now, but I've seen their rank get better in ways that just about have to be indicative of sales. I'd be pretty surprised if I were the only one.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Mom has a wi fi Kindle touch screen.
> 
> If Amazon is putting paid bestsellers on the free ebook list they suggest on Kindle touches (which is one of their suggested options), this lowered visiblity is not good. Mom got sick of me paging through about fifty pages to find the free ones. I don't think most people will go that far in. Anyway, anyone with a Kindle is welcome to try it for themselves. Is it possible they are lumping authors into a different group, showing us different data than readers like my mom?
> I know Facebook and Google now tailor what they show each individual.


There is no "free list" on my kindle (2nd gen(?) with a keyboard) when I go to the kindle store. If I use the search bar for free e-books I get a bunch of books returned with "Free" in the title (as expected since it thinks I'm looking for things with the keyword free). Of course my the store on my kindle doesn't show prices unless I click into the book description. Even when I searched specifically for JRTomlin's free book "A Kingdom's Cost", the book came up and showed as 0.00 in its description page. and stated that it was "#158 Free In Kindle Store"(note: in my laptop browser it's currently 254) There was no further list to click on or even a genre link to go to. When I go into the front of the kindle store and look at the categories there is no category for "free". So I clicked through the categories that were showing up for JRTomlin's book >>Kindle Store>>Ebooks>>Fiction>>Genre Fiction>>War where, according to her books page in my browser it should be #2 (no "free" qualification) but it doesn't show up in my Kindle.

What does all this mean? There is no easy way to find free books on the basic kindle. Go to the website and it's easy. There are no "free" lists in the kindle and it seems to me that the only way to find free books on the kindle is to type them in by name in the search field.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Thing is, that's bestseller rank, not pop list rank. I don't know whether any of this applies to BS rank.
> 
> D, how often do you check your rank? Is it _obsessively_? You might have sales that haven't registered yet--I've got two books that haven't had sales updates in about 48 hours now, but I've seen their rank get better in ways that just about have to be indicative of sales. I'd be pretty surprised if I were the only one.


I log into my author central profile and look at my little charts every few days or so. I just logged in today and noticed they were trending up.

You are correct that those charts aren't necessarily super accurate and up-to-the-minute. I don't check the actual product pages and note my ranking, so I can't say for sure what it was a few days ago.

My data may just be noise, amplified by paranoia. 

The work by Ed and Phoenix, however, is really fantastic, and I want to thank you guys for your data-mining and for sharing it with the group here! These are some of my favorite threads.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Trying to second guess the amazon algorithm is fraught. Their database has been so loopy over the past couple of months it's difficult to figure out what is by design and what is a bug. I still have a book that has had a return without any sales - it was released last month, has never had any sales (it's an accounting study guide and is mainly there to be part of an omnibus) and shows up as -1 on my count. 

The past 4 weeks have been weird. Two or three days with very few sales followed by an avalanche of sales for the next two or three days. Pricing and sales are in such a state of flux and getting screwed up by select, price matching, and agency pricing court battles that it feels that the only way to sort it would be to try and read the entrails of a recently slaughtered cockeral.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Rex Jameson said:


> @JR. If the rank is changing with current price, regardless of sales at that price, the rank will likely fall after you adjust from 7.99 to 4.99/4.95 when you come off free. Should be interesting to see the data.


I'm not adjusting back to $4.95 after it comes off free. I'll leave it at $7.99 for the time being to see what happens, at least that is the current plan. I am so confused at the moment... I'm not quite sure what anything will prove.

Yes, I am sure some programmers in Seattle are sitting there chuckling and rolling their eyes.

Herc, only black goats work for fortune telling with Amazon although if you have a brown one and a can of spray paint... 

Edit: For the past month, Countenance of War has sold at very close to the same rate as A Kingdom's Cost. So far this month AKC has had 55 sales while CoW has had 48. Last month AKC had 105 and CoW had 103. They were the same price. They are the same genre. So I *think* we should get a decent comparison of what happens at different prices.

I want to see how their rank compares after at least a couple of weeks at different prices. I'll see 1. if they continue to sell at the same rate and 2. how their rank compares whether they sell at the same rate or not. Admittedly that AKC is just coming off free might skew it slightly but considering how little weight they give free copies, it shouldn't be much and should adjust pretty quickly.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

But chicken makes better soup


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Mom has a wi fi Kindle touch screen.
> 
> If Amazon is putting paid bestsellers on the free ebook list they suggest on Kindle touches (which is one of their suggested options), this lowered visiblity is not good. Mom got sick of me paging through about fifty pages to find the free ones. I don't think most people will go that far in. Anyway, anyone with a Kindle is welcome to try it for themselves. Is it possible they are lumping authors into a different group, showing us different data than readers like my mom?
> I know Facebook and Google now tailor what they show each individual.


On your Kindle, there is a way to see the free books.

Instead of going to the default list or doing a search, look at the main page where it has a list that says:

Browse:

Books
Newspapers
Magazines

Featured:
NY Times Best Sellers
Kindle Best sellers
New & Noteworthy

Click on "Kiindle Best Sellers". In the upper right hand corner it will say: Top 100 Free

Unless someone cancels their "free" in the middle of the day, which can happen, they will all be free.

What I can't get it to do on my Kindle is browse them by category. If you try to browse by category, you end up on the regular list.

(Herc, barbequed goat is quite tasty  )


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I wanted to update this. Sorry for being slow but my laptop is at the factory to be replaced. I won't have it back for a few days yet.

