[Guest]

What do people think doing this ie. using the second book in a series for freebies and possibly perma-free if you think it's better or has wider appeal (and a cooler cover) than the first? Good idea or terrible?

 

[Greer]

I guess it depends on if you need to have read the first book in order to follow and/or enjoy the second one.

 

[Guest]

I guess it depends on if you need to have read the first book in order to follow and/or enjoy the second one.

Answer would definitely be no although my main concern is that some people might assume it is needed.

 

[Elizabeth Ann West]

My experience is it aggravates readers to get Book 2 for free and pay for Book 1. Most of the time, they will get book 2 for free, watch list Book 1 and wait for that to go free and then the author gets no sale.

Now, I COULD see doing something like $0.99 for Book 1, $2.99 for Book 2 or $2.99 to get Book 1 with Book 2 for free. Especially if you had more books in the series. Then readers are saving $1 and you're only losing out on $.30.

 

[H.M. Ward]

What Elizabeth said - bundle them if you want to offer book 2 for free.

I've tried using book 2 as the loss leader with no luck. And I did an inverted paradigm where each book in the series gets cheaper as you go along. Neither worked very well. Retention ratios were very similar, but over all sales dropped b/c the 1st book cost the most. If that makes sense.

You can boost sales across a series by catching the readers that fell away by offering any of the other books for 99 cents for a short period of time, like a weekend. Promote it, then do it. Bloggers will post it if u give them a heads up.

 

[Guest]

Hmm... how about listing Book 1 as a prequel? It actually kind of is since I wrote Book 2 before it, but then went back and wrote another book set earlier in the MC's life (and published it first).

 

[Elizabeth Ann West]

If it's a series, it's a series. If it's a collection, like different stories in the same story world, then go for it. My question is which book has the strongest writing and story to it? That's the book you want them to sample first as they will be more forgiving if they already love you. LOL.

If that means say prequel then go for it, but in all series, technically book 1 is a prequel to book 2, isn't it?

 

[L.T. Ryan]

If it's a series, it's a series. If it's a collection, like different stories in the same story world, then go for it. My question is which book has the strongest writing and story to it? That's the book you want them to sample first as they will be more forgiving if they already love you. LOL.

If that means say prequel then go for it, but in all series, technically book 1 is a prequel to book 2, isn't it?

I recently price matched my second installment to free in addition to the first. Why? I feel that the writing in the second episode is much stronger than the first. Now the reader gets close to 200 pages of the story for free, and the hook gets set a little bit deeper.

 

[SBJones]

Everyone's mileage will vary, but I made the second book in my trilogy free for a day three times in 2012.  I saw nothing come from it.  There were no immediate sales of book one that was already sold as a discount loss leader and my third book wasn't available yet so no data there.

Several people have reported having sales gains, but I did not.  I would rather just come out with a combined set then try to bait customers into buying the earlier books by offering book two or three for free.

 

[Monique]

Michael Gallagher of FKBT recently wrote an article (a series really) about how he chooses free books to promote. He discusses the downside of going free with books other than the first in a series. I know *lots* of people agree. There are exceptions. I'm happy to have been one, but it's good food for thought.

http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/2013/01/31/how-i-choose-the-books-a-post-for-authors-3/

 

[Guest]

To clarify what I was trying to say, in reality "Book 2" chronically speaking was written before "Book 1", to make a comparison Books 2-X would be like the ASOIAF series while Book 1 would be like if Martin wrote a new book about young Ned and Robert.

 

[JumpingShip]

What do people think doing this ie. using the second book in a series for freebies and possibly perma-free if you think it's better or has wider appeal (and a cooler cover) than the first? Good idea or terrible?

I'm kind of doing that now, only for me, my second book, No Good Deed (NGD) was the first book for a few years--until I wrote a prequel. I had planned on making the prequel the lost leader, but with all the reviews on NGD, it does much better when I make it free versus the prequel. Maybe when reviews catch up or there are enough of them, the prequel will do better as a loss leader, until then, I'm using both, at different times.

 

[Guest]

I'm kind of doing that now, only for me, my second book, No Good Deed (NGD) was the first book for a few years--until I wrote a prequel. I had planned on making the prequel the lost leader, but with all the reviews on NGD, it does much better when I make it free versus the prequel. Maybe when reviews catch up or there are enough of them, the prequel will do better as a loss leader, until then, I'm using both, at different times.

