I made an interesting discovery earlier this month when, on the advice of my dad, I raised the price of my book on CreateSpace. He told me to take it from $7.99 to $10.95, and while I thought it was a little too high, he insisted and I decided to be obedient and try it for a month.

What happened that I did not expect was that Amazon almost immediately discounted my book to $9.86. I had been told that CreateSpace books never got discounted by Amazon. You set a list price and Amazon always offers it for that.

Not so, I discovered, after I did a little research. What's even more interesting is that it turns out that even when Amazon discounts your book, you earn the royalty dictated by your list price. In other words, instead of calculating the royalty on Amazon's discounted $9.86 price, CreateSpace still gives me the percentage based on the $10.95 list price.

Obviously, this is a win-win for book sales, since not only do you earn a higher royalty, but Amazon's discount makes your book's price look more enticing with that little line through the list price. (And I have sold more printed copies this month than usual, so it seems to be working.)

What's the catch? I don't know if there's a formula to this thing. It doesn't seem to be a particular price point that triggers the discount.

Data from other HW-ers:

Aubrey Hansen's Peter's Angel doesn't have the discount. Listed at $12.99. Page-count is 336. E-book is $4.99.

Sienna North's Red Sun Blue Earth has the discount. List price is $11.99, discounted to $9.72. Page-count is 254. E-book is $4.99.

Katie Daniels' Supervillain of the Day doesn't have the discount. Listed at $5.99. Page-count is 112. E-book is $2.99.

J. Grace Pennington's Never doesn't have the discount. Listed at $11.99. Page-count is 318. E-book is $5.99.

Anybody seeing a pattern? Or does anyone have more data?

Both my poetry books have the discount.

For Zeal Aspiring , the list price is $8 and it was discounted to $7.05. The page count is 166.

For Sixteen, So In Love With You, the list price is $3.59 and it was discounted to $3.41. The page count is 78.

*Was very startled when I first noticed these discounts *

There goes my theory about it being largely related to page-count, then. Zeal Aspiring has more pages than mine, but it got the discount at a lower price.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the cost of creating the book. Anybody I've mentioned/who's chimed in want to share what CreateSpace says is the cost of making the book? Go the pricing section and write down whatever it says the minimum price has to be. And then also calculate the percentage that minimum price is of your list price (minimum price divided by the current price).

For my book Finding the Core of Your Story, CreateSpace says the minimum list price must be $3.59. That's roughly 33% of the list price I set.

Bonus random note: In the book The Well-Fed Self-Publisher, a pricing formula was given. The author said that to do well with a book, you should price it so that you earn about 4-6 times what it costs you to print it. That way, you can afford to discount it or sell it wholesale and still make a profit. I'm following that advice with my book, but I did my calculation based on the lower price CreateSpace charges me to order copies.

First thought: Are the discounted books available anywhere else for a lower prize? Amazon "price matches" and tries to have the lowest price, so if your book is listed for less elsewhere, when they discover the price difference they will match it. That's how some people get their ebooks to be listed for free on Amazon.

I also have vague recollections of Peter's Angel being discounted once, for a buck or so off. So it's not necessarily "permanent."

As of right now, I'm Amazon-exclusive, so it can't be a price-matching in my case.

The whole price-matching thing is not a "best practice," by the way. I believe such a strategy is actually discouraged by Amazon's terms of service, and can result in a forfeiture of royalties. Plus, I know somebody who got his book into a price-lowering war between two e-book stores. Not good.

The minimum list cost for Supervillains is $5.48, but print cost of the book is $2.19. This confused me, so I went and looked at Book 2. The minimum list price for Fire and Ashes $3.59. I have expanded distribution on Book 1, which probably explains the increase of the minimum there. (Which is also an odd thing, since I'm still getting the same royalties on Book 1... whatever.)

This is very interesting. Maybe it's something Amazon does randomly?

Expanded distribution doesn't change your Amazon royalty. CreateSpace is just telling you that if you don't want to lose money from your expanded distribution channels, you need to reach that minimum price point.

Amazon doesn't tend to do things randomly, in my experience. Often, there's a software algorithm that determines things automatically. My question is if we can figure out what it is. 'Cause I haven't found any information about this anywhere after much Googling.

Katie, my hunch is that if you raised the price of Supervillians to $10, Amazon would discount it. I can't prove that, but the data seems to indicate that such would be the case. My current theory is that Amazon wants books with under 300 pages to cost less than $10. This doesn't explain why Zeal Aspiring has a discount at $8, but it does fit with my book and Red Sun Blue Earth getting discounted with a price over $10.

