[lewaters]

I was thinking about different pricing and promotional tactics and wondered if anyone has found any success with offering their ebooks free for the first month? I've even seen people offer novels free on their websites for the first month before uploading on Amazon or Smashwords. It might pay off for me in the long run since I will have a second book in the series following a month or two behind and two more hopefully within the year. People might be more willing to read a debut author if it's for free and I might generate more interest for the series. Or is it better to start at a low price for the first few months and then offer a free promotional month? I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

 

[39179]

I think different things can work for different authors and other factors, such as genre can play a big part. My advice, though, would be to hold off on the free thing (except for some promotional copies) until you have your other book up. You could start with a low price and see how it goes, with the possibility of doing the free thing when you have another title for the reader to find if they like your first one.

One problem that you can run into with making it free is that lots of people will download it (because it's free) but very few may actually read it - at least not for a long time.

So much is trial and error.

Good luck!

 

[rsullivan9597]

My suggestion is to utilize this strategy when you have a series. The free books lead to paid sales for the other others in the series.  My most recent foray in this was with Leslie Ann Moore's Griffin's Daughter series.  On June 18th I put her first book free and by the end of June it had 41,200 free downloads. Her other two books (priced at $4.95) sold more than 2500 copies.  So far in July there's been another 6,600 freebies and 1,600 paid sales on the other two books - so I consider this a marketing success.

 

[lewaters]

My suggestion is to utilize this strategy when you have a series. The free books lead to paid sales for the other others in the series. My most recent foray in this was with Leslie Ann Moore's Griffin's Daughter series. On June 18th I put her first book free and by the end of June it had 41,200 free downloads. Her other two books (priced at $4.95) sold more than 2500 copies. So far in July there's been another 6,600 freebies and 1,600 paid sales on the other two books - so I consider this a marketing success.

Wow! That is very impressive! Thanks for sharing those numbers with me. Both you and Andrew bring up an excellent strategy to wait until the second book goes out. This is just what I needed.

 

[39179]

I hope it goes well!