ebooks

Cute. 🙂

Authors and publishers have offered free ebooks as a way to capture new readers for a few years. But does it really work? This marketing strategy is one of many used in our industry, and it’s rather intriguing. As a reader, I’ve certainly downloaded my fair share of free ebooks over this past 14 months while I’ve had an ereader. To begin with, I thought wow, this is cool. I get to try out new authors and see if I like their work. My intention was, if I did, I’d go on to buy more of their books.

The only problem with this, is that more and more free ebooks keep coming out. There’s an endless stream. Another problem is, some of those freebies were just plain awful. If I got a couple of chapters into the story and it didn’t capture me, I simply deleted it and began another. I hadn’t invested any money, so no harm was done. Only this got a little monotonous. Of the fifteen free ebooks I’d downloaded, only two were any good. Those are terrible odds, and in a way puts me off from downloading another from an author I haven’t heard of.

As a bonus though, because I’d received them for free, I wrote reviews for those two authors and posted them on Amazon. I felt obligated to ensure they received some sort of compensation for what they’d freely given. Although, I can’t help thinking is what happened to me the same for other readers? To answer my question, I checked out what authors and readers are saying about free ebooks. This information has come from a number of sources, from other authors and readers I’ve chatted to, as well as from reading responses within various group threads on Goodreads.

Here’s the overall feeling on free ebooks.

  • The power of free ebooks seems to be dwindling because of the flood of them this past year.
  • Readers are more apt to give a new author a try when they can read their book for free. They’ll happily buy other books if there are any.
  • A couple of authors mentioned that some of their free ebooks made it into the hands of readers who don’t enjoy the genre they write. They then left bad reviews stating so, but then that’s the risk an author takes.
  • Many readers said they’re more committed to reading an ebook they purchase, over one they receive for free. Freebies get put to the bottom of the pile.
  • Readers also found where a free ebook in a series became available, if they liked it, it hooked them into buying other books within the series.
  • Authors did report that they sold more books for a short time after their promotion, but then their sales dropped away again and back to normal levels. Because of this, they felt giving away free ebooks is something that should be done once they had a backlist. This marketing strategy would then see those readers who enjoyed their books, perhaps buying others they had available. (Of course, we all know there are some authors who’ve seen incredible success from “free ebooks,” and in some cases, it’s launched their careers.)
  • Also, a number of readers said after reading some terrible free ebooks, they’re learnt to check the reviews and the current average rating of any future freebies before downloading them. (This is exactly what I did this month. I’ve downloaded only one free ebook in May, and it’s from an author I know can deliver a good read. I too checked out the current star rating, and once satisfied, downloaded their free ebook.)
  • One author who experienced a huge boost in sales said she’s glad she gave away free ebooks. It was incredibly effective for her. She was there not long after the KDP select program began and that’s when she saw her success. She did state though, that Amazon have now tightened their algorithms surrounding their lists, and that means a free ebook falls far quicker after its free days. It’s not as effective as it was when she first began.
  • Lastly, the underlying point which really came through, was readers truly enjoy when they discover a new author from a free ebook. They go searching for other books they’ve written to buy more, but again that author needs to have a backlist to reap the benefits.

Interesting, isn’t it? Publishers and authors will certainly continue to use free ebooks as one of their marketing strategies, but I believe they’re starting to get more savvy on exactly what works and doesn’t work. As an author or reader, what do you think of free ebooks? If you’re an author, have you given ebooks away for free? Did you find success? Was it all you hoped for? Will you try it again? You know me, I love hearing from you. Drop me a comment and let me know how you feel about free ebooks? I’m all for authors supporting authors, and sharing all that important information.

Take care, and I’ll catch ya next week.

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PROTECTOR > BUY THE BOOK: Amazon / Barnes & Noble Lyrical Press / iTunes / Kobo

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