EDIT: Somehow, I forgot about Aubrey's Red Rain. I mention it because I have the same hunch about it as I do about Katie's books.

Are you saying we should raise our prices? Honest question.

I'm saying you can do whatsoever you please. I'm just postulatin'. And thinking I need to write more books so I can experiment better.

*laughs* I was just curious if you'd recommend that, if they were your books. And of course you need to write more books! There's a no-brainer.

I'm not sure what I'd recommend. My book is nonfiction, which is a totally different market than fiction. My dad pitched me the idea of raising my price on the platform that my book is a set of tools worth more than what I was selling them for. But fiction might be another story, especially from an indie author.

What I do know is that my theory is all full of holes, because Katie's Inspector Floyd has a list price of $5.99, but Amazon has discounted it to $5.39. So… I'm stumped.

My only current theory that fits all the data is that Amazon is more ready to discount books right now than it was even a few months ago, so any new book or updated pricing may trigger a reevaluation from the system and result in some kind of discount. Can't prove it, though, 'cause my book is already discounted.

LOL! That's new.

I'll be adding a new book in about a week here, with a slightly higher page count... The best thing to do at this point, methinks, is to collect data?

Yeah, Katie, if you stick with the same price point and it gets discounted, I think we'll learn something.

I was just looking back over the data. Notice:

Red Sun Blue Earth — Published on March 12

Zeal Aspiring — Published on April 26

Finding the Core of Your Story — Price changed sometime in the last week of April

Inspector Floyd — Published on May 3

All the other books I used as examples were published before March 2013. Fire and Ashes was published in February but doesn't have the discount.

My theory, then, is this: Starting March 2013, Amazon began actively discounting CreateSpace books. Any new book priced above the minimum or any price change above the minimum will be discounted.And now this is probably wrong…

To somewhat verify this theory, we'd need to see a discount following a price change on a currently non-discounted book, and a totally new book get a discount.

Supervillain Hunters, International fits the bill for the latter case. Anybody with a non-discounted book want to modify their price? (This theory, by the way, supports the idea that lowering a price would still result in a discount.)

EDIT: Okay, Aubrey, please, please, please tell me you just changed the price on Red Rain. 'Cause it has a discount now, too. It didn't when I posted theorizing that if the price was raised, it would get discounted.

EDIT 2: Wait! The Sword and the Pen is discounted. So is Sixteen, So In Love With You. It's not looking very good for my theory.

'Fraid not, comrade. I haven't touched it. I'm convinced they heard us talking about it.

*mutters darkly about Amazon trying to make him go crazy*

Maybe you should try contacting them and asking right-out?

'Tis a thought, though I must say that my experience with Amazon's customer service has not been worth writing home about… Unless I'm writing to somebody who wants to hear a lot of frustrated complaining.

My curiosity may just get the better of me, though.

Really? Amazon's customer service has been the one thing that I actually like about publishing through Createspace. Although, granted, I've only contacted them twice and it was fairly simple stuff...

Amazon has been helpful when it comes to the things that are pre-selectable options on their contact form. But anything they don't have a procedure for ends up with cryptic "I don't know how to do that" responses.

(Though I may just be more critical about them 'cause I work customer service and I know what kind of discussions they're probably having behind the scenes when I ask something they don't know.)

I would definitely ask. It could be very useful information for us self-publishers and our pricing.

I'm not even sure I need to ask at this point, but I may write to them anyway. Grace's Firmament: Radialloy and Never both got the discount since yesterday. My guess is that eventually Amazon will be dropping the prices on Peter's Angel and the earlier Supervillain books.

Edited later the same day: I seem to be right. Peter's Angel and Fire and Ashes are discounted now. I'll be watching Supervillain of the Day.

So are they discounting all the books? Any particular reason why, do you suppose?

My guess is that Amazon knows that books at a discount sell better. They've been in the book-selling business for years, and they've had discounts on everything else in the store. So it only makes sense for them to apply discounts to CreateSpace books.

Case in point: I'm one printed book away from equalling my biggest month of printed book sales.

Here's some more mind boggling information for you.

Dreams and Shadows which was just released was instantly discounted to $5.69. (Original price $5.99.) Whereas Supervillain of the Day is discounted to $5.39. (Original price $5.99.)

So it's discounted more over time, or is it a popularity contest, or something.

My book, The Dark Wolf, was priced at $12.99 at the time it was published. I got it up there like a couple weeks before Christmas. Amazon immediately discounted it to around $11.44. Right now, they've been fluctuating. They'll either add or take a couple cents off, but generally, my book stays in that range.