Pricing Hurdles for Authors on Amazon

I discussed the opportunities and sand traps of Amazon’s category choices in the post “Category Hurdles for Authors on Amazon.” Now I am going to discuss pricing hurdles on Amazon.

At one point I temporarily changed the price of technothriller ebook LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS from $2.99 to free. Then I changed the price back.

While other sites then also changed the price back, Kindle continues to show the price as free even though I changed the Kindle info.

Based on the genius of Aggie Villanueva in her new book AMAZON CATEGORIES CREATE BEST SELLERS, I have decided to concentrate on sending people to Amazon and Kindle to buy the paperback or ebook of LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. But I do not want to give the book away.

Why wouldn’t Kindle agree to change the price back to $2.99 when I requested this?

Because on an ebook site run by Sony (and I didn’t realize the ebook was available there until the Kindle support person emailed me this information), the price remains 0, and Amazon matches the lowest price.

I have been told that, if I get Sony to raise the price or remove the book, Kindle will return the price to $2.99. Thus I have spent time with a Sony ebook customer service rep, who could take my request and send it on to whatever department does not take phone calls but might do as I have asked. (I have yet to learn what happened with this request.)

Finally, I had a surprise when I joined Faydra Deon’s Independent Author Index at indaindex.com and clicked on all the links she provides to find an author’s books on different book sites around the world.

She correctly indicates that we authors may be unaware of all the online places where our books and ebooks are offered for purchase.

This would not necessarily be a problem, although it is unlikely that anyone buying books on most of those sites has ever heard of me or my books.

It is a problem if you want to make your ebook a Kindle Select (requires exclusivity for the ebook for 90-day periods on Kindle) and you thus have to figure out how to get your ebook off all those other sites that list your ebook but are not making any sales.

FYI: Choosing Kindle Select for CIA FALL GUY enables me to choose five days during the 90-day exclusive period when the ebook is free. This is a much better solution than my own attempt to make the ebook of LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS free for a few days and then put back the price.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books. Her newest fiction book is CIA FALL GUY (on Kindle Select here — free for Amazon Prime members), the idea for which came from a May 1972 bombing of the U.S. Army’s Officers Club in Frankfurt, Germany.

Read more about the backstory of this book at www.CIAFallGuy.com and then email Phyllis at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com if you would like to consider writing a review on the book’s Amazon page. Phyllis will email you a Kindle mobi format, epub format, or pdf format for reviewing.