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Writer's Circle > Amazon discounting your ebook on its own?

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message 1: by Judy (new) - added it

Judy Goodwin | 187 comments Okay, this is puzzling me.

I have a book on Amazon. I'm not enrolled in KDP Select. I manually did a 99 cent sale last week for two days and it skyrocketed in sales rank, selling an impressive 60 copies during that time. Then I returned the book to its normal price of $3.99.

Now Amazon has put it back to $0.99, advertising that this is down from the usual $3.99. And I'm not in a Countdown or anything like that. (and yes, it's continuing to sell copies).

Has this happened to anyone else before? I know Amazon typically discounts my print version because they can and still make a profit. But I've never seen them do their own sale on one of my ebooks before.

Huzzah? Maybe it attracted their attention with the rankings movement?

Hope so!


message 2: by Kristi (last edited Feb 18, 2014 01:32PM) (new)

Kristi Cramer (kristicramer) | 84 comments I'm wondering the same thing? Do they discount my royalty, too?

I had a .99 promo (not through KDP) for both my books, and they left the one that didn't sell as well at .99 (showing the markdown, like yours) for an extra 2 days.

I guess I will find out when the sales report comes back, but I do wonder the "whys and wherefores" as my Dad would have said.


message 3: by Angela (new)

Angela Misri (angelamisri) | 9 comments I've noticed that too; reading the fine print now...


message 4: by Reyna's Mom (last edited Feb 18, 2014 07:27PM) (new)

Reyna's Mom (reynasmom) | 18 comments Judy wrote: "Okay, this is puzzling me.

I have a book on Amazon. I'm not enrolled in KDP Select. I manually did a 99 cent sale last week for two days and it skyrocketed in sales rank, selling an impressive 60 ..."


Do you still have it priced for .99 anywhere else, like B&N? Amazon will price match your book, so if it is listed anywhere for a lower price, Amazon matches it.


message 5: by Kristi (new)

Kristi Cramer (kristicramer) | 84 comments Mine was definitely not on sale anywhere else.


message 6: by Judy (new) - added it

Judy Goodwin | 187 comments I did for a day before I changed it back on BN, and I realized they might be price matching, so I emailed KDP. Will let you know what I find out.


message 7: by Ken (new)

Ken (kendoyle) | 347 comments Sometimes, they take a while to adjust to a change when price-matching. I have the opposite problem: I've been waiting weeks for them to price-match a short story of mine to $0.


message 8: by Kristi (new)

Kristi Cramer (kristicramer) | 84 comments What I found odd is that I did two books at once. Once went back up to $2.00 right away, while the other, set at $3, showed the $3.00, but had it crossed off and 'on sale' for .99 for an extra 2 days. I wonder if it has to do with the royalty % - I had one in each bracket. The way they break the sales report up, I can't tell if they only gave me the 35% royalty when it was their decision to hold me in that bracket, not mine. Once I get the end of month report, I should be able to tell by total sales numbers.


message 9: by Judy (new) - added it

Judy Goodwin | 187 comments Got a letter back from KDP--apparently Sony has taken its time getting my book back to normal pricing despite the fact I already changed it with Smashwords. So there's the source of the delay. I'll check Sony in a day or two and once that's back to normal I'll check Amazon again.

Mystery solved!


message 10: by Brian (new)

Brian Smith | 2 comments Why do you think you got such a spike in sales at $0.99? At this low price point ($3.99 or $0.99) it's more an investment in time than in money.

Did the $0.99 price get you on an Amazon list that made your book more visible?


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