How Can a Small Publisher Offer Free eBooks on Kindle?

I would think that it'd actually be a little easier for a tiny publisher since they don't have nearly as many operating costs.
Basically, it serves as a way to get your name and reputation out there so people start recognizing you.

Then once you have a basic customer base, you can start charging a bit more to help sustain operations and hopefully generate some growth.

Did that make sense?

Hey Kitoha. I don't know if it's different for small presses but individual self-publishing authors can't make their books free for Kindle. $0.99 is the lowest we can price them. You can, however, make them available for free on SmashWords and that may help you get some word of mouth going.

If you're a small publisher with, say, 20 books, that might give you enough leverage to negotiate directly with Amazon. You could try?

nomesque said:

If you're a small publisher with, say, 20 books, that might give you enough leverage to negotiate directly with Amazon. You could try?

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I asked them to make Survival Instinct, my full length thriller, free and I have 12 separate uploads with 3 more to upload this weekend, but they said no, so I doubt having 20 will carry much weight.

The best idea would be to offer the book on Smashwords. That way it goes free to Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel and Apple. And you can advertise the free kindle version on Kindle Boards and Amazon.

Todd Young said:

The best idea would be to offer the book on Smashwords. That way it goes free to Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel and Apple. And you can advertise the free kindle version on Kindle Boards and Amazon.

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The problem I see, is that if you only want to run it for say a month, It can take forever to change your price with B&N etc through Smashwords. If Amazon have price matched at free, I would think it would create a chicken and egg scenario, with both sating the other have it free. Maybe I am wrong. Anyone had this situation?

nomesque said:

If you're a small publisher with, say, 20 books, that might give you enough leverage to negotiate directly with Amazon. You could try?

Click to expand...

I'd guess you'd need closer to 100 books for them to really care. Either that or have a number of proven best sellers working with you. If you've got 40,000 sales a month under your imprint they'll probably play ball. That's just a guess. If anyone has a better answer I'd love to hear it.