Unknown, wannabe author? Keep your ebook prices low!

I often go on about how I'm faring as a wannabe novelist and some days I'm fed up and other days I brim with self confidence. But rather than become too self absorbed, I feel I ought to offer more tips and advice to other writers who feel, like me, that the world hasn't discovered them yet.

The best advice I can give based on my own experiences to all you unknown authors out there struggling to get sales (and I am certainly one of you) is firstly: don't give up and secondly be realistic.

By realistic I mean CHEAP! Offer your books at the minimum price! Don't charge a penny, or a cent more than you possibly can. Yes of course you want 70% royalty (on Amazon) and so do I. Not because we're money-mad but because we might even be able to give up the day job if we can secure a £1 a time royalty every time our book sells and we write enough of them.

Well, dream on. If you're unknown, people are unlikely to bother to download your ebook from Amazon or Smashwords or whatever site you use if they have to pay much for it. You have to incentivise (horrible word) your potential customers by saying: look, my little masterpiece is only 77p, you'd be a fool not to snap it up, what have you got to lose?

Furthermore, now that Amazon very kindly offer authors five promotional days in a three-month period when they can offer their book for free, for goodness' sake - use them. I am very pleased with the result of my free 24-hour promotion last weekend. I had more than 300 downloads and have since sold at least 17 more paid-for books, getting on to best-seller lists (in relevant categories).

Yesterday alone I had 10 sales - not bad for a book that only went on sale last Friday (after being withdrawn for three months while I rewrote parts of it). Today, not so good, I've so far had only three sales but I might get more this evening and even if I don't that is still another three customers, who might like it, review it, and recommend it.

I'll look at other possible strategies in future posts but for this one, I can't stress enough if your debut novel is not selling very well on Amazon and you are charging more than the minimum price - swallow your pride and charge that minimum! You can always put the price up when you're famous and ask a higher sum for your sequel.