Why Dead on Demand won't be 99c forever.
As readers of this blog know, Dan and I have long thought
99c to be an absurd price point. But the proof is in the pudding. We put Dead
on Demand down to 99c about a month ago. At first, it chugged along around 1/
day. It has since settled around 8 sales a day. We're ignoring non-Amazon as we
have the price unchanged elsewhere.
What we've noticed is:
·
More US sales
·
Less UK sales
·
A slight bump in Canadian sales (which is
statistically insignificant)
·
A lower average rank
·
More Social Media mentions
We're currently selling about a hundred a week, but mostly
due to some promotion (see prior blog posts for #s). Even at 100 downloads, 99c
yields a mere $35. About $25 after tax. At an annualised rate, that would mean
DoD should earn about $1820 gross per annum which is roughly £1200. Split
between two, that doesn't go far.
Of course, we don't expect to live on one title. We'd like
to think ten titles would cover a living wage. If we had ten books each selling
100 copies per week, we'd make £12,000 per year. For a gross 50,000 copies per
annum, that's a pretty miserly income. Unfortunately, the volume at 99c does
not make up for the lower royalty rate. Selling one a day at $4.99 makes
$1277.50 per annum.
What sounds more sustainable to you guys, 100 a day or 1 a
day? If that creeps to 2/ day then we'll make much more at $4.99 compared to
100.
100/ day at 99c = $1820 per annum
2/ day at $4.99 = $2555 per annum
It's just not a good deal for an author to price so cheaply,
at least for a standalone title. For shorts, this is a fantastic yield. For
stories in a series, 99c may or may not make sense: Here, we'd look at the sell
through rate between books 1 and 2, and 2 and 3 to calculate yield.
E.g:
Scenario 1: $2.99
Book one, two a day
Book two, one a day
Book three, One every two days.
This is a 50% sell through between books. Most series manage
more than this. A three book series therefore sell 3.5 copies a day. At $2.99,
this makes the series author $7 per day, or $2555 per annum.
Scenario 2:
Book 1: 99c / All others, $2.99
Book one, 10 a day
Book two, 5 a day
Book three, 2.5 a day
Same 50% sell through. Now we're getting:
10 x 35c
7.5* $2
= $18.50 a day, or $6752.50 per annum.
Here, 99c works. Of course, permafree might work better.
e.g. Scenario 3:
Book 1 : free. Books 2/3 $2.99
Book one, 200/ day (I've managed 15,000 freeloads at peak so
this is sustainable)
Book two 100/ day
Book three 50/ day
= 150 x $2 = $300/ day, or $109,500 per annum.
Of course, freeloaders are much less likely to buy. So lets
reduce out 50% sellthrough to say 5%
Book one, 200/ day
Book two: 10/ day
Book three, 5/ day
Total = 15/ a day or $30 = $10,950 per annum.
I don't think 99c is too useful. Perma free is likely to
give a better yield for volume, while higher prices get a better per unit
royalty.
We'll be leaving DoD at 99c a bit longer - we want to prove
this statistically, and it would be interesting to leave DoD at 99c once the
sequel is out to measure sell through differentials. Would you guys be
interested in that data?
I would like to see your data after the sequel to DoD is out.
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