# Why Give Away Your Books?



## Steerpike (Dec 14, 2012)

Cory Doctorow answers this question:



> For me -- for pretty much every writer -- the big problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity (thanks to Tim O'Reilly for this great aphorism). Of all the people who failed to buy this book today, the majority did so because they never heard of it, not because someone gave them a free copy. Mega-hit best-sellers in science fiction sell half a million copies -- in a world where 175,000 attend the San Diego Comic Con alone, you've got to figure that most of the people who "like science fiction" (and related geeky stuff like comics, games, Linux, and so on) just don't really buy books. I'm more interested in getting more of that wider audience into the tent than making sure that everyone who's in the tent bought a ticket to be there.



Full answer at: Little Brother Â» About this book/FAQ


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## BWFoster78 (Dec 14, 2012)

I'm not sure I get the argument that nobody buys just digital copies (If you click the link, the author goes on to explain more of his reasoning on why giving books away is a good thing.  One of his points is that it spurs paper sales.).  

1. That's certainly not true for me.  While I sometimes enjoy the feel of paper, I had the burden of ownership.  Moving boxes of books around, trying to find places to store them, etc. sucks.  I also like the concept of having my entire library with me wherever I go.

2. The author contends that sales are increased when you do a giveaway b/c people use the ebook as a sample and then buy the paper version to read.  I think that sales probably increase because your exposure increases.

3. The author contends that people don't like reading on screens b/c they spend all their time reading screens.  Wait.  What?

Not saying that you shouldn't give away your books, I'm just not sure that this guy's reasoning is sound.


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## TWErvin2 (Dec 14, 2012)

BWFoster78,

Going by the dated comments, this article was published in 2008. That's a long time and much has changed. Thus, I believe the ebook to spur print book sales is less valid of a reason than it was 4-5 years ago. Ebooks and ebook readers are much more common and an acceptable medium to read to a number of readers. That also reflects the reading off screens comment.


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## BWFoster78 (Dec 14, 2012)

> Going by the dated comments, this article was published in 2008.



Didn't check the date.  That would make more sense.


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## Zero Angel (Dec 15, 2012)

Some issues with dating...especially since ebooks are really the vehicle that today's self-pubbers want to move and the print editions are more sidekick-y, but I have read current sources referencing that when people get a giveaway they enjoy that they are more likely to purchase either other versions of the giveaway or other titles that you are offering. 

It's kind of like being given something free at a restaurant and then giving the giver a larger tip than normal; that said, many people do still want the dead tree versions bogging them down as well.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 15, 2012)

In general, print sales are continuing to decline while ebooks sales continue to climb. By my estimates of the industry (based on the Association of American Publishers' data from larger publishers plus estimates of the data they don't track), ebooks will probably represent about half of fiction sales in the USA around the turn of the year.

That is not a trend likely to reverse. While the changeover to ebook will slow now, it's already an enormous part of the market. You simply can't give away the ebook and hope that the print sales will make you money, today. It's unsustainable.

Instead, writers today often give away ONE book in order to attract new readers who will buy their other five, ten, twenty, or more books. Ideally, if the reader likes the free book and goes to buy your other ten books, you've given away one book but earned $35 from those other sales.


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## BWFoster78 (Dec 17, 2012)

Some authors posted results of their giveaways on another forum.  Granted, they're discussing nonfiction, but it's interesting info nonetheless.

How Well Has Free Worked? - 48Days.NET


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## JayEmma (Dec 27, 2012)

In light of this. Is it wise to be posting free fiction with ads as your support. 
This is something that I am taking part in right now. I figured it would be good exposure,
considering I am a part of the demographic that is used to not paying for things. I don't
find that I mind supplying my story online.

Tried to make an interactive reading site that is tablet friendly with some "grabbing" content.


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## Addison (Dec 31, 2012)

"In a world where 175,000 attend the San Diego Comic Con alone, you've got to figure that most of the people who "like science fiction" (and related geeky stuff like comics, games, Linux, and so on) just don't really buy books."   Now that I think about it I haven't seen many sci-fi books (as in dealing with aliens, space exploration and such) in book stores. There's less sci-fi and more fantasy books yet there's more sci-fi and less fantasy comic books.