I khave no idea what if anything it means, but since raising the price on A Kingdoms Cost while it was free, the sales have continued at exactly the same pace as at the lesser priced Countenance of War, but it is now at a better place on the Popularity list having gone from a worse place. AKC went from #124 in War to #39 while CoW has stayed stay around #79. How much was that affected by the giveaway? Since giveaways haven't been affecting my Pop ranking in the past couple of months, but I just don't know. The change in price doesn't seem to have reduced sales so far much at all.

Label me baffled.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> *Moses:* the popularity list is the main list by which folk browse through the store, either via a browser or through their Kindles. It's also the list that's served up in emails touting the top sellers in specific genres. There are a number of threads here now that discuss the importance of the list and plenty of evidence to support its relevance to sales.
> 
> *All:* For anyone contemplating jacking up your prices just because it's been pointed out the algos now have a price bias built into them, please keep in mind three things:
> 
> ...


Phoenix, I didn't say that I agree with you in theory. I just couldn't get it to work in practice. I'm gong to give it another try with Freedom's Sword and see if I can get it to a decent spot on Historical without any giveaways. We'll see.


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## MH Sargent (Apr 8, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I wanted to update this. Sorry for being slow but my laptop is at the factory to be replaced. I won't have it back for a few days yet.
> 
> I khave no idea what if anything it means, but since raising the price on A Kingdoms Cost while it was free, the sales have continued at exactly the same pace as at the lesser priced Countenance of War, but it is now at a better place on the Popularity list having gone from a worse place. AKC went from #124 in War to #39 while CoW has stayed stay around #79. How much was that affected by the giveaway? Since giveaways haven't been affecting my Pop ranking in the past couple of months, but I just don't know. The change in price doesn't seem to have reduced sales so far much at all.
> 
> Label me baffled.


Dear Baffled,

What was the price of AKC after the giveaway? And when did you change the price? And to what price? It sounds to me like this confirms that price is a factor in the pop listings.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I'm raising the price on all three of my eBooks to either $3.99 or $4.99 at the end of the month. I'm leaning towards the $4.99 price point. I'll also be releasing a collection of all three eBooks and I'll price that at $9.87. The reason I'm doing this is with book 1 revised (out end of the week), I think the lower prices aren't affecting my amount of sales but only my bottom line. I've also received some great news about the movie deal which leads me to believe I'll be able to carry a higher price shortly anyway.


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## R. Garcia (Apr 9, 2011)

I think that if indeed Amazon has been doing this, it should inform us about it.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

MH Sargent said:


> Dear Baffled,
> 
> What was the price of AKC after the giveaway? And when did you change the price? And to what price? It sounds to me like this confirms that price is a factor in the pop listings.


I changed the price the first day of the 2 day giveaway which was Tuesday of last week. I changed it from $4.95 to $7.99 and it has remained at that higher price. Since I just got my computer back, I'm in the process of trying to get up to speed on what has happened in the week I was pretty much off line.


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## Ernie Lindsey (Jul 6, 2010)

How about a pricing strategy question for a completely new release with zero history, data crunchers? (Ed, Phoenix, et al)

From what I've gathered, your ranking on the Pop lists is based on the number of sales/freeloads over the previous 30 days and your pricing. Two factors out of who knows how many. Is that based on a month by month calculation or 30 days in general? If I put out a new release tomorrow, would 0-10 sales (friends and family) through the end of May affect my ranking for June, or would they recalculate on June 21/22?

That's mostly out of curiosity.

For the current situation, I'll have a new novel edited, proofed, and covered, ready to go by the end of this week. My plan is to go live on June 1st. I'm going to enroll in Select and do an early, one-day giveaway, probably sometime that first week, and hope to build a little steam and (doubtfully) pick up a couple of reviews since ENT and POI have stricter requirements now. If I'm able to pick up some good reviews early, I'll notify ENT and POI and do a 2-day freebie closer to the end of the month in an attempt to carry some steam into July.

The question is, what might be a recommended pricing practice in between? On a new release with zero history and no ranking, should I consider pricing at $0.99 for the month of June to gather up some sales and haul _that weight_ into July, or go with my long-term $2.99+ and get (maybe) fewer sales but bank on the weight of _higher pricing_? I don't expect to move many copies in June or July either one - this is more for an August-December set up.

Not looking for you to tell *me *specifically what to do, just more of an overall "how might this pan out?" kind of thing. Thanks!


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## phil1861 (Dec 22, 2011)

Visibility does more to drive sales than price, so unless you plan on other means of visibility $.99 is not really a great sales maker any more.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Ernie, the algos seem to recalculate on a 30-day running cycle, and the pop list has about a 2-day delay. So the pop list on May 22 is likely picking up history from Apr 20 to May 20. 

My opinion only, but for a new release, your goal should be to get on the first page of the Hot New Releases for your cat. That's based on the Bestseller list, which is price-agnostic. My strategy for a new release remains the same as it was when I posted it in February:
1. Free days
2. Low sale price coming off free
3. Regular price once rank starts to fall

If you're releasing in June, nothing of what you do -- unless you manage to get sticky at a high rank with consistently high sales -- will carry into August except for some tiny variable that factors in long-term history. With that in mind, more sales trumps price.


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## Ernie Lindsey (Jul 6, 2010)

Thanks for the help, guys!  

@Phoenix - That's about what I was expecting.  I have your blog stickied on my toolbar, so I'll go back and read through some of the stuff I may have missed over the past couple of months.

Also, I'm switching genres with this one, so it'll be an interesting experiment in building something from the ground up, in a category where I have no name recognition.  Again.

Fresh new data to play with, across the board.  Woohoo!


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