What's It All About?

[Justin]

I've come to notice that alot of people here in this group have talked about submitting their works on Smashwords, Createspace, and all those self publishing sites and ive noticed people just saying ask for a copy and ill send it to you which leads me to ask, what are you getting out of it besides the satisfaction of someone reading your book? Isn't it also about the element of having the work out there for purchase?
I suppose if you have written multiple books or are working on more than one book or even the simple fact that you can giveaway copies because you have so much going on that it doesn't matter but nonetheless it gets me curious as to what some peoples ideas are about it. I personally am trying to get my one book out and thats hard enough. Is it a good idea to submit short stories or even make something up quick or to find old works and get em out for people to see and enjoy so that maybe they will look into your other published stuff? Just a thought.

[Cambria]

Authors send out free copies of their book for review by other bloggers/reviewers. It gets word out about the book, about the author and will bring more attention to the book. No one will buy a book if they don't know its there and most usually if they don't hear someone other than the author day its a good book.
Createspace and Smashwords (and the other sites) gives an author many outlets to have their book available. With Smashwords the author can create a code to give a reviewer a free Ecopy to read. BUt the book is also for sale on smashwords so the author can get money from people buying the book. With createspace, you get a paperback version of your book available. People can buy the paperback and using createspace the book will also be available on Amazon for purchase. None of these sites offer a book for free (unless you set the price on smashwords for free) so the benefit to author is making money and making a name for themselves.
Giving out free copies for review is a necessary part of writing especially for first time authors. Word of mouth is one of the best way to sell a book and if no one is reading it and talking about it then the word of mouth won't be there.

[C.S. Splitter]

What Cambria said. It makes good business sense to give out samples. Let people read those and if they like it, they may go buy your other work.

When I listen to experienced authors, and I do, it seems that unless you are lucky enough to be struck by lightning, making money with books has a lot to do with how many books you have out there.

Older authors tend to have a large backlist of books they self pub or put out through indie presses. Each title sells a little and that allows the author to make money.

Having one book out...that's a tough hurdle. Readers like to see that the author has produced more than that. Not fair, just is.

The BEST advertisement is word of mouth. Hopefully, a book gets some buzz and people start recommending it. Bloggers are a HUGE part of that process and will become more and more important as Big Six publishers lose their hold on the market.

I know I have "given away" well over 17,000 books and was glad to do so.

Splitter