I came across a tweet today. It was from a complete stranger, about a book I’d never heard of. This is the full text:
“Whassamatter with you guys? 127 minutes to go and the offer for a FREE Kindle copy of [Book Title] closes! Tick tock…”
Reading between the characters (tweets are so short you don’t get the luxury of lines) here is an author trying to promote his book who thought it would be a good idea to give it away free for a period to get some interest going. It seems like a reasonable thing to do and yet, you can tell he isn’t having a lot of luck with it. The puzzlement is obvious; surely people will grab a copy of your book if it’s free? After all, it’s free! Free, as in, it doesn’t cost you a penny. There is also, I suspect, a hint of fear there too. If you can’t give your book away for free, what do you have to do to get people to read it?
The problem is that the premise is all wrong. A book – any book – is never free, even if you don’t have to pay for it. It will still cost you hours of your time to read it. And your time is without doubt the most precious thing you own. It’s a finite resource, you have very little of it to spare, and there are a million other things you could be spending it on.
So let me make this post uncharacteristically short and jump straight to the take-home message. If you want people to read your book, you have to persuade them that it is worth their time to do so. Sell it to them. Get them to want it. Convince them that the hours they spend reading it will be much more fun and fulfilling than spending those same hours in any other way, and on any other book. Then you won’t need to give it away – or sell it for $0.99c. An experience that good is worth paying real money for.
These days Graham, ‘selling’ our work is a lottery. I see so darned many of these ‘free give-aways’ these days that my eyes glaze over.
When someone I’ve never heard of insists that I by their book, or ‘like my FB page’, etc, they automatically loose me as a potential reader.
Personally I issue ‘teasers’ on my blog for my latest WIP as pre-advertising. By the time it finally appears in print, I have already sown the seeds without resorting to sheer desperation on my part.
I equate the ‘buy my book or else brigade’ with those idiots who called themselves “Tom Jones – Author” on all of the social networking sites, losers one and all.
Hi Jack. Maybe it doesn’t seem so bad to other people. If you’re like me, you are following mostly other writers. I’d say more than 3/4 of these are with small presses or are self-published. That means they’re doing all their own publicity – through their blogs and Twitter. Which means at least 75% of the writers I follow are trying to sell me their books! The impression one gets is bound to be a little distorted
Great points you’ve made Graham. I have one free book available and only because Amazon decided to play their ‘Price Matching Feature’ on me when I had a little special offer on Smashwords. However, I have let it lie, and left the book free. It gets downloaded like crazy, but I really wonder how many actually read it. My guess would be about 5%.
But, it does give an entrèe to my writing and other the other books continue to sell, so I can’t really complain. But it will the last ‘freebie’ for me.
And thanks to Jack for helping me find your blog.
Hi Derek and welcome. I’ve got to confess that I just downloaded your free book myself. Will I ever get around to reading it? Sadly, since my wife hogs the Kindle, I may not. Maybe she’ll tell me what it was like…
By the way, that Amazon price matching feature is a real trap for the unwary. I’ve heard several authors complaining about promotions that have turned into permanent price reductions.
Hi Graham!
I enjoyed your post, and find a lot of truth in it. I blog, but am not interested in publishing. So I have the luxury of following a wide variety of people on Twitter and Facebook, etc. I understand the plight of self- published authors in a saturated self-publishing market. And I agree with you, give me a reason to buy your book and I will. Give me something interesting to read, and I will promote it. As I will this article, on Twitter. Now.
Thanks for an interesting point of view! (I found you on Derek Haines blog in the comment section…yes I read those too.)
http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal/2011/09/self-publishing-not-for-the-dreamers/
Lol. And now I’ve found your blog too, Cath. As for reading the comments sections, they can sometimes be the best bit.
And thanks for the retweet!
[...] Of course, TimeSplash has rushed to the top of the free books charts. It went straight to number 1 in Technothrillers and quickly achieved number 1 in science fiction (on both Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk). And it has stayed there (give or take a position swap or two in the US technothriller chart) while it has slowly climbed the overall Kindle books chart (it is currently #19 in Kindle Fiction on Amazon.com). It’s a great feeling to see my book flying off the shelves like this and I’m very, very grateful to all the people who have grabbed a copy. I know that even making a book free doesn’t mean people will want it. [...]
[...] Why You Can’t Even Give Your Books Away. [...]