If you love direct response analytics, as all successful subscription site publishers should, Kevin Hillstrom, a former circulation and database marketing director for brands such as Nordstrom, Eddie Bauer and Lands End, is the go-to-god.He’s released data on how his own ebook sales are doing on Kindle, accompanied by analysis of course. Some lessons he learned:
- Price point and page count don’t seem to affect sales much, as long as they’re “reasonable”. What matters, far more, is topic. And, even more to the point, title. If the title sounds like must-have content to the audience and the price is moderate, folks will buy. (Hillstrom’s Kindle prices range from $2.99-$7.95.)
- Kindle vs print: It all depends on your target demographic. 88% of Hillstrom’s 44-page Catalog Marketing PhD buyers choose print, while 82% of his 40-page Hashtag Analytics buyers choose Kindle.
- Just because it’s on Amazon doesn’t mean you’ll get any sales. Hillstrom gets more sales via links from his blog, his consulting business homepage, Twitter, and occasionally 3rd party blog mentions. For him, as for so many other niche publishers, Amazon is far more of a cart than a promotional platform.BTW: If you’re interested in selling subscriptions via Kindle, you may want to check out Subscription Site Insider’s Case Study on Reason Magazine’s Kindle program
