The Question…
Jo is interested in using price pulsing. She wants to know how it works and how authors can use it to their advantage.
Biggest Takeaway…
[Tweet “Pulsing is a good strategy for helping you increase awareness of your books. “]
Steve’s Answer…
Pulsing refers to dropping a book’s price to get more sales and increase visibility on Amazon. This isn’t necessarily a great strategy for generating revenue, but it is a good strategy for helping you increase awareness of your books. Many authors price their books at 99 cents during this type of promotion.
There are two ways to use price pulsing on Amazon:
- Create a Kindle Countdown deal
- Set it up in your KDP author dashboard
KDP Select members are eligible for a 70 percent royalty on a Kindle Countdown deal. If your book is not in the KDP Select program, you are eligible for a 35 percent royalty.
Price pulsing has several benefits:
- Amazon rewards you for the number of units you sell, not your royalties.
- Increased visibility improves your chances of being included in one of Amazon’s email marketing campaigns.
- If you sell enough books, you may qualify for Amazon bestseller status.
- In some cases, sales of your other books will increase when you use the price pulsing strategy with one title.
. The introduction of the Kindle Unlimited program also has some customers borrowing books instead of buying them.
Steve has been successful using these four methods:
- Pulsing
- Seasonal events
- Special events
- Buck Books promotion
When Steve launches a book, he sells it for 99 cents and promotes the sale in several places. This typically generates sales of 1,000 to 1,500 units. He also runs private sales and participates in special events with other authors. For example, he was one of the authors featured in the March to a Bestseller event put together by Bryan Cohen.
Finally, Steve also uses a promotional site called Buck Books. This site gathers several books in the same genre and puts them on sale for a limited amount of time.
Resource and Links
KDP Author Dashboard: Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform
Email Marketing Techniques (SPQ 007): Steve discusses the email marketing techniques he uses for his publishing business
Bryan Cohen: The website of author Bryan Cohen
Buck Books: A promotional site for authors
Steve,
I like your idea of using seasonal events to promote your books. I’ve thought about doing something similar like tying a book on organization to National Get Organized month (January). Or even tying a launch to something like tax day on April 15th. Thanks for the great tips.
George
Both are excellent ideas! Honestly, you can pretty much turn any “event” into a reason to hold a sale. Tax day is a great one, because it’s a necessary evil that we all have to go through on a yearly basis. So might as well make it fun.