Do You Read Free Books? Do You Rate Them?
If you are a reader who downloads free books from Amazon and other sites, how often do you (1) actually READ those books, and (2) provide a review for them?
Myself, I'm making more of a concerted effort to get through the books I download for free - whether that's through a Kindle promotion or Kindle Unlimited. I'm pretty much only putting together full-fledged reviews of the books that I get on NetGalley these days unless it was something that I absolutely loved, but at the bare minimum I am taking the time to rate these free books on Goodreads. I know it's not a huge help to the author to just get a star rating, but I do want them to know that their promotions are working in some capacity.
As an author, when I see that 1200 people downloaded A Time Apart, for example, and then I get zero reviews for it, I have to wonder if it was ever even opened. One of the big "benefits" of something like the KDP Select program is those free promotion days, but is it all that beneficial if (1) you don't actually make anything from it, and (2) your book never actually gets read. This is something I'm struggling with as my exclusivity period will be up on a couple of my titles in a handful of weeks. Do I continue with KDP, or do I branch out to iBooks and Barnes & Noble? My downloads from KU are pretty steady, but are they enough to justify locking myself out of that potential market?
I'm not sure what the right answer is.
Myself, I'm making more of a concerted effort to get through the books I download for free - whether that's through a Kindle promotion or Kindle Unlimited. I'm pretty much only putting together full-fledged reviews of the books that I get on NetGalley these days unless it was something that I absolutely loved, but at the bare minimum I am taking the time to rate these free books on Goodreads. I know it's not a huge help to the author to just get a star rating, but I do want them to know that their promotions are working in some capacity.
As an author, when I see that 1200 people downloaded A Time Apart, for example, and then I get zero reviews for it, I have to wonder if it was ever even opened. One of the big "benefits" of something like the KDP Select program is those free promotion days, but is it all that beneficial if (1) you don't actually make anything from it, and (2) your book never actually gets read. This is something I'm struggling with as my exclusivity period will be up on a couple of my titles in a handful of weeks. Do I continue with KDP, or do I branch out to iBooks and Barnes & Noble? My downloads from KU are pretty steady, but are they enough to justify locking myself out of that potential market?
I'm not sure what the right answer is.
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