Is it bad to be free?

When you go to the supermarket, do you shop the sales, or do you buy by brand? If you need a shirt, do you first look to see if it’s on sale somewhere, or do you just go out to your favorite store and buy what you need regardless of the price? If you’re like me, and I imagine, a lot of people are, you first check for sales.

If this is the case, why would anyone ever spend money buying ebooks? There are so many free ones out there in probably the exact genre that you want to read, so why buy a Sherrilyn Kenyon for $7.99 when you can get another paranormal romance from a new author for free? Ok, maybe you love the world Kenyon has created and are dying to find out what happened to Nick, that’s valid. But while you’re at Amazon shelling out all that money for the Kenyon, why not also download a few other books for free? Maybe you’ll discover a new author.

But would you spend money — anywhere from .99 to $2.99 or higher — on an unknown indie author? Maybe not. Millions of people don’t anymore. They don’t have to. Those authors are giving away their books for free. What does that do to all those indie authors who want to get paid for their hard work? Are they going to be able to sell their books if so many other authors are giving their work away?

I certainly can’t take the high road here — I gave away over 1800 copies of Magic In The Storm this past weekend and I’m going to be giving away (hopefully) a lot more on the 23rd and 24th of May. Why? Why am I willing to give away my work and potentially make it so that another author may not sell her book?

I do so with the hope that a number of people who downloaded my book will a) write great reviews about it on Amazon so that others do buy it and b) so that when I come out with my next book, they’ll remember my name and make it an automatic buy.

Is this a bad thing for the market? Maybe. Am I, therefore, not going to do it? No.

I am going to offer my book for free because the reason why I write is to add joy to their lives. Yes, I want to get paid for my work, but even more importantly, I want to transport people into this world that I’ve worked very hard to create, and I want them to dwell there, happily, for a few hours. That’s why I write.

I have no desire to take away another author’s sale, or even my own. But I do want to establish my brand. I do want people to associate my name with good writing and a good read. If I have to give away my work for a few days to achieve that, then I’m going to do it.

What do you think? Are we killing our own market by giving away our work or are we being good business people?