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Pre-Sale Plans/Musings
Feb. 10th, 2011 11:31 pmI'm finalizing the previews for The Gift of the Bad Guy tonight... I'm taking a lot of time over it because it's an advertisement for the finished product, and because work I do now can carry over to that product. The details of things like font size and spacing might change based on feedback, of course.
I've also decided to start taking pre-sales at the same time that the previews go up, and to take pre-sales for the regular edition as well as the Author Appreciation one. I hadn't planned on taking pre-sales for the regular version or setting the AAE pre-sale up until later, but it just hit me that I'm gong to be sending this little booklet forth into the world and hoping it gets shared and linked beyond my own audience/contacts and it's going to be pointing readers to a page that says "Check back in a few weeks." No. Bad business sense, no biscuit. The previews should continue to generate traffic back to the landing page long after the launch, and that will turn into sales, but the initial annoying Zelda fairy-like flurry of activity at their launch could be one of the biggest bursts of traffic.
A pre-sale makes sense for other reasons. I'm going to be handling fulfillment myself for the first little bit, as I explore the options for not doing that. I've got it worked out to be semi-automated, but it will be easier for me to handle the initial demand if i can fulfill lots of orders at once.
As for the Author Appreciation Editions, my scienterrific marketing datish tells me they will sell roughly twice as well at the $5 level as the $10 level... meaning I'd make -about- the same amount of money either way. So, I'm going to go with the $5 price. I can make twice as many people without losing money. Depending on how things go, the price may go up on future offerings... this is the first outing for this concept, and the first book in a series. While there is perhaps a certain cachet to being able to say "I was there from the beginning.", it doesn't mean as much when you're still at the beginning... I expect the whole thing might seem like more of kind of a big deal further on down the road than it does right now.
I'm going to be capping the AAEs at one hundred. I don't expect to reach it during the pre-sale; the limit is for the lifetime of the book to make sure that even with the most popular of these litsnacks there is a point where I can draw a line under them and move on.
All pre-sales (regular and AAE) will get a bonus companion short story "Interview With An Angel" along with their order.
I've also decided to start taking pre-sales at the same time that the previews go up, and to take pre-sales for the regular edition as well as the Author Appreciation one. I hadn't planned on taking pre-sales for the regular version or setting the AAE pre-sale up until later, but it just hit me that I'm gong to be sending this little booklet forth into the world and hoping it gets shared and linked beyond my own audience/contacts and it's going to be pointing readers to a page that says "Check back in a few weeks." No. Bad business sense, no biscuit. The previews should continue to generate traffic back to the landing page long after the launch, and that will turn into sales, but the initial annoying Zelda fairy-like flurry of activity at their launch could be one of the biggest bursts of traffic.
A pre-sale makes sense for other reasons. I'm going to be handling fulfillment myself for the first little bit, as I explore the options for not doing that. I've got it worked out to be semi-automated, but it will be easier for me to handle the initial demand if i can fulfill lots of orders at once.
As for the Author Appreciation Editions, my scienterrific marketing datish tells me they will sell roughly twice as well at the $5 level as the $10 level... meaning I'd make -about- the same amount of money either way. So, I'm going to go with the $5 price. I can make twice as many people without losing money. Depending on how things go, the price may go up on future offerings... this is the first outing for this concept, and the first book in a series. While there is perhaps a certain cachet to being able to say "I was there from the beginning.", it doesn't mean as much when you're still at the beginning... I expect the whole thing might seem like more of kind of a big deal further on down the road than it does right now.
I'm going to be capping the AAEs at one hundred. I don't expect to reach it during the pre-sale; the limit is for the lifetime of the book to make sure that even with the most popular of these litsnacks there is a point where I can draw a line under them and move on.
All pre-sales (regular and AAE) will get a bonus companion short story "Interview With An Angel" along with their order.
