Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Pros and Cons of Indie Authors and Free eBooks

There's been an interesting debate on Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog about the pros and cons of free ebooks. Some authors love giving away free ebooks, because it's an easy and popular way to get publicity. It also gets their work read by a wide audience. Readers love free ebooks, because...well, they get free books. But some people in the publishing industry have been calling for an end to the practice. I once read (but can't find now) a traditional publisher sniffing that they value their books too much to give away for free.



I look at it this way: giving products away for free is a new concept for the publishing industry, but not for the industry in general. Free samples are part of many industries. Samples of food, cleaning products, almost anything you can think of. Even in creative fields like movies, Hollywood gives samples of their movies in trailers or whole scenes distributed online. For decades, publishers have provided free copies of their books to reviewers. What's changing is giving away free copies to potential customers, the readers.

Now the key word is "samples." I think some authors are doing themselves and the industry a disservice by giving away their entire product line. If all you have is one book, then giving it away for free achieves very little in the long run. I don't think it's completely useless, though. You can get some positive buzz from those readers who enjoyed it and share it with friends or add reviews on Amazon. Some of those who have your free book may follow you in the future. Still, all you're doing is giving potential customers one less reason to buy your book. I also think there's a culture that's developed where readers assume every book on Amazon Kindle will end up free at some point.

What do you think? Are freebies killing or boosting the industry? Let me know in the comments

7 comments:

  1. Yes, it was quite the discussion on my site, with views going both ways.
    Sampling - that's a good way to describe it. I think free excerpts are a good idea. With any book, you usually can read the first few pages for free. People do that in bookstores.
    I can understand both sides - that free devalues the book (and you're right it seems everyone expects free books now) and that free can gain readers.
    My publisher stated they would never do free books, especially Amazon-only. And you know what? I admit, I'm glad. I worked hard on my three books, which will likely be the only three I ever write, and it would be sad if they were just given away.

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    Replies
    1. I can respect that perspective - why give away what you can charge for? Sorry to hear it's your last writing, though.

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  2. Received email from amazon on free Dan Brown DaVinci Code as hook for preview chapter of his new book.

    Giving away e-backlist. Maybe the publisher believes the ebacklist is useless but as a marketing hook for a new sale. Interesting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's a publisher giving away free books! It's happening in traditional, too!

      Delete
  3. The problem of giving away free books for exposure is that most of the leeches who get the free books have too many other books to read to ever read yours, let alone review it. And if they do read it they'll probably give a terse one-star review because they don't like what the book is about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree, that is a problem. There's a glut of free books right now. I predict in 6 months to a year, free books won't cause any boost in sales or visibility at all.

      Delete
  4. Interesting have a look at all of our site. With some luck you are going to pleased about free books.
    You can buy the e books Online collect.

    ReplyDelete

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