Okay, I need to work on my clickbait titles. Anyway, I understand it's not uncommon for authors to put out a short(er) story for free so they can get their name out there, and get eyes on their main book. I'm now doing that too because I stumbled onto an easy-ish story to write. It's not done yet, but of course I already have questions. I was planning to just put it out in e-book format, but it's starting to bloat into something that might be big enough to print. Do I? I mean, in a print-on-demand scenario it seems impossible to offer anything for free. Somebody's gotta cover the printing cost, and it's definitely not going to be Amazon, right? Aside from the quality of the story, what are the practical pitfalls for giving away a promo-story?
Scott Sigler gave away several of his stories on podible, I think been a while, in a serial format of a chapter a week. He wound up getting a publishing contract by building his fan base that way.
if you're self publishing a common tactic is to have two freebies ebooks- one perma free on amazon etc (referred to as the funnel) and another freebie which is given away in exchange for signing up to your mailing list (known as the magnet) the issue with the two freebies approach is that you can fill your list with leeches who only want free stuff.. i prefer the approach of selling the funnel for 99c ... that said i got disenchanted with mailing list marketing, you have to pt a lot of effort in to do it well, and i read a hell of a lot myself and I've never bought a book as a result of an email. I tend to prefer to spend my time on direct sales advertising if you are seeking a trad deal the serialisation approach might be better, but there's a lot of people doing it so you need luck to stand out
To be honest, I don't think I could get a trad publishing deal. I'm a first timer, I doubt I'd be top pick for anyone who has a pile of authors to choose from. And if I did get one, I'd probably just have a panic attack. "They've got the one book, now how the hell am I going to get them a second?" Curling up into a ball and crying isn't very productive, I hear. My goal is to get read, and I figure putting out a freebie will get my name out there. If someone picks up the free one and likes what they read, they should be more willing to put down a couple of bucks for the actual book, right? So basically I'm just doing the funnel part. I've heard about the mailing lists before, but I don't see myself doing that. I wouldn't know what to tell people. I'm just hobbying around; it's not very interesting to read about how I sat on my ass all day punching a keyboard until I took a break to punch a controller. So, with that in mind, and considering I don't mind losing some time and money (within reason) on the freebie, is it still a reasonable way to get read?
it depends on the genre - some genres theres still good organic reach, others its basically dead... if i don't advertise (action thriller) i get about 50 organic sales in a year... if i do advertise i can get that many in a week (although not every week)... admittedly thats with two novellas and six novels and i get good read through...
I have three books and a short story on Amazon KDP, and every so often I'll will give the short story away (normally $.99) for free. It does tend to spike sales and/or KDP reads of my books, but really only maybe 10% more than usual. Probably doesn't help that my short story is a subgenre of romance (magical realism) that my books don't really fall into.
Eh. 10% is still more than no %. Then again, 10% of 1 is... Not impressive. I'll probably just have to do it for shits & giggles and see what happens.
So much free content is published every day. Probably gonna need something else to distinguish your work in the market place.
I know, and at the risk of being arrogant, I have something distinguishing: Mine will be good. More nuanced: I'm treating my story like I would a book that's supposed to make money. No-stock-photo over, typesetting, quality writing (relatively speaking). That should thin out the free-book herd. I'm quite confident there are better free books out there than mine, but far more worse.
