Author Topic: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets  (Read 3352 times)

dgcasey

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Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« on: December 20, 2019, 12:50:45 PM »
Maybe it's just me, but I was going through some Also Bought lists and noticed a glut of box sets for .99 cents. I ended up buying a dozen different box sets from authors I like. 12 box sets giving me 53 books for my TBR list. If you don't hear from me in the next couple of weeks it's because my TBR pile fell over and crushed me. 
I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.
"The Tales of Garlan" title="The Tales of Garlan"
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I'm the Doctor by the way, what's your name? Rose. Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!
 
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Joe Vasicek

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2019, 11:28:13 AM »
I hear you. My reading goal is 100 books in 2020, and there's enough of those on my physical bookshelves to keep me going for most of the year.
 

dgcasey

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Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #2 on: December 22, 2019, 04:50:17 AM »
I hear you. My reading goal is 100 books in 2020, and there's enough of those on my physical bookshelves to keep me going for most of the year.

Yeah, I just finished book #70 for the Goodreads Challenge and will probably finish at least three more before the end of the year. I'm looking to up my goal for next year to something like 75. Which would still only get me about a quarter of the way through my Unread TBR pile in my Kindle Reader and that's if I don't add anything else to it. Fat chance of that.  ;)
I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.
"The Tales of Garlan" title="The Tales of Garlan"
"Into The Wishing Well" title="Into The Wishing Well"
Dave's Amazon Author page | DGlennCasey.com | TheDailyPainter.com
I'm the Doctor by the way, what's your name? Rose. Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!
 

thatdraeperson

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Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2019, 06:36:09 PM »
I haven't decided what my 2020 reading goal is yet, but I'll be aiming to beat whatever I did this year (I'm still reading this month - as of this morning, Goodreads says 25). So maybe 40.

In regards to the 99p boxsets, I suspect there's a method to the madness. Amazon has made it harder to get the attention of new readers using free permabooks, and the number of people that actually read freely obtained books is not helpful (I gave away 13K copies of one book in one year via Amazon and suspect that less than 10% actually read the book, and less than 1% went on to read book 2).

So those authors offering boxsets have probably asked themselves what's a way to attract voracious readers, that are more likely to A ) see the book on Amazon, B ) purchase the book so they've got some "skin in the game" / more likely to read it and C ) entice them to try out an author they don't know yet?

Cheap boxsets is the immediate answer that jumps to my mind, so I suspect it's the same for these authors. They're trying to attract new readers but free downloads hasn't been helpful in their experience.

(This isn't to say we shouldn't give away free books on Amazon - there are still readers out there that do read the free books they download, and review them, it's just [usually] not very effective in the long-run unless the book has hit all the required reader expectations/doesn't suck. I also see no harm in offering a book for free if it hasn't been selling, and using that as a chance to work on the book description/copy to see if that causes download spikes if you're finding ways to get the free book noticed initially.)
 

She-la-te-da

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2020, 11:42:01 PM »
This has been going on for a while now. I wonder if some of it isn't trying to get enough sales to hit some list, get the "letters", which was the goal for many (and a source of much cheating and shifty work).
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Wonder

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2020, 04:12:11 AM »
This has been going on for a while now. I wonder if some of it isn't trying to get enough sales to hit some list, get the "letters", which was the goal for many (and a source of much cheating and shifty work).

I'm also curious about the 99 cent box set strategy. Assuming an author wants to make a living, 35 cent commissions on multiple books seems like a daft way to go about it. But there's got to be some benefit, right? Or they wouldn't do it.
 

notthatamanda

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2020, 04:54:13 AM »
Are these box sets in KU? They can attract attention with the 99 cent promo, but KU readers will probably get it via KU. Just a guess.
 

Bill Hiatt

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Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2020, 09:57:50 AM »
This has been going on for a while now. I wonder if some of it isn't trying to get enough sales to hit some list, get the "letters", which was the goal for many (and a source of much cheating and shifty work).

I'm also curious about the 99 cent box set strategy. Assuming an author wants to make a living, 35 cent commissions on multiple books seems like a daft way to go about it. But there's got to be some benefit, right? Or they wouldn't do it.
As She-la-te-da suggests, the strategy works well for getting the book onto a bestseller list--assuming it's wide. (Amazon-only books aren't eligible for many of the lists.) Assuming the author has some kind of base to begin with and a decent-sized advertising budget, hitting something like the USA Today Bestseller's list is possible. As D.G. Casey has indicated, readers will see it as a good deal. A reasonable good reputation plus promotion (including, ideally, a Book Bub), and an author might make the list.