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## danr62 (Dec 31, 2012)

JayEmma said:


> In light of this. Is it wise to be posting free fiction with ads as your support.
> This is something that I am taking part in right now. I figured it would be good exposure,
> considering I am a part of the demographic that is used to not paying for things. I don't
> find that I mind supplying my story online.
> ...



Authors are speculating that some of the E-readers will start to offer free books that are supported by ads, similar to the free games you find on Itunes and Google Play now.


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## psychotick (Jan 2, 2013)

Hi,

The value of free is declining rapidly I suspect. There are now so many free books out there, and even giving them away is hard on Select. I tried it once, gave away two thousand copies of Pawn, but got back not a single review, and my sales elsewhere weren't lifted one iota. Apparently I missed the gold rush which probably died four months before that. Unfortunately my experience was far from alone.

As an author I won't be doing it again, and in fact I'm going to be going through my old books this year, re-editing and producing new covers, and raising my prices. Thanks to Amazon's latest changes to their algorithm, it makes more sense.

Now the cost to companies of free books is starting to bite. Amazon uses it to sell kindles, thinking that the revenue they lose on the books is made up for by increased sales of their e-readers. But one of the things that happened the moment they brought out Select, was that sales of other books dropped. So the economic cost to them was more than just the lack of royalties from the books they gave away. And at the same time e-readers are everywhere and kindles are competing with all the others, not to mention pads, phones, tablets, laptops and computers. Soon the increased sales of the kindle will start to fall away. I don't expect to see free books on Amazon continue for the rest of the year, or at least not in the way that they have been. They'll be restricted in some way.

That's my prediction for 2013.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Chilari (Jan 2, 2013)

I'm not sure free giveaways are all that good of an idea. I downloaded a few free stories onto my new Kindle. In fact I downloaded precisely four free stories. Three novels and one short. The short was Michael Sullivan's the Viscount and the Witch which I downloaded because he posts here and on reddit/writing, but the other three I downloaded through browsing, ranked by price low to high and filtered by 4 stars and above. I looked at a few blurbs and ignored the ones with vampires and anything else that didn't sound like the sort of thing I'm interested in, and picked out three I liked the sound of.

All have since been deleted, barely read. One had utterly terrible grammar, so bad I could not ignore it. One had one homophone (council/counsel) but other than that began as a boring deathbed discussion between two important nobles about the other important nobles. It didn't pull me in. The third I can't even remember why I deleted. Meanwhile the stuff I have paid for (fiction and non-fiction alike) has been interesting, gripping, exciting, well written and well proofread. So my initial impression is that paying for something is worth my time, and not paying for something means it's not worth either time or money. I can't be the only one who has been given this impression by some of the free stuff available.

Now maybe I'm being less forgiving because it's free - that is, maybe I feel that once I've paid for something, I'm gonna work through any initial doubts and reservations because I've paid for it and not reading it is a waste of money. But I don't think that is the case. From what is admittedly a very small sample size, I've spotted a key difference in the works being sold and the works being given away: quality.

So maybe that's the drawback of free: the perception of low quality. The belief that if the author doesn't put a value on it, there isn't much value to be had. So people don't give it the benefit of the doubt. They expect it to be sub-par because that's what they've come across with free stuff already, and thanks to confirmation bias the errors that exist are that much more noticable, because you're expecting them.


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## Addison (Jan 2, 2013)

....while that sounds as if it's helping e-publishers and e-writers, it sounds sucky. People want to read books to read a story, not an ad for....shaving lotion or the newest TuPac song.


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## saellys (Jan 2, 2013)

Addison said:


> ....while that sounds as if it's helping e-publishers and e-writers, it sounds sucky. People want to read books to read a story, not an ad for....shaving lotion or the newest TuPac song.



Too true. So much for total immersion in another world.


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## Steerpike (Jan 2, 2013)

Addison said:


> ....while that sounds as if it's helping e-publishers and e-writers, it sounds sucky. People want to read books to read a story, not an ad for....shaving lotion or the newest TuPac song.



