A lot of my students and newsletter subscribers seem to like write erotica series. And since so many of you are writing a series, I thought I would write a post on how to price an erotica series.
Now, I have my own thoughts about the pros and cons of writing a series.
It can build good engagement with your audience. A series is also a good way to bundle books.
But there are also downsides to writing a series. In my experience, books 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on rarely sell as many copies as the first one.
And you see the same thing with many big name Hollywood movies (the sequels are rarely better than the original and they make less money).
But anyways, I don’t want to get too deep into that today. What I want to talk about is pricing.
In general, there are three strategies to price your erotica series on Amazon.
Let’s go over them quickly…
Strategy #1: Same Pricing
The first pricing strategy is just to keep pricing the same for every book in the series.
If the first book is $0.99, then all books should be $0.99. If the first book is $2.99, then all books should be $2.99.
I think this is the strategy most people use and it’s probably the safest strategy to use as well.
Strategy #2: Discount The First Book
The second strategy is to price your first book at a discount. So you might want to consider pricing the first book at $0.99 and then the others at $2.99.
The reasoning behind this strategy is for two reasons.
The first reason is to get more people to buy book 1, get addicted, and then buy books 2, 3, 4, and 5. But your writing really needs to be on-point for this strategy to work.
And this only works if you thoroughly research the niche.
The second reason for pricing your book at a discount is to get people to sign up on your email list.
A book priced at $0.99 will sell more than one priced at $2.99 (all else equal).
I like to put my email list in two places in my book: the front of the book and the back (right before my backmatter).
Strategy #3: First Book For Free
Finally, the third strategy is the “loss leader” strategy.
A lot of retail stores use this strategy to get shoppers into their stores. Costco uses their $1 hot dogs to lure people into their warehouses in hopes they will spend hundreds of dollars.
Well, this is a similar strategy to selling a series. Some people offer the first book in the series and then charge for the sequels (at $0.99 or $2.99).
So, what’s the strategy here? Well, the goal is to try to get people to get hooked onto their first book and then have to buy the other ones.
The best way to do that is to end the first book with a cliffhanger.
Which is The Best Pricing Strategy?
So, which is the best strategy to make the maximum amount of sales?
Well in my experience, strategy #2 works the best. But #1 can be a good strategy as well.
In general, I think strategy #3 isn’t as effective as giving your first book away is just too big of a loss leader.
The first book in your series will typically sell the most copies. So if you’re giving that away for free, you’re going to be giving away a lot of sales.
Remember, when it comes to making money from a series, you want to get people to buy as many books as possible in the series.
Also, keep your series to a max of 5 – 6 books. Anything longer and it’ll be really hard to get a good percentage of your customers to buy all of those books.