Is it a good idea to provide free copies? And for how long?
- Thread starter MJH
- Start date
Of course that's just the problem. Very few of the books I'd want to read are kept in the Library system.
that is quite odd, parson. inter-library loan allows you to borrow from any library connected to the library of congress system.. so any library, any university.. basically any book with an isbn designator. and what is hooked up into project Guggenheim. i would have thought it would be easier to borrow a wanted book, not more difficult. of course you only have the library loan fee for the poor author, not a proper royalty.
argh! stupid auto correct on tablets...
yes pyan, exactly.. they have digitized any free range books available....
I've not done this often. But of the 3 books that I've tried this way only one ever arrived. Now I'm not sure that my "local" library was connected to Project Gutenberg, but it was called "inner-library loan."
nightdreamer
Elf in Space
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2012
- Messages
- 431
Let me start by saying that I know absolutely nothing about this, but I have the gut feeling that Brian is right. I have two novels released, both at $2.99. I've never checked to see how many I've sold, but I know it's some because I get payments from Amazon. I'm soon to release an anthology, which I'll price at $.99 and offer for free to Chronners (because I promised someone) and my Twitter followers, at least for a while. No data, of course, on how that will go yet. But it doesn't seem that the price (as opposed to free) in any way slows people down; it's mostly a matter of getting the word out.
It's been said that you can sell kittens but not give them away. Now that's something I've had experience with, and it seems to be true.
It's been said that you can sell kittens but not give them away. Now that's something I've had experience with, and it seems to be true.
psychotick
Dangerously confused
Hi,
Free is one of those hot button topics that's all over Kindle Boards and other places. It has it's advocates and its detractors. I personally don't do it.
My thought is that the only time I tried it I gave away 2000 copies of a novel and never got a review back (that may have been fortunate) and didn't get a bump in the sales of any other books either.
And now there's evidence that Amazon is pulling away from free. Last year they modded their algorythm so that a free giveaway gained only one tenth the additional sales rank as a paid book, and just lately they've introduced Countdown which gives you seven promoted discount days instead of five free days. Let's face it they were happy with free as they used it to sell kindles and hol market share. Now the cost of lost revenue is too great for the additional revenue from kindle sales to match.
My view is that most free books never get read. They just get discarded. And that's lucky because of those that do read them you're much more likely to get a review starting with those inevitable words that spell one star "Although I don't normally read this genre ..."
For a while with proper advertising (Bookbub and the like) authors were massaging their giveaways into a name for themselves to promote their next book. That effect has dried up a little as there's so much free stuff out there now that it has to compete heavily.
But worse than that there's the perceived value of the work that drops. So many authors couldn't sell their first book for whatever reason - usually because it had terrible flaws in plot, cover, writing etc etc, that they gave them away. And so those who hunted out free started to discover that a lot ofwhat they could buy for nothing was worth the price.
The only time I would suggest using free would be for the first book in a series to get reader's hooked.
But there are plenty of others who still swear by it. Me - I'm comfortable selling my books.
Cheers, Greg.
Free is one of those hot button topics that's all over Kindle Boards and other places. It has it's advocates and its detractors. I personally don't do it.
My thought is that the only time I tried it I gave away 2000 copies of a novel and never got a review back (that may have been fortunate) and didn't get a bump in the sales of any other books either.
And now there's evidence that Amazon is pulling away from free. Last year they modded their algorythm so that a free giveaway gained only one tenth the additional sales rank as a paid book, and just lately they've introduced Countdown which gives you seven promoted discount days instead of five free days. Let's face it they were happy with free as they used it to sell kindles and hol market share. Now the cost of lost revenue is too great for the additional revenue from kindle sales to match.
My view is that most free books never get read. They just get discarded. And that's lucky because of those that do read them you're much more likely to get a review starting with those inevitable words that spell one star "Although I don't normally read this genre ..."
For a while with proper advertising (Bookbub and the like) authors were massaging their giveaways into a name for themselves to promote their next book. That effect has dried up a little as there's so much free stuff out there now that it has to compete heavily.
But worse than that there's the perceived value of the work that drops. So many authors couldn't sell their first book for whatever reason - usually because it had terrible flaws in plot, cover, writing etc etc, that they gave them away. And so those who hunted out free started to discover that a lot ofwhat they could buy for nothing was worth the price.
The only time I would suggest using free would be for the first book in a series to get reader's hooked.
But there are plenty of others who still swear by it. Me - I'm comfortable selling my books.
Cheers, Greg.
WayneLutz
Powell River Books
Previously I wrote about using free Kindle offers in the Select program. Recently, I tried Amazon's new countdown deal. Sadly, not one book sold using that strategy. I have reverted back to the five free days for the books I have in the program. Do you have any experience with the countdowns?