Actually, if Tupac was still somehow releasing new songs, I wouldn't mind reading about it. There's a story in there somewhere.


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## Zero Angel (Jan 4, 2013)

I was given a Nook for Christmas and finding anything worth reading on that for free seems to be even harder than on Kindle. I beileve I am straddling the generations on those that pay and those that expect free, but is that really a generational thing? Or is it just that kids don't have money to spend on stuff and so seek out free crap?

Anyway, there's just sooooo much rubbish out there. Gah.

But still, I am finding "success" (read: better than without) publishing with Kindle and KDP personally (although in nonfiction, not fiction). 

Did Kindle really lose such a large chunk of their revenue? I find that unlikely. Any sources? I would expect people to treat free books like they were free books (i.e. if they were physical they might take them for a year and donate them to a library when they realize they've had them for a year and never read them, but since they're on cloudspace they don't mind downloading). A free book (especially the shorter fare that is becoming the norm for self-pubbers) doesn't replace a book from a bestseller or a favorite author or one that is critically acclaimed or that has been made into a movie.

Again, I don't think that free books are great for selling *THAT* book, but if it is the first in a series or a tie-in or whatever, then it is a very reasonable marketing plan that I think everyone, self-pubber or not, should take advantage of. My plan, once I have a few more books out, is to get out of KDP Select, and make some shorts and intros available for free permanently.


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## Ankari (Jan 4, 2013)

I recently read an article about Amazon and Google.  Amazon isn't making money like they want to.  The CEO told the board that Amazon's current strategy will take years for the payoff.  Many people in the financial sector don't want to be patient want wait for Amazon to start_ turning a profit_.  Yes, as I am able to recall, Amazon isn't making any money.  The biggest sink is the Kindle line and e-books (along with how you can read books for free with a Prime membership and the author still gets paid).

The article was comparing Amazon's new ad revenue they're trying to bolster, as compared to Google's.  It then starting talking about ebooks, tablets, and profitability.


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## Devor (Jan 4, 2013)

If someone's relying on piracy to spread their name, they're not helping their career.  Piracy might spread your work around a little, but it also impresses upon people that your work isn't worth paying for.

You can toy with offering your work away from free - I wouldn't advise it for most people, but there's certainly ways to pull it off.  But if that's what you want to do, then _offer_ your work for free, and encourage your fans to pass it around.  Make it legal, make it fun.  Make it part of your brand, not something that undercuts your brand.




Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> In general, print sales are continuing to decline while ebooks sales continue to climb. By my estimates of the industry (based on the Association of American Publishers' data from larger publishers plus estimates of the data they don't track), ebooks will probably represent about half of fiction sales in the USA around the turn of the year.
> 
> That is not a trend likely to reverse.



While that's probably true, no trend continues at a constant pace forever.  At some point the ebook-to-print sales ratio will stabilize.  I don't know where, or how soon, but it's inevitable that the growth of ebooks will hit their ceiling, and print its floor.  I wouldn't be surprised if the trend begins to slow relatively soon - fewer people are buying ereaders and tablets for the first time.


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## BWFoster78 (Jan 4, 2013)

I agree with Devor that you don't want to devalue your work.

On the other hand, if you have a lot of books out, giving away one as a sample, especially the first in a series, can be very effective.  A long time ago, I was in Waldenbooks, and they gave me a free sample containing the first 10 chapters of Eye of the World.  All these years later, I'm about to buy the last of the series in hardcover as soon as it comes out, as I've done with the rest of them.

Whenever I find an author that I like, I give consideration to buying anything they've written.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Jan 5, 2013)

Ankari said:


> I recently read an article about Amazon and Google.  Amazon isn't making money like they want to.  The CEO told the board that Amazon's current strategy will take years for the payoff.  Many people in the financial sector don't want to be patient want wait for Amazon to start_ turning a profit_.  Yes, as I am able to recall, Amazon isn't making any money.  The biggest sink is the Kindle line and e-books (along with how you can read books for free with a Prime membership and the author still gets paid).
> 
> The article was comparing Amazon's new ad revenue they're trying to bolster, as compared to Google's.  It then starting talking about ebooks, tablets, and profitability.



