For free nor not for free?

In my view free or cheap is best done as part of a structured marketing strategy and has to be done in the right situation for it to actually work.

Sure dirt-cheap or free means you get a huge surge of instant readers/buyers; but on the flipside many will consider your product a lesser quality item if it is all on its own. That isn't just ebooks that's anything. If its dirt cheap and way below the normal market price then its either lesser quality; damaged or stolen. Otherwise if it were of normal standard then one would expect you to charge a normal price for it. You might just undercut a little; but a huge discount or free suggests something isn't quite right.


So when can cheap or free work - why when:
1) you've already got other books for sale. Ideally in the same series and ideally LATER books. So you have your series of books up for sale and then discount (free or cheap) the first book. That is your bait; it baits people in and once hooked they are more likely to then pay to read the rest of your story. A portion of them will be deal hunters who won't buy anything unless its on discount; but many will not wait and will buy - especially if your books are at normal market prices or a little below.

2) It's time limited - free for a weekend; free for a week etc... Here you're going to use a short burst of advertising (this might be posts on forums - blogs - review sites - local events etc...) to drum up interest and then put out your short term sale. The idea here is that you're building momentum into your product in a short concentrated burst. The cheaper than normal price acts as a form of pressure to encourage people to buy and thus increases the chances of your advertising working. You essentially take a short term reduction in profits per sale to get a net gain in readership and exposure.
This can work on its own or when youve other works for sale as well - of course the former means spending more money on advertising as if you've no other publications out there then you're building your readership base from scratch.

3) You have serious and multiple good reviews from respected sources. No that doesn't mean 5 amazon reviews that means 50 or 500; it means big named authors talking about your work in their blogs or on the blurb of your book; it means major review blogs/sites talking about your work etc... In this situation the cheap/free offer doesn't get the negative attachment of "lesser quality" because you are endorsed by respected individuals within the market. At this point your book appears a REALLY good deal and a steal of a purchase instead of a venture into the unknown, but probably pretty naff book because its free.



So it can work and if you use it right it can work really well. However its got to have strategy and a plan behind it and even then I would be weary of having it as a long term thing. You need to appear serious if you want people to take you seriously and a proper price is part of that approach.

I would also say that permanent free is a risky thing. IF you've quality publications then it shouldn't need to be free to build momentum and sell (I think of any respected author who's main major work is free all the time). You shouldn't need to throw money away by making your work free in order to generate sales in the long term.
Again a short term burst mixed with advertising to get people paying attention (so that the short term free actually works and people know about it) should work if they can then go on to buying the rest of the series or at least a good portion of it. Going long term or full term won't work hugely as once you've got people talking and your book is selling you're throwing that money away on the first volume all the time every time.

You might get away if the first book is long term discounted to a lower value than the rest; here you're clearly showing that its a bait to get people in; but you're not sending any negative message and you are at least building some income off the market segment that isn't buying.




Note some if not all this argument might be totally blasted out of the water by libraries and Amazons own free reading subscription service. However I'd argue that that is slightly separate as in both of those instances the reader does not OWN the product - and owning is a big thing for most people. People like owning and if life allows them to they will.

One other thing about free in regards to amazon. The book ranking will be different. Free is a totally different ranking system. So while my book is free, I'm rising through the free ranks, and not the paid. Now, when the sale is over, you'll get a tail, and hopefully go up in the paid ranks as well. But with a permafree, you'll be stuck in the free ranks. Not necessarily a bad thing if you're using it as a loss-leader, but you need more than one book out.

It's a tricky tightrope to navigate, that's for sure. I'll let you know what Infinity Plus does with my upcoming trilogy.

What I've seen a couple people do actually makes sense. Both had a trilogy out/coming out. They wrote an "additional" novella, both prequels to their series, and made that free.

Cathbad that's almost akin to writing short stories and getting them published in magazines - which I would argue is a niche market these days (even in reader groups many of those magazines are very poorly known in general). So I'd say its a very worthwhile tactic - you essentially have a loss-leader but also one that isn't infringing on the actual earning capacity of the novel series.

We did that for Hairy London - we offered the short story Xana-La (which inspired the novel) for free. Definitely a good strategy.

Good idea on the free prequel. I may try that.

Another option, whilst not free, is to have one book in your list at a cut-price. That way, more hesitant people or those with tighter purse-strings can give one of your books a proper look.