I am getting tired already of these quasi-products being promoted on Amazon as free books when they are just ads. The title of this thread is misleading. This isn't a free book. It's a sample disguised as a full product.
I think it is going to be one of those "to each their own" - I wasn't sure whether I wanted to buy Sanderson's Alloy of Law and so I got the free preview (I think it was the first 5 of 6 chapters) and once I read it I did buy the whole book - so in my case it worked for me.
On the other hand...I tried one of these for a James Patterson book, and decided not to buy. So I guess it could have a negative impact on sales as well.
Bottom line - I find them useful.
Do indies REALLY want the free lists clogged up with trade publishing promoting half-books? None of us here are allowed to do this. yes, the book is labeled as a preview. But guess what? Insofar as visibility and ranking on Amazon, it is being treated as a normal book. It makes me a little sick to my stomach that a trade publishers can now eat up the top spots in the genre free rankings by offering excerpts, thus reducing the visibility of fully written indie books.
I don't see why you say that "we can't do this." I did it for The Crown Tower back when it was self-published. I had the "full book" and a "preview" copy and I did the same tricks to make it permafree as I have done with my short story The Viscount and the Witch. If you want to gripe about something it would be that publishers can "make it free" with no work whatsoever whereas indies have to go through hoops (for permafree) or only get 5 days in 90 via select.
I have nothing but respect for Michael. But you really know better than to pretend this is some "win" where trade publishing is borrowing from indies. It isn't. They are playing the system by taking advantage of an opportunity they have that indies don't. Indies aren't allowed to offer free previews on Amazon, in Select or otherwise. Your publisher is stealing rank on the free lists with a product that isn't even a full book.
We'll have to agree to disagree...I personally think hybrid is the way to go so I plan on having traditional in my "mix" in one way or another. Getting them to adopt "more progressive" strategies has been very difficult, but when they do - I do think it is good for authors.
Again I don't know why you say indies can't do this - I know I did - and it worked well - and one of the reasons why I wanted them to as well. Instead of thinking of it as "stealing a place" think about it from the reader's perspective (where all our eyes should be). Giving them a larger preview (and stopping at a key moment) gives them a no-cost way to give a book a whirl...if they get to the end of the preview, there is little chance (if we did our jobs as writers) to get them to buy.
So instead of thinking about "us" (self) verses "them" traditional. Why not work on getting Amazon to open this up more easily to KDP people? I agree with you that we should both be able to do this with as much ease, but the fact that indies have to jump through hoops to do this seems to be more of a problem with Amazon then the publishers.