Amazon is an odd bird. Bezos has managed to retain control of the company despite the public stock offering, which isn't especially common. Most companies are basically run by their stockholders, which means they HAVE to focus on profits getting to the stockholder. If the stockholders don't make money, the stockholders fire people until they find someone who will make them money.

Amazon being controlled by Bezos makes it a different bird. Stockholders constantly complain about not making any money from Amazon stocks. Bezos has consistently told them they aren't going to, so stop planning on it (not in precisely those terms, but that's the general feeling). Because Amazon is NOT focused on paying out huge dividends to stockholders, it has an enormous advantage over competitors: it can effectively play at a zero profit margin and still consider itself a success. That's HUGE. None of their competitors can match that margin, because of stockholder demands.

Effectively, the only company which can in the long run compete well with Amazon is another company controlled from the top, by the owner, so that they can slice margins to the same low level. That has the potential to change the entire structure of American business. Right now, it's focused on large companies which exist only to make their stockholders money; but if that model cannot compete with Amazon's "controlled by the owner" model (and I'm not sure it can), then we could see a massive adjustment in business structure and redistribution of wealth.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Jan 5, 2013)

Devor said:


> While that's probably true, no trend continues at a constant pace forever.  At some point the ebook-to-print sales ratio will stabilize.  I don't know where, or how soon, but it's inevitable that the growth of ebooks will hit their ceiling, and print its floor.  I wouldn't be surprised if the trend begins to slow relatively soon - fewer people are buying ereaders and tablets for the first time.



Sure. In fact, 2012 saw ebook growth slow somewhat. You're going to see a lot of folks point to percentages of ebook growth and show how dismal the ebook market share growth was, but the actual revenue value of ebook sales still went up significantly from 2011 to 2012 (the market share percent didn't go up as much because the market share was already so high).

The trend will slow. It will continue to slow over the next few years. But it won't stabilize for another decade or more, I think. It's going to take that long for print to finally fade out as an ordinary consumer good.

By 2015, many colleges expect to go to ebook only textbooks. Within a few years after that, several states plan to be ebook only for textbooks grades K-12. By 2020, I suspect most textbooks in the USA will be in ebook form for all levels. And that's the real crux; this new generation of students is going to grow up never touching a print book in school. So they're going to see print books as something quaint, the way younger folks today look at LP records. I suspect by sometime in the early 2020s, print books will only be made for precious books - either religious texts, or special limited/signed editions of books people want to keep and cherish. It could happen sooner; certain events (like when B&N declares bankruptcy and closes all their stores) will accelerate things. But I figure a ten year timeline is probably a good bet.


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## Addison (Jan 5, 2013)

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> By 2015, many colleges expect to go to ebook only textbooks. Within a few years after that, several states plan to be ebook only for textbooks grades K-12. By 2020, I suspect most textbooks in the USA will be in ebook form for all levels. And that's the real crux; this new generation of students is going to grow up never touching a print book in school. So they're going to see print books as something quaint, the way younger folks today look at LP records. I suspect by sometime in the early 2020s, print books will only be made for precious books - either religious texts, or special limited/signed editions of books people want to keep and cherish. It could happen sooner; certain events (like when B&N declares bankruptcy and closes all their stores) will accelerate things. But I figure a ten year timeline is probably a good bet.



...._meep._ :-(


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## djutmose (Jan 6, 2013)

One thing I can say is that I do think the free KDP promos on Amazon have helped my sales. For my first novel, definitely ... I wouldn't have sold 500+ paid copies if I hadn't given out 2000 free first. I know some authors who went through small publishers for their ebooks, the publishers generally don't do the KDP promos, and the sales haven't been great.

That having been said, there are no guarantees. I just gave away 3200+ copies of Shadewright (1st book in new series), so I will see how that translates into sales. 

I have tried promoting on Facebook, which has been a waste of time compared to the KDP free promos. I really hope Amazon doesn't get rid of them, but then I wouldn't be surprised if the program changed, either.


