From Rags to Riches on the Kindle: April sales results.

By Mike Jastrzebski

It's been six weeks since I lowered the price of The Storm Killer from $2.99 to .99 cents and about two weeks since I lowered the price of Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery) from $2.99 to .99 cents. In April I sold 1057 copies of The Storm Killer and 593 copies of Key Lime Blues. This is more books sold per month than any month since I went live with The Storm Killer last June, but my income has definitely dropped with the lower price.

Since the royalty rate for .99 cent books is only 35 percent compared to the 70 percent rate payed on $2.99 books, it's necessary to sell six times as many books at .99 cents to break even. I have not been selling even close to that number.

In my best month at the $2.99 price I averaged 30 sales a day between the two books and made about $1800.00. Right now I'm averaging between 50 and 55 sales a day between the two books. Now that both books are .99 cents that means that if sales don't increase I will make between $550.00 and $600.00 this month. If you do the math you can see why I'm wobbling back and forth between raising the price on both books back to $2.99.

On the up side, I've sold just under 7000 books since last July. At the rate the books are selling (at .99 cents) there's a good chance I can sell another 3000 books between now and the end of June. This would give me a total of 10,000 sales for the year and since I am on track to release my next book, Dog River Blues, by the end of June, the increased sales should expose me to more buyers.

What's a guy to do? Raise the price of the two books back to $2.99, or stay the course at .99 cents? Stay tuned for my decision and my sales over the next couple of months.

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