From Rags to Riches on the Kindle: Why only .99 cents?

By Mike Jastrzebski

I was at a party at a friend's house last night and as often happens when writers get

together now-a-days the subject of e-books and e-book pricing came up. I mentioned that I had lowered the price of both of my books, The Storm Killer and Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery), to .99 cents and the conversation went something like this:

"How's that working for you?"

"Sales are up," I said, "But earnings are down."

"So why do it?"

"Good question," I said. And it is. In fact, I've been asking myself that very question. On the 15th of March when I lowered the price of The Storm Killer to .99 cents I was on track to sell about 375 copies of The Storm Killer and about 650 copies of Key Lime Blues in the month of March. This would have earned me around $2000 dollars had I left the price of both books at $2.99.

My actual sales for March were 778 copies of The Storm Killer and 615 copies of Key Lime Blues, which earned me $1818.00, an estimated loss of $182.00. It's a no-brainer, right? It seems logical that I should raise the price of The Storm Killer back to $2.99. So why did I lower the price of my other book, Key Lime Blues, to .99 cents last week? It's the numbers.

I'm looking to publish Dog River Blues, the sequel to Key Lime Blues, by the end of June. I went live with The Storm Killer last July and with Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery) in mid August. To date I've sold just over 6500 copies of both books combined. I'm hoping to sell 1000 plus copies of each book in May and June at .99 cents. This would leave me with a total combined sales of over 10,000 books for the year and I'm hoping that

enough of the readers who bought my books will buy the new book to make up for the lost revenue I may experience over the next two months.

The problem with my expectations is that nobody knows how many people actually read the .99 cent books they buy. I do, and I guess I have two questions for you the reader–do

you buy .99 cent e-books, and if so, do you read them? Please let me know in the

comments section.

To purchase for your Kindle click on the following links: The Storm Killer and Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery).

Both books are also available for the Nook at .99 cents– click the following link to buy for the nook: http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?

To buy at .99 cents for the Sony Reader click the following links to purchase from Smashwords: The Storm Killer and Key Lime Blues.