Top self-published books in Kindle Store – October 2011

The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan stays as #1 self-published book in October

For anyone interested in how self-published books are doing on bestsellers lists – an October report is here. Two more months and you can expect a full 2011 report in January, so stay tuned and get updates by RSS or email.

Overview

October is not any worse or better than September. The number of self-published books in Top 100 is the same as in September – 20.

I was expecting a negative influence of Kindle Daily Deal, but it didn’t happen. Kindle Daily Deal books took as much as 20 positions from Top 100, but it’s apparently not self-published books to get hurt.

Self-pubbed books plus discounted KDD titles – it’s already 40% of all top sellers which have a price below $5. And there are other books with the same price tag, naming only Sophie Kinsella’s Can You Keep a Secret. The $1.99 edition from The Dial Press is listed at #13. What’s interesting, this edition is available only in US. Customers from abroad can buy a different edition – for more than $10.

Why am I writing about? Because a more flexible price policy from publishers (temporary discounts, different editions with different prices) aimed at entering the lowest price sector, will be used more and more often.

It’s possible that much more than 50% of books in Top 100 will earn their positions with $0.99-4.99 prices. It may be much more than in a total price split in Kindle Store, where about 40% cost less than $5.

We will see how self-published books will be doing in pre-Christmas time, where more occasional users are buying books. It will be interesting to see if they will prefer higher priced books from well-known authors or try to discover new books from self-publishers.

Self-published books in Kindle Top 100: October 2011

Data collected on November 5th, 2011, from Kindle Store’s October Bestsellers Archive.

# – position in Top 100.

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