This is a photo of me after a day of trekking in the Annapurna region of Nepal. As you can see the boots are off, and I’m sitting on my bed, exhausted after a day of walking up hill and down. This little fellow belonged to the owners of the accommodation and wanted to be in the photo. The kids we met were always so cute!
And now on to today’s topic. During my recent travels through the blogging world, I’ve noticed a lot of authors and readers talking about free books. It seems everyone is getting in on the act and giving away their books in an effort to boost sales. At present there are offers of free ebooks in every direction I turn. A glut of free books!
The thing is, why would a reader pay for a book if they can have their choice of free books?
When I first purchased my iPad, I downloaded mega free books, and I haven’t had time to read many of them. They sit on my iPad, unloved. Poor things! These days I’m very picky about which books I download for free, almost as picky as I am when it comes to buying a new book. I have that luxury because there are so many available, and I’ve been wondering if all these free books are actually hurting and devaluing the books that readers must pay for.
I think that free only works if an author has a large backlist or if the book being given away for free is the first in a series. From what I hear one of my books will be given away for free in July, so it will be interesting to see how this impacts on my sales.
What do you think about free books? Do you “buy” a lot of them? Do you actually read them? Has a free book encouraged you to buy a second book from the author? Any other comments?
June 4th, 2012 at 3:32 am · Link
I agree about this new culture of free. I don’t know if you’ve seen my rant, but I had a month where my books were downloaded, each in order, kept for a day or two, and then returned. It was like someone decided to beat the paid system.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:13 pm · Link
Susan, I’ve heard about this happening recently. Personally I don’t think ebooks should be returnable unless they’re faulty and can’t be read.
June 4th, 2012 at 5:11 am · Link
I think free is ok, not everything but once in a while. I have a freebie I put out for readers. I originally posted the story on my blog and wanted to release it with a cover and more professional so more people could have access to it. It is a great way to introduce people to your work who might not have read it.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:16 pm · Link
Savannah,
I agree that free books can help get an authors’s name in front of new readers, but I have so many free reads that I might not get to them until months later. It’s this factor that makes me wonder if free is necessarily working, because I’m sure there are other readers like me who download the books for “later”.
June 4th, 2012 at 7:02 am · Link
I think it depends on the book and situation. I’ve picked up hundreds of new readers from the two week giveaway of ‘Tween Heaven and Hell, the first book in a currently 5 book series. Sales increased across all the books in the series from the giveaway and I highly recommend giving away the first book in an existing series.
However, my experience has been that giving free short books away to entice new readers can come back to bite an author in the patooty. A LOT of readers are very harsh in their critiques of these free shorts and their bad reviews could end up hurting an author in the end. For this reason I no longer give away free shorts except for specific holidays and then only to my fans. It’s just not worth it to do all that work, earn nothing from it, and then have the book trashed by readers for not being long or detailed enough. So it’s a mixed bag.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:19 pm · Link
Sam, good points. I’ve seen some really harsh comments/reviews on free books.
It’s good to hear that you’ve gained new readers from your free promotion. I’m looking forward to seeing my results in July.
June 4th, 2012 at 9:53 am · Link
The free book culture isn’t sustainable. It’s great for readers at the moment, but not good for authors. You can’t keep giving your work away for nothing. No one else does, after all. I’m not convinced it’s particularly good publicity either. The best publicity is writing a darn good book that people enjoy and selling it at a sensible price. Readers will come back for more then.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:23 pm · Link
Steph,
This is what I’m coming to think. I’m not sure that I agree with 99c pricing for books either. It seems almost criminal to sell books for this price when they’ve taken months to write and polish. Others might not agree with this, but I can’t help thinking that readers come to expect books that are priced low.
I agree about writing a good book. In fact I’m off in a few minutes to try to put this advice to work!
June 5th, 2012 at 5:16 am · Link
I price my short stories at 99c, but … they’re short stories. (Okay, there’s only one so far)
I may drop the price on Demo Tapes 1 at some point to 99c, but it’ll be four years old come November. We’ll see. It still sells really well at its current price point.
