Are super-discounted promotions worth it?

[The Bass Bagwhan]

If you discount a standalone book from 5.95 down to (say) 0.99 and promote it on any of the popular platforms, will you really achieve anything? Because people who seek out "cheap" books will never pay full price anyway, right? You might, with significant downloadable, increase your rank and maybe garner some reviews, but you're not really making inroads into your target market ... am I right?

[Bill Hiatt]

That's a very definite "It depends."

There are readers who just look for bargains. But most of us would take a bargain if it were a genuinely good deal. We almost all buy things when they're on sale, don't we? But that doesn't mean we never buy anything at full price. Certainly, the people who swarm through the dollar store in my area (at least the ones I know) also buy stuff at full price.

The first book in my first series is "permacheap" at $0.99. There's pretty good readthrough in that series. If it were literally true that people who buy $0.99 books never buy more expensive books, my readthrough should be zero, yes? Yet it isn't. There are still a fair number of people who swear by the permafree-first-in-series strategy, so for them it obviously works.

I concede that there are some readers who only buy bargains. Maybe they can't afford to do anything else in some cases. But I reject the idea that all buyers in that area are the same.

I think a potential problem might be people overusing low price promotions. If it's possible for people to get a book at $0.99 rather than full price, they'll wait for it. So we need to be careful not to discount too often. But occasional discounts have their uses.

[Lorri Moulton]

Is this Amazon only? Or all retailers?  There are so many strategies being promoted out there...and some say 99c is very effective while others don't agree.  If you think readers will enjoy your other books if they read this one, it might be worthwhile.

[alhawke]

If you discount a standalone book from 5.95 down to (say) 0.99 and promote it on any of the popular platforms, will you really achieve anything? Because people who seek out "cheap" books will never pay full price anyway, right?

It will bring more press to your book. That can garner new reviews and might create more interest. It totally depends.

I consider 99c for new releases (if you decide to release .99), stacking big promos after landing an infrequent BookBub, or reviving zombie books (not "zombies", I'm referring to titles that haven't sold in 6-9 months). But primarily, I use BookBub ads for selling my day-to-day regular priced books. And nowadays, I only resort to these promos if I want to draw eyes to a new book or new book format (like recently for audiobooks).

For a starting writer they can be fun cause you're getting your book to finally sell; and if you're brand new, any bit of publicity helps, particularly from a free promotion with KU.

[LilyBLily]

My women's fiction titles that had international BookBubs sold many copies at 0.99 down from $6.99. Did they also give me new regular readers? Maybe. They were not series titles yet I think they sold some other of my women's fiction titles at full price. All are wide, and the discounting made a splash. It doesn't last, of course.

[writeway]

I see no point in discounting a standalone to be honest. I don't see the benefit unless you can get a Bookbub. The best time to discount is when you have a series and can make book 1 cheaper or free. That way you hopefully make up the money from the read-through when people check out the series. If you are in KU, then freebie promos are much more effective for standalones than dropping the price. Again, unless you just wanna get some buzz, I don't see the point because you won't be able to fully capitalize off the discount. Now, permanently lowering prices from time to time to see how it does is fine but I just don't see the benefit of making one standalone 99 cents and unless that standalone is in KU, I definitely wouldn't make it free. I do have some permanent free standalones but they are shorts and so I just made them free years ago just as kind of "gift" to readers discovering my catalogue. I have a catalogue of overe 100+ books though so a few standalone permafrees doesn't hurt me and bring me visibility because of my backlist. I'm not losing money on those books. But just to make a standalone book 99 cents, unless there is some strategy to it I don't see, or unless you got a big catalogue and it won't lose you money to do it, I wouldn't. I'd just lower the price permanently for a while. Bookbub has been the only reason I've discounted a standalone to 99 cents.

[Bill Hiatt]

That's  a good point. I think I missed the standalone part when I first read the question.

Much depends on whether the standalone is currently a standalone that might become first in series or whether it will always be a standalone.

In the former case, discounting the book gets it into more hands, which means more prospective readers for the sequel. Granted, it's safer to wait until the series gets more books, but if a sequel comes out quickly enough, it's probable that some of the readers who picked up the first one will buy the second one.

[alhawke]

For free, I've seen diminishing returns with free runs. My first free runs brought blockbuster # reviews. That alone was like a review service and made it worth it. The last two ones seemed to do nothing but load people's kindle libraries with the covers. So I wonder if it's diminishing returns for my books or the performance of free runs in general now?

I also thought free would be blockbuster for KU. I only saw limited KU reads 3 mos ago, so that didn't go far either. But, again, it could be the title I ran that discount over?? Needless to say, I'm not as enthusiastic over free for my books now either.

[APP]

I've never done free, but I have done .99 cent books for the first in my two trilogies. It has NEVER paid off for me, only limited follow through. So going forward, I've decided not to do it any longer. And of course, on my stand alone novels--my last one and the current one I'm working on--I will only release at full price.

[LilyBLily]

One discount method that absolutely did not work for me at all was to discount a book on pre-order/launch and alert my newsletter list. It did not respond. YMMV.

[Lynn]

My observations tell me that my books sell more copies in the long run when they aren't discounted. Amazon occasionally (ruthlessly, lol) price matches my ebooks to my paperbacks after putting them on deep discount, but once the price goes back up, I sell more copies. It's like a small surge. Maybe the algos like the higher priced sales better and give it a boost? Purely a self-reported observation though, and we know what that's worth.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Thanks everyone, lots of good info to digest. It's currently running in a Facebook Ad campaign and not performing well. I think I'll dabble in AMS first, and even a Bookbub ad, before resorting to a freebie or 99 cents strategy. The consensus here suggests the discounting likely won't work. Cheers.

