Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Amazon continues to confound me

I heard a few weeks ago from another writer that Amazon will occasionally decide on its own to drop the price of a book. I've been hoping this would happen to my book, because I always thought it was overpriced at $17 for a paperback from a small press.

Saturday, I happened to look at the book on Amazon for the first time in months, and I saw the price had dropped all the way to $9. I bought one, because I wanted to give a copy to someone and that's cheaper than I can get it at my discount. I then alerted people on my Facebook to the price drop, suggesting that now would be a good time to get one.

However, it seems that me buying that single copy triggered Amazon to raise the price back up. It's not all the way back up to $17, but it is $14.25, which is still too high. Every few hours, it seems, they change it by a few cents.

I wish it were possible to convince the algorithm that less is more at this point. Everyone who was ever going to buy the book at anything like full price has already done so. I might still get a sale here or there from the curious netizen who has come across my blog, but only if the book is priced reasonably, i.e. about what a lunch at Subway costs.

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