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## Addison (Jan 11, 2013)

When it comes to this I'm leaving it up to fate while I see just how strong my will power is. Sticking it out against a tantrum-throwing six year old for five hours without cracking is one thing. Pursuing an agent or publisher is another entirely. If the agent and publisher don't work, it's off to e-books.


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## JCFarnham (Jan 15, 2013)

Fact is people love free stuff. Until I see people go to county shows, conventions, university open days and such and _not _horde free pens, those little googlie-eyed fuzzy things, badges, stickers and so on, I'm going to stick to that opinion. There _are_ moments when "free" loses value for people. It could be any number of things that do it mind you, growing out of it, wanting to support the people you're buying from, etc. 

Our trick is to make sure that free doesn't lose value, or that it might _add_ value instead. I'm sure previous posts in the thread have mention how this can be achieved (short fiction and samples are better suited as free promo material, ...) you just have to find what works.


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## boboratory (Jan 15, 2013)

For my experience, in 2012 we (Brick Cave Books) gave away 1,950 ebooks as freebies through Sony, B&N, etc. Those same authors had additional books for sale in those same channels. We had some additional channels (Apple, Amazon, Kobo), where we did not give away any books. There is also some suspect regarding which stores we offered free on, and which stores we did not- so it may be we offered free books on stores that were weaker anyway. Regardless, we saw:

- Increase in sales of titles year over year (2011-2012, we are fairly low volume, think 100's) for their titles for sale in channels WITHOUT free offerings.
- Decrease in sales for channels that offered free titles.

These same authors, in channels without free offerings, we offered varied price points of .99/3.99/6.99. There are some limitations on what data we can collect because of the stores, but I can say-

- Multiple sales within a day for the same author.
- Potentially "Buying Down", ie, a buyer would buy the $6.99/book and then buy the rest. I also think we saw "Buying Up", where the person bought the $.99 or $3.99 then moved to the higher priced books. But again, these are speculations based on limited data from stores.

Strategically, for 2013, we decided to nix the free book offerings through any stores. Instead, we figured we would offer them formatted on html on our site, as a way to encourage traffic more directly, and advertising revenue. There is nothing wrong with offering free books through the sites, but based on the quantity of material available, and our lack of evidence to suggest that people downloading free versions will ever become buyers, makes it a path that doesn't make much business sense - right now-


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## danr62 (Jan 15, 2013)

boboratory said:


> For my experience, in 2012 we (Brick Cave Books) gave away 1,950 ebooks as freebies through Sony, B&N, etc. Those same authors had additional books for sale in those same channels. We had some additional channels (Apple, Amazon, Kobo), where we did not give away any books. There is also some suspect regarding which stores we offered free on, and which stores we did not- so it may be we offered free books on stores that were weaker anyway. Regardless, we saw:
> 
> - Increase in sales of titles year over year (2011-2012, we are fairly low volume, think 100's) for their titles for sale in channels WITHOUT free offerings.
> - Decrease in sales for channels that offered free titles.
> ...



If you offer them free on your site won't the vendors eventually price match them to free?


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Jan 15, 2013)

danr62 said:


> If you offer them free on your site won't the vendors eventually price match them to free?


They could. But it is VERY unlikely. Major retailers basically only price match for other major retailers.


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## boboratory (Jan 16, 2013)

@darn62.... I would first concur with Kevin's response... 

That being said, the plan is to not offer those particular titles in any store (even our own), so they would have nothing to reprice in the first place.


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## scottmarlowe (Feb 12, 2013)

I think the giveaway works if you're doing it as a loss leader, as in you give away the 1st book of a series and hopefully readers then like it so much they go out and buy the rest. My experience with giving away standalone or first book in a series books when that one book is the only one out is that it's a fairly low ROI. I have gotten very few reviews out of it, but that's after giving away tens of thousands of copies.

In general, I'm not "for" giving away stuff for free unless it's as stated above (first in a series sort of thing).

I discussed my own experiences with the Doctorow mantra here if you're interested: The Failure of Free


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## Black Dragon (Feb 15, 2013)

scottmarlowe said:


> I discussed my own experiences with the Doctorow mantra here if you're interested: The Failure of Free



Thanks for sharing your experience Scott.

