Love that last line.

Keep in mind, too, that most writers have just one thing. If they don’t find success with it, they either keep trying with the one or they give up. Sometimes that one thing is a series, more often it’s a single novel. His advice would probably work with a single novel, and would even work with a series which had new books coming out… if they sold in any significant volume. Think about it: You loved the first book and are waiting with bated breath for the next one – and if you get it when it’s brand new, you only pay $0.99! If you wait, you have to pay more. The idea is to create an incentive to get in early.

You’re right, though, that for a latecomer to the series, the unusual pricing may be confusing – with the plan I’m following now, if I were the sort of author motivated by money, I’d just not put out the next book in a series until the previous one had earned out. Then, at least, you wouldn’t end up with weirdness like I would (if I were offering the books individually, right now), where Book Two seems to be the most popular (if only by a little), and where 5 & 6 have earned more than 4.

Anyway, hopefully what I’m doing will help, some. It’s really just another big book-pricing-experiment. Of course, my sample sizes are usually too small for any meaningful data. *shrug*

This approach maps cleanly to what the world does for most physical products. As the initial development/production costs are paid off the price is lowered.

The thing I really don’t understand about the person planning to do it in the reverse order is that, well, typically an author will have a series that both they and their core fan base really loves. In your case that maps to the “Untrue Tales” series… if you raise the price as a book becomes more popular, you’d be selling book #1 at $9.99 and book #6 at $0.99. That is, it totally ignores the fact that authors get more readers of an established series if more people read the first book in the series.