Cheap isn’t Always the Best Price

Diane Duane has been self-publishing one of the titles from her back list for a little while now, and she recently noticed something odd about how buyers think about eBook prices.

She’d put the eBook, A Wind from the South, on Amazon for a low $1.99, and sales were lackluster. Instead of dropping the price (like most would do), she raised the price of that eBook to $4.99.

And suddenly sales have jumped.

Could it be that, when you’re an author who’s been established in print for a while, that it’s not smart to price your book too low? Is it possible that people look at it and say, “Oh, this thing must be cheap because it’s no good”, and pass by on the other side? Or is this just some seasonal effect, or some other kind of coincidence?

While this is only anecdotal, it does raise doubts about the “cheaper is better” argument. Perhaps readers really will pay for quality. This might also explain why the eBook market as a whole saw phenomenal growth even after the Agency 5 raised eBook prices.  What do you think?

via Out of Ambit

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