June 4th, 2012 at 10:08 am · Link
I don’t pick up free books. Well, except for things like Shakespeare and such. If it was written in my lifetime, I much prefer to pay for the book.
Part of that is from being raised by a writer. Part of it is the free books I have gotten have been so disappointing that I’ve deleted them from my Kindle.
Fun picture, and good post!
June 4th, 2012 at 1:28 pm · Link
Hi Christine,
I’ve only had time to read a couple of free books, and they were okay. I find that because my reading time is limited I tend to be an unforgiving reader. I’ll only read a chapter, and if a book hasn’t grabbed me by this time, I’ll move to the next. In the past I used to persevere and read to the end of a book.
June 4th, 2012 at 10:34 am · Link
Interesting topic. I too download free books all the time but they don’t necessarily get read–or at least not right away.
The books I pay for I DO read.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:28 pm · Link
Jennifer,
Exactly! I tend to read the books I pay for too.
June 4th, 2012 at 11:46 am · Link
I love getting free books. I get quite a lot of them each month and for me it’s a great way to find new authors that I’ll go and look at their others books to buy.
I’ve found soooo many new authors this way that I had never heard of and would probably never have found their books any other way. I have a few authors that are auto buys for me when their books come out, other than that I don’t buy a lot unless I have read a really good excerpt that is longer than a paragraph and I just had to see what happens, or I win a free book and love their writing so I go looking for more of their books to buy.
I think it’s a great way for authors to find new readers and when we readers find a book or new author we like, we usually spread the word and get our friends to buy their books too. Sounds like a win win to me.
Just to be clear though, I’m not talking about ebooks. I don’t download free ebooks. I don’t have an ereader, don’t plan on getting one. I’m talking about the hubdreads of free print books given away in blog contests all the time. I win them all the time and I love it.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:32 pm · Link
Mary, that’s great to hear that you’re discovering new authors. Authors want to hear this sort of feedback.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:09 pm · Link
I don’t really download a free e-book unless I’m aware of it having a price. Although price does not indicate the level of value, it tells me the written piece had at least one drop of blood poured into its making. So if I’m getting a free book, I’m hoping its original price was $2.99 or above…or if it is an e-book I won from a blog contest.
June 4th, 2012 at 1:33 pm · Link
Hmm, interesting. It’s funny you should say that because I’ve started looking at price too. It’s probably not a very scientific way for us to do it :)
June 4th, 2012 at 6:04 pm · Link
I’m jealous of your hike. :0 Sounds awesome.
I never thought about it before, but you are right. I seldom read the free downloads. I tend to read the ones I buy.
June 5th, 2012 at 1:50 am · Link
We had lots of fun on our trek and slept really well at the end of each night.
June 4th, 2012 at 6:42 pm · Link
Well, you already know how I feel about ‘free’. The only winner is the reader in that deal.
How long was your visit to Nepal?
June 5th, 2012 at 1:49 am · Link
Yes, I do :)
We were in Nepal for about three weeks. We visited Pohkora, Chitwan National Park, Kathmandu and a couple of the other main towns. I loved Nepal.
June 4th, 2012 at 9:43 pm · Link
I think free reads can serve a purpose, to bring attention to a series, as mentioned here, but I couldn’t imagine just writing books to give them away.
I gave the first in one of my series away for free days, but only after it had already been released a few days, and it was right before the release of the second book in the series. It did help the sales.
I have found a wonderful series that I probably wouldn’t have found if the first book hadn’t been free so I do think there is merit there. However, I don’t think it should be just a freebie forever type of thing. Just my humble opinion of course. But I’m the oddball out who does read every free book I download because I’m a voracious reader with a Kindle. Those two things go together like cheese and crackers. :-)
June 5th, 2012 at 1:53 am · Link
Hi Rachel,
I think giving away the first book in a series free for a short time definitely increases sales. I think an author needs a solid plan/reasons for giving away a book for free.
The Kindle has changed the market so much. It’s a great time to be a reader.