[PJ Post]

I'm posting after the fact here, but...

Self-publishers raced to the bottom right out of the gate (2010), which means, to the majority of the reading public, indie books, as well as authors, are now a completely fungible commodity - which means discounting won't work. Free can still get readers, although not like it used to, but they can buy 99 cent books all day long, even massive boxsets for the same price.

The better strategy is to be non-fungible. This way, you won't have to compete on price at all. You'll have fans who want to support you and will be happy to pay full price for your books - and anything else you can give them. This is the 1,000 True Fans strategy, or the niche celebrity strategy. And you get there through social media. It takes time, but it's free.

With this strategy it's better to reissue books on a schedule, as if they never existed. Make each step a big thing. Create stories about your process and experience, and then share them on social media. Most importantly, share the work of other Creatives. Promote others more than talking about yourself, and remember to tag everyone (companies and individuals). And be super positive - to a fault.

[Lorri Moulton]

Free used to work, but when "wide" became a more popular strategy...so did making the FISF (first in series free).  That really diminished the effectiveness of free IMHO.

As authors go back into KDP/KU, I think the FISF is starting to lose its appeal as a promotional strategy.  From what I've seen, many readers will pick up a free book and toss it onto their ever-increasing TBR pile.  I saw this in Facebook reader groups, where people were talking about their huge TBR piles and how they can't resist a pretty cover.

ETA:  Good advice, PJ. 

[LilyBLily]

I can't resist a pretty cover myself, so I copy covers to my desktop so I can admire them. Nothing to do with buying the book.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I'm posting after the fact here, but...

Self-publishers raced to the bottom right out of the gate (2010), which means, to the majority of the reading public, indie books, as well as authors, are now a completely fungible commodity - which means discounting won't work. Free can still get readers, although not like it used to, but they can buy 99 cent books all day long, even massive boxsets for the same price.

The better strategy is to be non-fungible. This way, you won't have to compete on price at all. You'll have fans who want to support you and will be happy to pay full price for your books - and anything else you can give them. This is the 1,000 True Fans strategy, or the niche celebrity strategy. And you get there through social media. It takes time, but it's free.

With this strategy it's better to reissue books on a schedule, as if they never existed. Make each step a big thing. Create stories about your process and experience, and then share them on social media. Most importantly, share the work of other Creatives. Promote others more than talking about yourself, and remember to tag everyone (companies and individuals). And be super positive - to a fault.

Isn't this going back to the early strategy of frequent blogging, doing tons of (perhaps frivolous) social media and upkeeping a platform? I thought the consensus had become that it didn't really work anymore?

[Lorri Moulton]

Blogs are back, social media doesn't work unless you have great ORGANIC engagement, and opening your own store (platform) is the way to go!  2023 seems to be bringing all this back in Facebook author groups and Substack "blogs" for lack of a better term.   For those who don't want their own store, they can always have a subscription on Patreon, Ream, etc.  Or have the store and the subscription.
I guess everything becomes popular again eventually.  Maybe even my genres. 

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Blogs are back, social media doesn't work unless you have great ORGANIC engagement, and opening your own store (platform) is the way to go!  2023 seems to be bringing all this back in Facebook author groups and Substack "blogs" for lack of a better term.   For those who don't want their own store, they can always have a subscription on Patreon, Ream, etc.  Or have the store and the subscription.
I guess everything becomes popular again eventually.  Maybe even my genres. 

Interesting! I'm actually quite good at blogging (if I say so myself) and used to enjoy writing them. Sounds like a good excuse to get them rolling again.

[PJ Post]

Isn't this going back to the early strategy of frequent blogging, doing tons of (perhaps frivolous) social media and upkeeping a platform? I thought the consensus had become that it didn't really work anymore?

I'm not talking about blogging.

Social media (what we used to call public relations) has always worked, but self-publishers tend to see the marketing world in an old-fashioned one to one ratio - like an appliance store. For example, they do a discount and expect 'x' sales. They run an ad and expect 'y' sales. Every tactic is designed to generate immediate results. It's all short-term thinking, even e-mail lists. There's no synergy.

And that worked in the early days, but now you need to have already generated critical mass for your brand or you need massive ad spends to get meaningful returns.

Social media is about branding, something I've been going on and on about for over a decade now. Social media is playing the long game. It's like the old days where musical groups toured non-stop to generate new fans to further drive record sales.

But the posts are not frivolous, each of them serves a purpose. Think of your brand as a story - each post should serve that story. Also, along the way, you'll find more revenue opportunities. And it can even be fun. But it does take time and commitment and a strategy. You can't just stop and start whenever you feel like it. It doesn't have to be every day, but you have to maintain a regular posting schedule. The goal is engagement.

People buy what they're familiar with. By engaging, they fold you into their worldview. Eventually, they may become fans. The only thing that's certain is that the people who never see your work will never be fans.

Most Indies are trying to fight their way out of the discount bin, which is extremely difficult in this uber-saturated market, and that's before AI starts dumping crap into the mix. The alternative is to separate yourself from the saturation. Marketing calls it differentiation.

Be unique.

Be non-fungible.

And in 2023, that takes more than AMS or some Meta/FB book club.

In the old days of self-publishing Amazon did the heavy lifting for us, and then ad sites, like Bookbub, could launch a career. Sadly, there’s no one left to do the heavy lifting for us anymore.

To be successful now requires a lot of work, and social media is no exception.