Free! How to make money with free books

On one of my writing loops, someone recently said, “Free is the new 99¢.” It’s true. Just months ago, a writer would put a book up for 99¢ to use as a loss leader. Often people would buy it and then buy the writer’s other books. Some writers put all their books up for 99¢ – and they would all be bestsellers. It worked so well that a lot more writers started to do it…and the 99¢ books didn’t stand out as much. To get their books noticed, quite a few authors put their books up for free.

I know a little about it, because I did it with one of my Kindle Select books. Two other authors also put their books up for free, and allowed me to share their experience. Here’s Christy Hayes with comments she made on a group we both belong to (in response to posts about free books hurting all authors):

Dodge the Bullet is one of six I have on Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords. It wasn’t selling and since I put it free, it gets thousands of downloads per month, which has led to increased sales of my other books. I can directly attribute sales from the free book to the others. Believe me, pulling the trigger and putting it up for free was not something I did easily. The decision to do so has paid off.

I consider making a book free just one of the many business decisions I now make as a business person. I’m glad I have that option. I don’t think we can make decisions about our work in terms of what will happen to the work of other authors. All we can do is try to forge the best business plan for each of our small businesses. I appreciate that others have different opinions about this subject.

This is from Dale Mayer on her free Kindle Select with two books:

I’ve put two different books up for free at this time. My purposes were twofold. To get my name out to new readers who might take a chance on a new writer by offering my work for free and to drive sales of my books in that genre. As I have 3 career books up, I opted to put the one that was selling the least, Career Essentials: The Interview for free. I gave away close to 5,000 copies.

Since then the sales of that book have picked up as well as the sales of the other books in the series. I also write adult and YA fiction. I’m unknown in YA fiction and have 3 nonrelated books published in this genre. Again I chose the one that was selling the least and put Vampire in Denial up for free. During the time it was free, I gave away over 3300 copies (it was on for 3 days only). I made a few sales with the other books, and now it’s a wait and see as to whether Vampire in Denial will show an increase in sales. The YA book is book 1 of a series, with book 2 coming out in the next couple of months. I may put it back on for free when the second in the series comes out. There was also a nice bump in the printed book sales with the nonfiction free experiment. None was seen yet in the Ya book going free.

Would I repeat this experiment? Yes, but only if I have other books to promote in the same genre.

Here’s my experience:

I had put Cattitude in the Kindle Select Program – and a week later was sorry. It wasn’t selling well and no books were being borrowed. I’d lost 30 reviews with a 4.5 rating on Barnes&Noble by going into Select, and now my Kindle sales were sad. So, though I already agreed with Dale about having other books to promote in the same genre, I felt I had nothing to lose. (I do have other paranormal romances, but nothing is like Cattitude.) I put it free for 3 days, from Jan. 1-3. In those 3 days, more than 6000 copies were downloaded. In addition, all my books sold more. On the 4th, Cattitude went back to paid, and I sold over 60 copies through the 7th.

I’ve already gotten 12 new reviews and I have new newsletter subscribers. It was worth doing for the newsletter subscribers alone. Plus, all my books are still selling more, and I’m sure only a small percentage of the downloaded copies have been read yet. I hope to get more fans and more sales. If I’d had a series or similar books out, I believe the benefit would’ve been greater.

Here’s advice on making your books free from multi-published Jana DeLeon.

I agree that it’s one of the many strategies to get readers that’s available, but how to some justify making the ONLY book they have out free? I see it – every single day. There is simply NO point in drawing readers to you if you have no other product to offer. I’d advise a minimum of five books available, if they’re short, before making one free. At least three full-length. And it’s always better if they’re connected in some way.

When I asked Jana’s permission to include this, she said: “I gave that information not so much from an author perspective but as a former CFO. Assessing the bottom line is something I did for 20 years before becoming a writer.”

I agree with Jana. I started a new series and plan on publishing 2 books at the same time, with the first one free – but only for 2 or 3 days. Just long enough to let readers know it’s out there and to get reviews.

If you’ve put books up for free, I’d love to hear about your experience.

1. Rin says:

   January 16, 2012 at 6:51 pm

   Still going through the traditional route over here, but I love all this advice! Kudos to those authors who chose to make their books free (I agree, it sounds like a great way to put your books out there for people to notice), and thank you for telling us about it!
2. Edie Ramer says:

   January 16, 2012 at 7:10 pm

   Rin, my pleasure. It’s great to have all these different options.