How much value that has down the road is an open question. Do authors sell more when they can preface their name with a bestseller label? It's hard to tell, since most people who make the list are already popular. Perhaps someone in this situation will weigh in on whether or not post-list sales have gone up. Certainly, a lot of people think it helps, but I'm not sure how much evidence there is.

Keep in mind that such a price point is almost certainly a special sale, not a permanent price point. To get a real sales bump, an author would promote a feeling of urgency with a limited-time author. This is especially true if someone is shooting for a list, as the sales have to be in a one-week period.



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LilyBLily

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2020, 10:23:11 AM »
An interesting side effect of my recent free run--remember that, the one that, mirable dictu, did not actually lose money?--was that quite a few people read it in KU instead of doing the free download.

If a 99-cent box set attracts a reader's attention, there's a decent chance they'll read it in KU and the author will actually clean up. Also, if it's a multi-author anthology, many KU readers will skip first to wherever their favorite author's piece is--thus generating page reads for pages never read. I don't believe Amazon has ever plugged that hole.
 
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Alexa

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2020, 05:04:22 AM »
An interesting side effect of my recent free run--remember that, the one that, mirable dictu, did not actually lose money?--was that quite a few people read it in KU instead of doing the free download.

If a 99-cent box set attracts a reader's attention, there's a decent chance they'll read it in KU and the author will actually clean up. Also, if it's a multi-author anthology, many KU readers will skip first to wherever their favorite author's piece is--thus generating page reads for pages never read. I don't believe Amazon has ever plugged that hole.

I noticed the same with free days, and even some people from Goodreads who asked for review copies but ended up just reading the book in KU, so I got a review AND $$.
But I actually didn't realize that about box sets, so thanks for sharing this! Was curious about all the 99c, too.
 

twicebitten

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2020, 10:36:50 AM »
I have a friend up in KU bonus territory who does this. It's all about the reads. He says he'd like to change the boxed set to 9.99, but he's terrified to touch anything. It took long enough to get to the point he's at, and if he sneezes, he's afraid the whole thing will come tumbling down.
 
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Hopscotch

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2020, 03:07:43 PM »
I don't know what to make of cheap box sets but I've an older series that's going nowhere anymore and thought, why not give it a try?  Rather than a series lying dead on my author page, a cheap box set could spark interest in my other serieses.
. .
 

dgcasey

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Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2020, 05:13:47 PM »
I do know that one of the box sets I picked up was Amy Cross' Grave Girl trilogy. I love it. I'm just starting the third book in the trilogy and can't wait to see how Sam handles Satan walking around her little town. I picked up three Amy Cross box sets for three dollars, so after Grave Girl, who knows?
I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.
"The Tales of Garlan" title="The Tales of Garlan"
"Into The Wishing Well" title="Into The Wishing Well"
Dave's Amazon Author page | DGlennCasey.com | TheDailyPainter.com
I'm the Doctor by the way, what's your name? Rose. Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!
 

notthatamanda

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #13 on: January 30, 2020, 12:01:16 PM »
I don't know what to make of cheap box sets but I've an older series that's going nowhere anymore and thought, why not give it a try?  Rather than a series lying dead on my author page, a cheap box set could spark interest in my other serieses.
It makes me think there was never any reason to stuff books when the legitimate box sets are just as effective. Maybe even more so as multiple box sets take up more space than one bloated book on the charts. I saw someone on KBoards predict that the box set craze will last six months. I think it's here to stay personally.
 

B. Anés Paz

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2020, 05:24:10 PM »
Might be adding to the "free problem" afflicting the indie side of the industry. So many people don't want to try to market or put effort into their work, they just want to tell stories, so they justify it by giving it away for free. I see it a ton on fantasy and fantasy writers subreddits. It gets worse when a lot of marketing rotates around loss leaders, so even those trying to make money give stuff away for free at first.

The result? "Free" ironically loses value and people's kindles are so stuffed with free books that they never actually buy any. Then, of course, the old quality problem starts being smeared thicker in terms of free books which might make loss leaders less effective in the long run.

Just a shower thought I had after reading some stuff about the problem of so many books being free or heavily discounted as a standard.
 

MaxDaemon

Re: Anyone notice the .99 cent boxsets
« Reply #15 on: February 10, 2020, 12:31:33 PM »
I do know that one of the box sets I picked up was Amy Cross' Grave Girl trilogy. I love it. I'm just starting the third book in the trilogy and can't wait to see how Sam handles Satan walking around her little town. I picked up three Amy Cross box sets for three dollars, so after Grave Girl, who knows?

Thanks for the idea. I bought the box sets as well, and I'm nearly to the end of book 2 myself.


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