Two weeks ago, my column explored the viability of giving away a free eBook to boost sales. In seeking a few more opinions from self-published writers, I queried my various lengthy lists of writing realm contacts to see if they’d condescended to offer a free title… and–most importantly–how such a move has turned out. The results were quite varied, moving from outright refusals to offer a free eBook to cries for “Free eBooks for All!”
“No. It is like giving away money,” writer and publisher James Hayes replied, “… send books to friends and ask them to let people know about you and what you write about.”
In sharp contrast to Hayes, Rita Hestand wrote “My kindle sales are up, so are my Smashwords sales. I am giving away a book a month… Yes, I think it creates recognition, and begins to build your name as a writer. I have had readers ask for giveaway’s before on my site…. I think it helps all the way around. My sales reflect it.”
Some of the replies I received hovered in the Valley of Decision, as in that of Penguin author Kate Collins: “I haven’t offered a free book yet. I might try that once I upload my out-of-print books into e-book format. I’ll be interested to see what others have done and the success they’ve had.”
Indy writer Miss Mae’s experiences with a freebie-loving public best reflected the shared sentiments of the majority of my contacts. “I do offer one free short, and the downloads are amazing,” she wrote. “Has this generated interest for folks to open their wallets and to buy my other books? I can’t see it, unfortunately.”
Still another contact humorously replied: “It’s a risk, certainly… but it beats hiring a publicist.”
Back in March, an excellent article on the blog Brad’s Reader caught my eye; in the piece were snippets of various author interviews on the risk of offering free titles, verses the ominous threat of “obscurity.”
“… the issue of obscurity rings true in the whole should-I-give-stuff-away-for-free debate. Unknown authors have a big problem: No one knows who they are.” Boosted web-traffic aside, the sales figures seem slow to grow in the wake of free titles being offered, though there are claims by several Kindle authors that, once they offered a free title, their sales suddenly took off.
Despite the risk of book piracy and cheapskate “read-N-fly” browsers, such a marketing tactic seems better than apathetically waiting around for sales. It may especially behoove indie writers to get a free title out there, and quickly, for just typing in the words “free ebook” in a search engine returns a vast number of links. One of these websites–Online Novels–lists nothing BUT free eBooks, indeed enough to keep one reading a free eBook a day for two years and, it’s a popular site, garnering a reported 65,000 unique visitors each month. Another site, Free-Online-Novels.com, boasts more than 150,000 monthly visitors. Many “traditional” publishing companies are not above offering a free eTitle or two on their websites, though one must notice that these are usually “changed out” once a month.
It is quite difficult for a writer to figuratively let go of a piece of hard work, offering it with an uncertain expression to a plethora of unknown faces for no other reimbursement than a thin hope of strengthened publicity. Hopefully, more data–on whether such a risky move is profitable–will emerge as more eBook writers and indie publishers take the plunge into the roaring, untamed river of Free.
Editor’s Note: reprinted, with permission, from Meredith Greene’s Greene Ink column. You can find here website here. PB
It doesn’t even have to be a whole free book. A decently long excerpt (some offer 25%-50% of the book) available is enough to decide whether to purchase an ebook or not. I spend over $500 a year on ebooks, but none of that money was spent on an ebook without at least a chapter or more of an excerpt to read. This is largely because there are so many authors and books out there and I won’t waste money on a book that doesn’t hold my attention. It’s no different than browsing in a bookstore where you can skim through the books on the shelves to see if you want to buy it.
Baen has proved that it works for the sci-fi crowd by releasing a book in a series for free. They get more sales since most readers like to read the rest of the series. I imagine that it would work in romance fiction too since readers talk about “gloming” authors after reading a book of theirs.
As a prolific reader, if a free book sounds interesting, there is no barrier for me to give it a try. At $.99, it’s an impulse buy. $2.99 – $5.99 it goes on my wishlist and competes with the other books there for my monthly book budget. Over $5.99, it waits on my wishlist until it’s available for $1 used in the Amazon Marketplace or I find it at our library’s semi-annual sale. The few authors whose books I want to keep forever, I get in hardback at a steep discount.
If I like the free or low-cost book, I look for the author’s other books. If those books are $9.99 or more, I will probably never buy them. Nothing is more disappointing than liking the first book and then finding additional books by that author for $12 or more. I feel taken advantage of and that makes me angry.
eBooks just don’t have the same value as physical books since you can’t loan them, sell them, or give them away. I’m not going to pay similar prices. If my daughter and I both like the same ebook, we have to each purchase a copy. At $.99, I can justify that, at over $5 I can’t. If we get the physical book, we can share.
The reality is that readers have budgets. Readers like me who read hundreds of books a year would rather have 10 books for $2 than one book for $10. Between Amazon’s many free books a month and low-priced indie books, I have around 900 books on my Kindle. I don’t need yours, especially if I’ve never heard of you.
Many thanks for an in-depth response from a consumer that pays for eBooks. While we’ve offered up to 3 free chapters on all our eBooks for years, sales really took off after offering our Facebook ‘friends’ a free eBook on their birthday… and now we also have a lot more ‘friends’. The reads on our free short story on Scribd were impressive enough to consider posting more free items, all with live backlinks to site eBooks or Kindle Store landing pages.
I’m working on a year-end piece with download/visitor stats and sale figures from a wide variety of authors, including our own numbers.
I wouldn’t even consider not giving away an excerpt, and I have a mix of free and non-free e-books available. While I haven’t figured out a way to rigorously test my theory, I really do believe that free e-books boost sales of non-free ones by bringing in new readers.