Free ebooks – Good, Bad or Ugly?

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking recently about ebook pricing and, specifically, whether pricing a book at zero is a good approach for authors to take.

I've written a blog post about this which – at risk of sounding like I’m in a therapeutic setting (!) - I thought I'd 'share with the group'.

You can find it at https://angelomarcos.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/free-ebooks-good-bad-or-ugly/

There's been some really interesting debate in the comments section of the blog, so do feel free to add your own views too.

All the best,

Angelo

NB: I'm new to this site so please do let me know if this should be in another section, or if we shouldn't include links to our blogs, or anything else I may not have thought of...! Thanks.

Hi Angelo,

There are several groups specifically for writers to talk about these sorts of questions.
Hobnob with Authors and Writer-readers are two that come to mind, and the core members would relish a real discussion rather than the typical drive-by posting of author publishing notices.

This is not a bad place to post the topic. However, re-iterating some of your thoughts from your blog on the actual thread here is better than just posting a link. Many people won't follow the link and may think your post is mostly self-serving rather than trying to be a conversation starter.

I've not stepped into the ebook waters, so I can't speak on that.

I don't know why an ebook should be priced at $0. I assume we are paying at least for the entertainment or educational value of the words. I do think they shouldn't be priced as high as hard copies based on the higher level of ownership (at least for drm encoded books).

>2 2wonderY:

As ever, thanks for the Librarything advice! I was worried I might be committing some kind of faux-pas posting this here, but thought it would probably be of interest to both authors and readers.

Thanks for letting me know about those others groups, I've posted this topic there instead so hopefully we can have some interesting discussions in those groups about free ebooks.

>3 krazy4katz:

Thanks for responding to my post. It's probably best if I let this thread fade out though, and we can pick up in the 'Writer-reader' or 'Hob nob with authors' groups instead. Hope that's ok.

:-)

Having limited time giveaways and promotions is fine, or if it's the first book in a series and you're hooking a reader with the first one, hoping that they'll pay full price for the rest of the series. I can't see why an author would put time and effort into writing a book and then pricing it at 0 or .99, unless it's for something like the reasons listed above. Personally, I do not see the value in undervaluing your work.

I have also noticed a trend lately and heard comments more than once from people looking to save some money and downloading only free books or very cheaply priced books and they are becoming very dissatisfied with the quality of a lot of them. I believe that if you have a quality product, you deserve to be paid for it.

I'm not sure if this answered your question, but it's the best I can come up with after a long day working and doing mega barn chores. :-)

I admit that I do wait for sales on Amazon. But I pick and choose depending on the reviews, the genre and my previous knowledge of the author. For example, a lot of Pearl S. Buck has been $2-4 recently. I consider that a great deal!

>5 CathyWalker:

Thanks for commenting Cathy. I agree with you that limited time or promotional giveaways are probably most effective in terms of free ebooks, as it there does seem to be an undervaluing element in giving work away. There have been success stories on either side - 'free ebooks leading to eventual success' on one side, and 'only paid ebooks leading to eventual success' on the other - so I suppose its about finding what works for the individual author.

Unfortnuately that's easier said than done (!), so it's always helpful hearing other opinions.

>6 krazy4katz:

Thanks for your response too. I think a lot of people do wait for sales, especially where new authors are concerned just in case they're, well, not very good...!