: Why does pricing one's ebook at .99 tend to result in far lower sales than pricing it at .99 or [CO].99? This is what I keep hearing but no one seems to be able to provide an explanation. Is it because 2.99 is high enough

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The price in itself doesn't mean anything :

You sell something according to its value.

If you have the opportunity to buy a best-seller at .99, I'm sure that you will be tempted to buy it.
If you see a crappy, short book sold for 0.99 or 2.99, I'm really sure you will never put a buck in it.

The value of one book will depend on many things like :
- is the writer famous
- does she/he has a good fan base
- is the story great
- what is the length of the book
- and so on

Also, this study shows that .99 ebook tend to sell more than + : justpublishingadvice.com/the-question-of-ebook-pricing/

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The [CO].99 option sells better because it is the standard promotional price. Someone wanting a cheap read (defined as [CO].99) will surf through the [CO].99 books available on KDP or whatever.

I think you saw the idea here and at links within.

By this logic (I'm just gonna go with it) .99 is not promotional, it's twice the promotional cost--and therefore may not seem like a good deal. If the author wrote a good book it'd be more than that, so the thinking goes, and if you are lucky you'll catch that (more expensive) book on a 99c promotion.

But when it comes to marketing, .99 is nothing. It's like the 30% off sales rack with the shirts that are all the wrong shape and too-large neck holes. Now, you might buy something that is marked down 90% just because you know it's a good deal; very little sunk cost. But if it is marked down 30% or 50% you might just wonder if it was overpriced to begin with.

If it's full price you would only buy it if you wanted it--and pay full price--and that's a different sales model altogether.

That's my best guess, anyway.