Thank you so much to everyone who answered the survey. It's clear that - like me - you enjoy your free books and 99c/99p offers. It was also clear that, after free offers, Amazon is far and away the main place for finding ebooks. I find it very helpful that they tell you if you've already bought the book too! I was surprised how few people - less than 15% - used Kindle Unlimited.
For those who aren't familiar with Kindle Unlimited, you pay a monthy subscription and then borrow books for free. It is a great option for less known authors but it comes with one big catch. To put your book in Kindle Unlimited it has to be exclusive to Amazon. That means you can't sell it on Apple, Kobo, Google Play etc. I've chosen to make my books available on as many platforms as possible, so Kindle Unlimted isn't an option for me.
There are other digital library services, and my books are available on as many of those as possible. And you can get them at your physical library, although you may have to ask the librarian to order them.
Books 2-4 in my Choices and Consequences series are priced at £2.99 each which is around $3.70 and seems to fit with what you are happy to pay for books, especially sequels. The box set is £7.99 (or local equivalent) and will always be less than the price of buying the three sequels separately. My big decision is how to price Strand of Faith, the first book in the series.
I can price it the same as the other books - which means I can discount it to 99c/99p from time to time to qualify for a whole range of promotional opportunities. Or I can leave it at 99c/99p which is more attractive to new readers, but doesn't qualify for the same promo opportunities. Or I can make it free - which would access different promo opportunities, but I'd have to rely on people then buying the next in series to recover my costs. However, I also know that around a third of people who read Strand of Faith go on to buy Thread of Hope, and more than half of those who buy Thread of Hope then buy Weave of Love (and two thirds of those go on to get Cloth of Grace).
So my current plan is to leave Strand of Faith at 99p/99c for a few more months and see if I can access some of the available promo opportunities (which may mean making it free for short periods). In the meantime, don't forget that, as a subscriber, you can still get a free copy here if you haven't got your copy already.
|