To Free or not to Free

     First, I have a little announcement:  If you've been interested in reading Feels Like the First Time but haven't wanted to pay for it, well today is your lucky day! Tomorrow too, actually.  And Saturday.  For the next three days, you can download the book for your Kindle for free. You don't have to be part of Amazon Prime, or "borrow" it, you can have it for keeps, for your very own. 
     At this point, you might be asking why in the world I would want to give my book away for free. I spent five years writing it, a fair amount of money on editing, proofreading, cover design and interior layout, so why would I want to give people a chance to get it gratis? The truth is, I didn't make the decision to make the book free without a lot of thought. The short answer why I decided to do it is: exposure.
     Feels Like the First Time has been out for six weeks now, and I am really, really happy with how things have gone with it. I've been lucky enough to get 17 Five Star reviews on Amazon, and I've sold more copies than I ever thought I would in this short period of time. Still... I have to face facts.  Right now, my book is invisible to 99.9% of the book buying population. Somehow, I've got to find a way to get my book in front of lots of eyes.
     And, oddly enough, the best way to sell a large number of books is to give away a larger amount first.  It works in several ways.  One, if it's a book people like, they will write more reviews (which helps) and tell their friends about the book (which also helps.) Two, and more importantly, if you give away a large amount of books (read: thousands and thousands) you make Amazon's Free Bestseller List, which translates to Amazon's Popularity lists and ultimately brings your book a lot more exposure even after you're not free anymore. 
     If you're like me, you might be thinking "How tough can it be to make a bestseller list when your book is free?"  The answer is, pretty tough.  Every day, there are between four and five thousand (or more) free books available on Amazon.  So, making the Top 100 of that list is no easy task.
     The thing that makes that easier is if you get listed by the big sites that tell people about free books every day, like Pixel of Ink or Free Kindle Books and Tips. Michael Gallagher from that website was kind enough to contact me to let me know that he'll be featuring the book today, which is an awesome start. 
      So, although I have some mixed feelings about giving something away that I have worked so hard on, I think it's necessary.  If you'd like, please download it, or tell your friends so they can download it.  It will be free through Saturday night. 
     If you own a Nook or other e-reader, or no e-reader at all but would still like to get the book for free, you can. The Kindle software is a free download here. Once you download that software, you can read any Kindle book on your PC. There's also Kindle for smart phones and the iPad, and the software is free for all of them. 
     Because I enjoy being transparent about these things, I'll post back here with how it all turns out over the next few days.