Amazon Pricing

Almost every day I am learning how naive I really am when it come to self-publishing. I came across this article on Amazon changing the pricing on self-published e-books, and was astounded. Essentially an author had discounted prices for the holidays, then brought them back up again after the first of the year. One of the venues that they published in was a tad slow in marking the price back up. Amazon, which had put their price back up, saw this, and put the discount price back on their site. The author was never contacted about anything!

My co-author, Brad Tesh (Seek Joy ... Toss Confetti) recently let me know that the print copy of our book (just out in April!) had been discounted. Evidently Amazon can do this at will! We contacted Create Space, and were assured that royalties would be paid at the price we set when publishing the book. Again, no notification from Amazon - they just waved their magic wand!

I am very happy with both Create Space, Kindle, and Amazon for the most part. However, I do think that once an author sets a price that it should stay there, unless they choose to change it. 

There is a few nice pointers in this article on getting the best pricing at Amazon - Ten Secrets To Saving At Amazon.

The New York Times has an excellent article on pricing and gamesmanship.

Interesting thoughts on Amazon price watch trackers.

Something I never knew about - robo pricing!

Two links to dynamic pricing on Amazon - Price Pulsing, Dynamic Pricing.

(c) 2000 - 2013 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction in any venue prohibited without the written permission fo the author.