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
I have spoken to authors who use KDP with amazon (I don't because I like to use Smashwords for the free book and the TP and HB are at Amazon and Barnes and Nobel for retail.) and those authors have had unusually good result from the short free days the program allows as far as the giveaways and at some time amazon had a hole in the system and that catapulted at least two writers into their best seller list for that week.
That much said outside of that program I would agree with IBrian that there is a risk of perception that the book is not going to be good if its free or even at .99 cents.
But the caveat there is that if you reasonably price the ebook and get little to no result then you have little to lose by giving it away or for 99. The thing you should be aware of is that you will likely have a few thousand downloads and if you are lucky one review so getting bad reviews might not be as bad as someone might have mentioned because it might be marginally better than no review.
Incidentally the bad reviews are usually that...so bad they are less than ten words and are not well written. I read those first...get a good laugh...and then purchase the book.
Be aware though that if you have a trilogy and begin giving the first one out free after a lot of sales it should only be for a short period or you will likely alienate some people. On the other hand keeping it free is a good way to ensure that some will look at your second book. In fact when my second book was out I got a large bump in the giveaway and a moderate start to the sales on the second book. I'm working on the third and am interested what I might see at that time since someone here mentioned that three is the charm.
I'm toying with the idea of changing the free one to .99 cents at that point.
I still have my second job so I'm not going hungry over this.
That much said outside of that program I would agree with IBrian that there is a risk of perception that the book is not going to be good if its free or even at .99 cents.
But the caveat there is that if you reasonably price the ebook and get little to no result then you have little to lose by giving it away or for 99. The thing you should be aware of is that you will likely have a few thousand downloads and if you are lucky one review so getting bad reviews might not be as bad as someone might have mentioned because it might be marginally better than no review.
Incidentally the bad reviews are usually that...so bad they are less than ten words and are not well written. I read those first...get a good laugh...and then purchase the book.
Be aware though that if you have a trilogy and begin giving the first one out free after a lot of sales it should only be for a short period or you will likely alienate some people. On the other hand keeping it free is a good way to ensure that some will look at your second book. In fact when my second book was out I got a large bump in the giveaway and a moderate start to the sales on the second book. I'm working on the third and am interested what I might see at that time since someone here mentioned that three is the charm.
I'm toying with the idea of changing the free one to .99 cents at that point.
I still have my second job so I'm not going hungry over this.
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
Free copies is one of the hazy issues and I hesitate to try to compare it too closely with lost leaders.
As far as lost leaders those work for the retail establishment. The food market, the clothing store or the bookstore, because they bring people in and people like to browse and might by other things not necessarily closely related to the giveaway.
Even in the bookstore there is the risk that if they handle it improperly it serves little purpose. (Locating all free books on a table within ten meters of the door attracts hit and run customers.)
As far as e-books go it might mostly help attract business to the e-retailer, so unless you are your own retailer it might not trickle down to the author so easily. As far as reviews, unless you outrage a couple dozen people you might not get much better than 1 review per thousand giveaways. If you do get the two dozen, that seems to generate a few sympathy reviews. Outside of that, for a new author, all those 5 star reviews manage to look contrived if there are too many.
The reviews don't really matter, what does is if you give a book away and it appears to increase the sales of the other books you have authored then you have positive results to go by. If you can't afford to give it away without positive result you might rethink giving anything away.
On the other hand if it sits around for two years with no sales you could have just as easily given it away with similar expectation of result.
As far as lost leaders those work for the retail establishment. The food market, the clothing store or the bookstore, because they bring people in and people like to browse and might by other things not necessarily closely related to the giveaway.
Even in the bookstore there is the risk that if they handle it improperly it serves little purpose. (Locating all free books on a table within ten meters of the door attracts hit and run customers.)
As far as e-books go it might mostly help attract business to the e-retailer, so unless you are your own retailer it might not trickle down to the author so easily. As far as reviews, unless you outrage a couple dozen people you might not get much better than 1 review per thousand giveaways. If you do get the two dozen, that seems to generate a few sympathy reviews. Outside of that, for a new author, all those 5 star reviews manage to look contrived if there are too many.
The reviews don't really matter, what does is if you give a book away and it appears to increase the sales of the other books you have authored then you have positive results to go by. If you can't afford to give it away without positive result you might rethink giving anything away.
On the other hand if it sits around for two years with no sales you could have just as easily given it away with similar expectation of result.
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
For a new author giving anything away has to be out of the decision that you won't be hurt by throwing away the few paying customers who will now get it for free.
The rest as far as getting sales for a second or third book or if you have a handful of books you will eventually publish is still up to luck and whether you resonate with the right people in the give away.
The rest as far as getting sales for a second or third book or if you have a handful of books you will eventually publish is still up to luck and whether you resonate with the right people in the give away.
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