James Patterson. It pisses his fans off like crazy. He has some books where the first part of it is free and if you want to see how it ends, you have to buy it then. Marketing wise, seems less risky for readers, but they didnt seem to like it.
Oh, I don't know...Alex Cross, Run by him has the first 19 chapters free. That free book has 188 reviews. 125 are 5 star. 44 are 4 star. Only 3 are 1 star. Seems people liked it pretty darn well.
http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Preview-First-Chapters-ebook/dp/B00A6ICOWS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1362837886&sr=1-1&keywords=james+patterson
Look, it SAYS "FREE PRVIEW". If readers don't want to read the free preview, why do they have to feel obligated to download and then bitch that he gave them a free preview? Seriously, I could see why it would p*ss off readers if they didn't know it wasn't a complete book, but when it says exactly what it is, I think it is a great marketing tool. Either people want to download it or they don't. There is no trickery here.
If you write a series and every book is long, AND you want to charge a fair price for each novel, this is a great way for people to really get a feel for your writing style and the storyline. I know one author on here who is doing this and seeing some success. I'm thinking about it.
For example, my first Gastien book is about 148,000 words. I have toyed with the idea of doing the first 60,000 free. How is that "ripping people off" or "tricking them" if I call it a FREE sample? Wouldn't if be more of a considerate offering, since people will be inversting time and money in a series? If they think the book might be interesting, aren't I savng them $4.99 by letting them read the first 60,000 if they don't like my writing or the story? I would say it puts me at a bigger disadvantage than the reader. They have to invest nothing for 60,000 words. If they DO like it (and I'm betting they will, if I do this) then they will also feel it is actually worth paying $4.99 for. Much less than a good beer or a movie ticket. By doing it, I would be saying "I think my work is worth at least what I charge, and I'm willing to risk you reading almost half the first book to prove it." I don't know that I will do it because of the changes with free books now, but I can see it has value.
It's no more manipulative than making the first book of a series permafree, hoping to hook readers into buying the rest. It's called marketing, not deception. No one puts a gun to readers heads to download a free sample or a free book.
And, yeah, if I liked the free sample of a book enough, I would pay full price to finish the book. Some readers will always bitch no matter what an author does. As we've all said before, you can't please everyone. I think the secret to this is saying it is a sample.