I think that your conclusion is accurate.  As has been stated before, if something is free or very cheap, people will not value it as much.  Thus, there is a greater likelihood that people won't read it at all.

I know that when I pay more than a couple of dollars for an ebook, I'm going to read it.  But I have many free ebooks sitting on my Kindle that I may never even open.


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## Kit (Feb 15, 2013)

What about putting the first half of your book on your webpage for free, then if they want to read the 2nd half, they have to buy your ebook? Would that work?


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## Zero Angel (Feb 15, 2013)

Black Dragon said:


> Thanks for sharing your experience Scott.
> 
> I think that your conclusion is accurate.  As has been stated before, if something is free or very cheap, people will not value it as much.  Thus, there is a greater likelihood that people won't read it at all.
> 
> I know that when I pay more than a couple of dollars for an ebook, I'm going to read it.  But I have many free ebooks sitting on my Kindle that I may never even open.



Didn't read the related-blog article until now. I definitely agree that the first in a series can help a lot more, but one of the (albeit nerfed) benefits of giving something away free is giving it away through Amazon specifically. Free giveaways causes your books to go up the bestselling lists in the free category, but a portion of this is translated into the popularity lists in the paid category when your book comes off the free promotion. 

For my math book, I am lucky enough to be in a category without a lot of Kindle competition, but whenever I start to lag in the bestselling list, I launch a free promotion, get a few hundred downloads, and follow with unknown sourced sales in the week(s) after. Sometimes on the order of tens of sales, sometimes less than 20, but enough to boost it back up into the tops of the category. Right now is the lowest my math book has ever been in the ranking (#69) and that is because I am waiting to do the next promotion until the follow-up comes out.

Now, the second book in the series should come out this month, and once the KDP terms end, I hope to try to get the 1st to be offered free via Smashwords and be price-matched on Amazon to follow the first-of-the-series model. At that point, I will hopefully be more knowledgeable as to if any of the prior free-downloaders actually read and want more of what I have to offer in the math world. 

That said, for my fantasy series, War of the Ages, after Book III comes out I am planning on going back and doing an extended "author's cut" version of the first novel and turning it into 2-3 books on its own. Both the present version of Book I and the first book of the extended author's cut will be offered for free (and the differences will be included in the descriptions—I don't want to get sales by fooling people), and the new author's cut extra works will be $2.99. I'll also include bundle versions like I plan on doing for my math books.

Unfortunately, I won't have any data to share from the author's-cut/free-1st-book-in-the-series experience until circa 2015. Should have more nonfiction data to share by the end of 2013. 

Oh, although I am also going to be doing some prequel shorts and some of those will probably be offered free with the hopes Amazon will price-match sooner-than-later. Once I get any data, I will share ASAP.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 15, 2013)

Kit said:


> What about putting the first half of your book on your webpage for free, then if they want to read the 2nd half, they have to buy your ebook? Would that work?



Benjamin Clayborne gave an extended look of his book on his site. I remember him saying that it helped some. 

I would just be leery of cliffhanger endings of "free" stories – I think it would diminish reader trust – although if you emphasized that it was the first half / free *preview* it would probably not have any negative repercussions.


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## BWFoster78 (Feb 15, 2013)

Kit said:


> What about putting the first half of your book on your webpage for free, then if they want to read the 2nd half, they have to buy your ebook? Would that work?



It seems like the benefit of this is negated somewhat by the fact that all ebooks have a free sample.  I usually know after a couple of paragraphs if I'm going to want to read a book, so I'm not sure what the extra amount adds or if people will want to download something that is specifically advertised as a teaser.

It also negates Scott's theory, which I think has real merit, that most people don't read free/low priced books.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 15, 2013)

BWFoster78 said:


> It seems like the benefit of this is negated somewhat by the fact that all ebooks have a free sample.  I usually know after a couple of paragraphs if I'm going to want to read a book, so I'm not sure what the extra amount adds or if people will want to download something that is specifically advertised as a teaser.
> 
> It also negates Scott's theory, which I think has real merit, that most people don't read free/low priced books.



