Patrick Reinken's Blog: Writing to Write - Posts Tagged "apple"
Making ebooks free
On the boards - both here and on other discussion sites - you commonly see strings that come down to a simple issue: If you make an ebook free, will it increase sales of your other books?
I've no idea, of course. My common sense tells me it will, at least if the writing is any good. I mean, if the writing's no good in a free book, why would anyone expect a reader will think, "Well, I really didn't like that at all, but I'm gonna go ahead and get the other one, even though I have to pay for it this time."
Readers don't do that. People don't do that, because people avoid pain.
So the expectation is simple - a good free book might prompt someone to buy a book by the same author.
Whether that has any play in it ... well, that's another thing.
But I'm going to find out.
First, I'm assuming Glass House is good enough that at least some people might want to pay a buck to buy another of my books. I'm not stating that an absolute truth, mind you; I'm just assuming it for the test here (I figure if people don't like it, I'll hear that in the end, too).
Second, over the past couple weeks, I've reset the price for Glass House to free, and it's finally pushed out to all major sellers - B&N, Apple, Sony, and about an hour and a half ago, Amazon (a task that takes some discussion board friends and some finger crossing, as many of you out there know). Basically, that means it's free across probably 99 percent of the available sales volumes.
The book's cousin - and I say "cousin" because they sit side by side in my discussion board signatures and on my Goodreads page and have been out for close to the same amount of time and are both thrillers - is Omicron, and it's out there, too.
Will sales of Omicron increase as people pick up Glass House for free, (hopefully) read it and enjoy it, and look for another book to read?
I'll keep you posted....
I've no idea, of course. My common sense tells me it will, at least if the writing is any good. I mean, if the writing's no good in a free book, why would anyone expect a reader will think, "Well, I really didn't like that at all, but I'm gonna go ahead and get the other one, even though I have to pay for it this time."
Readers don't do that. People don't do that, because people avoid pain.
So the expectation is simple - a good free book might prompt someone to buy a book by the same author.
Whether that has any play in it ... well, that's another thing.
But I'm going to find out.
First, I'm assuming Glass House is good enough that at least some people might want to pay a buck to buy another of my books. I'm not stating that an absolute truth, mind you; I'm just assuming it for the test here (I figure if people don't like it, I'll hear that in the end, too).
Second, over the past couple weeks, I've reset the price for Glass House to free, and it's finally pushed out to all major sellers - B&N, Apple, Sony, and about an hour and a half ago, Amazon (a task that takes some discussion board friends and some finger crossing, as many of you out there know). Basically, that means it's free across probably 99 percent of the available sales volumes.
The book's cousin - and I say "cousin" because they sit side by side in my discussion board signatures and on my Goodreads page and have been out for close to the same amount of time and are both thrillers - is Omicron, and it's out there, too.
Will sales of Omicron increase as people pick up Glass House for free, (hopefully) read it and enjoy it, and look for another book to read?
I'll keep you posted....
