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4 Months Of eBook Sales

jstorimer.com

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Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#3
This is a nice summary.

Just out of curiosity - why do ebooks cost so much? (I am talking in general, not with respect to this particular book). Of course, the value of the content is high etc etc - but wouldn't pricing ebooks less make more people buy them? A $30 ebook is much more expensive, especially if you are not in US/Europe (if you are in Asia, Africa etc), than a $9 ebook, wouldn't the volume make up for the lost dollars? Again, I am not talking about big name publishers, they have their own reasons. I am only talking about independent authors, who have full control over their books/course materials.

Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#4
post #3

This is a nice summary. Just out of curiosity - why do ebooks cost so much? (I am talking in general, not with respect to this particular book). Of course, the value of the content is high etc etc - but wouldn't pricing ebooks less make more people buy them? A $30 ebook is much more expensive, especially if you are not in US/Europe (if you are in Asia, Africa etc), than a $9 ebook, wouldn't the volume make up for the…

noone picks numbers out of thin air.

they do a/b testing to see what gets the most revenue.

Usually at $9...you only sell twice as much as you do at $30...so you actually lose money.

That's because to most people $30 or $9 makes very little difference

Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#5
post #3

This is a nice summary. Just out of curiosity - why do ebooks cost so much? (I am talking in general, not with respect to this particular book). Of course, the value of the content is high etc etc - but wouldn't pricing ebooks less make more people buy them? A $30 ebook is much more expensive, especially if you are not in US/Europe (if you are in Asia, Africa etc), than a $9 ebook, wouldn't the volume make up for the…

You're making a few assumptions though:

* Those in Asia,Africa, etc... would actually purchase ebooks if the price were lowered. Look at China, everything is pirated there regardless of price. For this reason, most content producers tend to target North America/Europe.

* That the price of an ebook is highly elastic. You're hoping that dropping the price from $30 to $10 would yield sales greater than 3x. But what if it only gave you 2x? And at a lowered price, the margins per sale are slimmer since you have to factor in marketing costs and conversion rates.

Personally, as a North American programmers I wouldn't think twice to drop $30 on a good book that I'd find valuable. My time is more important than a $20 price difference.

Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#7

> "The other two big spikes on the chart were the result of discount promotions I ran." How did you advertise these promotions? I noticed you got a huge amount of traffic from running the promotions.

The first promotion was advertised on Twitter and RubyFlow. The second was advertised on Twitter and RubyWeekly. Twitter has always been the best way to spread news about the book.

Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#8
post #3

This is a nice summary. Just out of curiosity - why do ebooks cost so much? (I am talking in general, not with respect to this particular book). Of course, the value of the content is high etc etc - but wouldn't pricing ebooks less make more people buy them? A $30 ebook is much more expensive, especially if you are not in US/Europe (if you are in Asia, Africa etc), than a $9 ebook, wouldn't the volume make up for the…

There are many ways to do pricing and I won't pretend that my method was scientific. Lowering the price of the book may (or may not) have increased revenue. I priced the book this way because I felt it was fair value for the content.

These two articles on pricing nicely highlight some reasoning behind low vs. high: http://blog.asmartbear.com/perfect-pricing.html and http://blog.asmartbear.com/higher-pricing.html.

Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#9
post #3

This is a nice summary. Just out of curiosity - why do ebooks cost so much? (I am talking in general, not with respect to this particular book). Of course, the value of the content is high etc etc - but wouldn't pricing ebooks less make more people buy them? A $30 ebook is much more expensive, especially if you are not in US/Europe (if you are in Asia, Africa etc), than a $9 ebook, wouldn't the volume make up for the…

Why does college cost so much?

Re: 4 Months Of eBook Sales

#10
Congratulations on the success of your ebook. Also, thank you for your words of inspiration, that's quite thoughtful.

Could you detail the technical side of writing? I.e. what tools were used in getting this done?

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