Correct. Most ebooks offer the first 10% or so for free. The issue being, I suppose, if your book is a "slow-starter". Unfortunately, if your book is a slow-starter, the chance that someone will make it through the beginning is lower than it is with an established author. Best advice in my opinion for that would be to write a more involving beginning than offer more of the book. 

It might be worth to offer your own free preview (even if not a longer one) on your site though for those that don't want to navigate away to Amazon or BN.com. 

It might also foster a the-author-really-cares-about-the-reader sentiment with your readers/customers as well.


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## Devor (Feb 15, 2013)

Kit said:


> What about putting the first half of your book on your webpage for free, then if they want to read the 2nd half, they have to buy your ebook? Would that work?



Most likely, the "first half" is too much to expect people to read before making a decision.  By that point you've undercut your sales pitch.  In terms of a sample, most people only need a paragraph or two before they have enough information to make a decision.  If you give them too much more, you're weakening that moment of decision.  I think the extra material would do more harm than good.


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## scottmarlowe (Feb 16, 2013)

Zero Angel said:


> I definitely agree that the first in a series can help a lot more, but one of the (albeit nerfed) benefits of giving something away free is giving it away through Amazon specifically. Free giveaways causes your books to go up the bestselling lists in the free category, but a portion of this is translated into the popularity lists in the paid category when your book comes off the free promotion.



Yes. When I wrote that post I was also in the KDP Select program and found some pretty good success with borrows and then the free runs translating into good list positioning and so on. I think what I was getting at in the post is that giving away copies to "faceless" readers or without there being some other benefit, like what KDP Select offers, then free doesn't work.

Something I have had success with, however, is offering free copies to specific readers in exchange for a review. Because the person has to contact me, I'm able to establish that personal connection. This goes a long way towards getting feedback in general, but I've also asked each person to post their review to more than just Amazon, so it helps spread the word that way as well. So far, I've gotten 4 reviews this way. All very good ones.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 16, 2013)

scottmarlowe said:


> Yes. When I wrote that post I was also in the KDP Select program and found some pretty good success with borrows and then the free runs translating into good list positioning and so on. I think what I was getting at in the post is that giving away copies to "faceless" readers or without there being some other benefit, like what KDP Select offers, then free doesn't work.
> 
> Something I have had success with, however, is offering free copies to specific readers in exchange for a review. Because the person has to contact me, I'm able to establish that personal connection. This goes a long way towards getting feedback in general, but I've also asked each person to post their review to more than just Amazon, so it helps spread the word that way as well. So far, I've gotten 4 reviews this way. All very good ones.



Great point. For reviewers (especially professional ones, but maybe some private ones in the beginning), we should *always* make review copies available. Some reviewers will refuse them, preferring to purchase every copy, but most will take part if they want to review your novel/story. 

Pitfalls: (1) accepting a free copy of our book does not mean they will review the book — especially for the larger, busier reviewers; (2) it should never be implied that the free review is a payment for a good review; (3) most reviewers do not care to be sent unsolicited books, even if they are free — query first unless their submission policies say otherwise.


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## scottmarlowe (Feb 17, 2013)

Zero Angel said:


> Great point. For reviewers (especially professional ones, but maybe some private ones in the beginning), we should *always* make review copies available. Some reviewers will refuse them, preferring to purchase every copy, but most will take part if they want to review your novel/story.
> 
> Pitfalls: (1) accepting a free copy of our book does not mean they will review the book — especially for the larger, busier reviewers; (2) it should never be implied that the free review is a payment for a good review; (3) most reviewers do not care to be sent unsolicited books, even if they are free — query first unless their submission policies say otherwise.



I usually will offer the free copy, of course, but I've had reviewers go out and buy it as well without any prompting from me.

Good points. I do make it clear when I give someone a free book in exchange for a review that it is for an "honest" review. Obviously I don't want 'bad' or low ratings in return, but I understand I can't control that. At least so far, though, with having established that initial connection, people have been very accommodating and thoughtful in their reviews. I think there's something about being nice to readers that makes them want to reciprocate.


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