That is actually very similar to my situation since my "Book 2" was written first, although I published the prequel before it.

 

[ElisaBlaisdell]

Well, I just glanced at the fantasy section of Amazon, and I see that Stone of Tears (The Sword of Truth #2) by Terry Goodkind is free today. I couldn't resist picking it up, even if it was #2.

 

[RuthNestvold]

I've had excellent runs when Shadow of Stone was free (Book Two of the Pendragon Chronicles). But I did my best to make it a standalone novel -- and I never really intended to write it in the first place. Yseult is a retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend, with its own complete (and tragic) story arc.

But while I was writing it, I found myself developing fondness for a number of secondary characters, wondering what their stories would be if I ever returned to the world.

But I still don't think I would make Shadow of Stone perma-free, although it's much more accessible than Yseult, since it doesn't have all the Old Irish names and terms that crop up in the beginning of that book. But it's 170,000 words! I'm sorry, something in me just refuses to give all that work away forever.   Instead, I'm working on a prequel that I hope will be good enough to be a loss leader. There are enough neglected stories in the cycle of Arthurian legends, after all.

But by the time I'm done, perma-free won't work either ...

 

[SBJones]

Well, I just glanced at the fantasy section of Amazon, and I see that Stone of Tears (The Sword of Truth #2) by Terry Goodkind is free today. I couldn't resist picking it up, even if it was #2.

Getting people to download it isn't hard. But were you inclined or did you purchase book one?

 

[Ann in Arlington]

Many people who read series are obsessive, even neurotic, about reading in order. So I'd say they're not likely to pick up #2 free unless it looks really good. At which point they'll go look at #1. If it also looks really good they'll probably buy it, depending on the price. If #2 doesn't look really good, though, they won't get it or #1.

If #1 is free and it looks kinda good, they'll probably get it regardless. And then if it turns out to be really good, they'll buy the rest at whatever price. (within reason, of course )

YMMV -- but I've seen many people here mention they feel this way.

 

[Amanda Brice]

YMMV -- but I've seen many people here mention they feel this way.

This. When my second book was in Nook First last year (exclusive to B&N for 30 days in exchange for them actually doing real promo for me -- I had to apply to get into the program because only 4 books are chosen every 2 weeks), I saw this same phenomenon. Yes, I got a lot of sales of the second book (the one Nook was advertising for me), but I also got MORE sales of the first book (without any advertising).

In fact, the day that my second book was front and center in B&N's weekly email to all their customers, I saw a huge spike in sales of both books, and I was actually within maybe 20 books of each other (and both of them sold thousands of copies that day), which to me says that people were seeing the second book listed, then went and bought the first book AND the second book at the same time.

These books do in fact stand alone, but lots of readers are obsessive about wanting to read in order, and I don't blame them. I truly believe you can read them out of order, but it's more fun to read in order because while each plot is self-contained, you'll see character growth and a romantic arc if you read in order.

 

[hs]

As a reader, I've never downloaded a second book for free if I haven't read the first one or it isn't part of a series I was planning to read anyway. I don't want to start a series by reading the second book. But that's just my reading habit.

 

[Peter Salisbury]

What do people think doing this ie. using the second book in a series for freebies and possibly perma-free if you think it's better or has wider appeal (and a cooler cover) than the first? Good idea or terrible?

I succeeded in getting the second book in my series of SF novels price-matched to free in mid-November. Amazon has only made it free in the US so far. Since then the sales of book 1 and book 3 have been roughly equal to each other in a ratio of approx. 1:20 with the perma-free.

My UK sales are always much better than my US sales but making book 2 free in the US has worked quite well for me there. Please note that although these books are a series in the sense that the same technology is used in each one (the fourth is being written now), the first two books can be read completely standalone (characters from the first book appearing only in the last chapter of book 2). Book 3 integrates all characters from the first two books.

Books 1 and 3 are $2.99 each. This is working out much better than when they were all 99 cents and also better than when books 1 and 3 were $2.99 each and book 2 was 99 cents. I don't use Select, so I don't get caught by lurkers waiting for another book to go free. There are so many free books out there that I didn't expect anything dramatic and I'm happy with the results I have had so far.

Good luck with whichever way you decide to go.