There have been many articles written about whether or not
an author should put their book on sale for free. These sales are usually set
for 1 to 5 days. Writing a book is not as easy as it might sound. First, you
have to come up with a story idea. Then there are the characters involved, and
even figuring out the character names can be difficult. You also need to find a way to keep the
reader interested. In many cases, there is research involved, and that can take
days or even weeks before even one word is written.
It took me a year to write each of my novels. I don’t feel
there is a particular time limit for any story. I’m sure there are some that
could be written relatively quickly, while others need a lot more time. I fall
into the slow category, and I’m fine with that.
But no matter the time or work that has gone into a novel, should it
ever be given away for free?
Last December, when I had only one novel out, I decided to
give it a try. I hadn’t done any research on it or read any articles, but I had
noticed that some authors were doing freebies here and there. I was more
curious than anything what would happen. I was selling books every month, but certainly
not many. To my surprise, there were almost 1900 downloads of A Life Unplanned.
I was stunned, never dreaming I would reach numbers that high. Being a debut
novel and an unknown author, it didn’t occur to me anyone would particularly
care. After the freebie promotion, my sales went back to normal with nothing in
the way of increases. I considered the experience a way of getting my name out
there so that perhaps when more books came out, some of those readers would
remember me.
Then I came across a discussion board talking about this
very thing. I was disheartened to read that most people who take advantage of a
free book don’t actually read the book—they just like getting something for
free. That thought never entered my
mind, but since my numbers were not changing, I felt it had to be true. I had
decided then and there to never do a free promo again.
My second novel, A Life Well Loved , came out in July of
this year. Sales were about the same as with my first, but I’m still new with
only 2 books to my name, so I wasn’t
surprised or even disappointed. It’s going to take a lot more time for
people to get to know me and my style of writing. I never went into this
expecting to sell thousands of books, although I wouldn’t turn it down! I can’t
really say why, but I made the decision earlier this month to do a free
promotion for both of my books at the same time. I wasn’t
really curious about the outcome, but I felt it would be a good way to
get my name and brand out there, and maybe this time at least some would
actually read my books. I couldn’t have
been more amazed to find almost 2800 downloads occurred over a 5-day period.
Maybe to some that is not considered a lot, but for me, I was elated. On top of
that, people were reading! My Kindle
Direct Publishing account now provides a graph, showing how many pages of your
books are being read.
For the past 9 days, there have been over 1000 pages read
almost each day. Since the freebie sale ended, I have also shown sales almost every
day. Again, it’s not a lot of sales, but people are buying and reading.
