No, seriously – that IS the question. Mine, at any rate, and one I’m seeking opinions from Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog readers to help answer.
The common wisdom has long held that giving away free books will lead to greater sales. The idea is that someone who reads and likes a book they’ve acquired without spending a dime for will consider shelling out actual coin of the realm for more books by the same author.
I don’t know about you, but neither I nor any of my published friends have seen that happen. We have each given away thousands of Kindle freebies, often spending hundreds of dollars to promote the giveaways, only to sell a handful of books afterward. And those handful were of the same titles we had just given away, not anything from our backlists.
Our conclusion is there are a lot of folks out there who are happy to take advantage of free books, and that’s as far as it goes. They’re not so much motivated to discover new authors as they are new deals, the next freebie.
I don’t blame anyone for taking advantage of the opportunity – after all, we authors and small publishers are the ones offering those free promotions, and then advertising to encourage as many people as possible to download our giveaways. But while free ebooks benefit some readers and keep people on Amazon’s site, are those freebies really building author brands and generating royalties?
Not from where I’m standing.
What’s your experience?
Joel Bresler is the author of
Bottomless Cups
Amazon:
USA – UK – CA – AUS – IN
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Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Hi Joel. I may be an outlier, but if I discover a new Indie author I like, I will literally buy everything he or she has ever written. That’s because I read a /lot/. The other reason is that I’m on a pension so I can’t afford to take a chance on a new author whose writing I might hate. Did I mention I’m also picky?
With my own books, I’m happy to do the occasional freebie because I’m an unknown myself. The way I see it, even if a potential Reader did stumble across my work amongst the millions out there, why on earth would they buy a pig-in-a-poke? Or words to that effect. lol I think you have to have a critical mass of Readers before you can assume brand recognition. The same applies to advertising.
The ideal would be to make the first book of a series/trilogy/whatever permanently free so there’s a pathway for Readers to follow if they like the first book. Amazon doesn’t make that easy though. 😦
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I have always resisted offering my work for free, and so my marketing has consisted largely of 99c promos which have served me well. I do a large push every Christmas and that keeps my sales fairly high through to summer, when they tend to dwindle anyway.
Last year I thought I would dabble with a FREE promo, but I won’t do it again. Admittedly I did not get a BookBub Featured Deal for this, which I have had the past 4 years for the 99c promos, but I spent a lot on ads even so, and I reckon by 6 months I might break even. My 99c sales recoup my ad spend within a week and then some, and I have high read through to the rest of my series at full price. Not so with the free promo.
I think far too many people download a freebie and it just vanishes into the sea of others. I gained one review, and a small increase in read through. If you want to look at detailed analysis, I wrote a couple of blogs reports:
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Thanks for that info. I haven’t done any marketing for a couple of years now so I might give the 99c promo a try. I suspect you have a larger reader base to start with so even 99c might not work for me. We shall see. 🙂
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Ah, but the promo ads go to people who are new to my books, so not existing fan base.
Provided all your basics are in place (great cover, enticing blurb and some good reviews) there’s no reason why you shouldn’t find a 99c promo effective. It does take a bit of analysis and tinkering with different sites to find out what works best for your individual books, so keep on top of the figures and then you can improve results each time.
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Thanks, Deb. I doubt I’ll ever do a promo ad because I simply can’t afford it, but I will give the 99c price point a try. 🙂
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There are some really good value ads out there, less than $20 a pop, and some that will even take your book for free. Check this out:
https://kindlepreneur.com/list-sites-promote-free-amazon-books/
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Wow…I just read through that post and it’s brilliant. Thank you! I will definitely be looking at this more closely in the near future. 😀
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Hello, Joel. To be honest, when the freebie books first started to come up and I purchased a Kindle, I grabbed up all that sounded interesting to me. But as time passed and my reading time dwindled, I avoided getting any more. Not just because of the time, but I’ve come to realize: if I want to become an author and make money at this, I need to extend the same respect to that author whose book I pick up. I pay for any books now that I order. I just wish I could find more time to read and review them. Working on that.
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I don’t do free promos any more, and especially not for first in series. I sometimes do discounts for later in series, but that doesn’t seem to make much difference.
Given all the thousands of free copies of my books that went out in the early years of Kindle, I wonder why there aren’t a few more reviews, but I do have 75 people that bought each book as it came out. I thank them from the bottom of my heart, and I also thank them for the reviews.
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I know the theory of elasticity applies to books. Amazon have it covered from top to tail. I don’t know the answer. We always think if we follow the rules A + B = C. Amazon knows better. Or we imagine a world in which we are the exception to algorithms. We’re not. The world is groaning with new books. Mostly unread. Some downloaded. Even to be seen is sometimes an achievement. Sorry, I’m a Jonah.
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I’ve watched this through both articles and various author’s experiences over several years.
Free is a way of generating reviews. It also works for long series, first book free.
For books by the same author but unrelated, it doesn’t hurt to have a good story, maybe a short one, available for free events but it’s less likely to generate sales because the reader discovered a new author, unless you’re a lot better than average. I’ve followed a few authors myself after reading a stonking good short story by them, especially if it relates in some ways to a series they’ve published.
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I think going wide is the way to go, too.
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Hey Joel. I feel your frustration!
I’ve been using FREE promos for the last five years (KDP Select, so exclusive to Amazon). I’ve tried .99 promos from time to time, but they always fell flat. Readers are so used to FREE that many can’t be persuaded to actually pay for a book. In 2024, I will be going wide and not relying so heavily on Amazon. Anyway, I believe FREE promos are useful for: new authors, new releases, and for promoting the first book in a series. At the same time, the author needs an attractive website and a newsletter to reach readers directly.
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