Do you want to sell more books and increase the value of your eBooks? Give away some of your eBooks!

To many authors, the idea of giving their work away for free is non-productive and not profitable—and possibly some think it devalues the hard work.

Wrong.

Free ACTUALLY makes your work more valuable. As an author, you are a brand. Readers OFTEN buy books from authors THEY trust – giving a person a free book will introduce yourself to the reader.  A great way to create new and exciting fans and build trust.

Until now….you’re invisible. There are millions of potential readers out there who have never heard of you and have never read your stuff.  Give them a reason to discover your work.

Free ebooks makes it possible to reach new readers who would otherwise never take a chance on you. Free enables readers to sample and discover new authors without financial risk.

Recent survey says that nearly 41 times more downloads on average than other e-books when it’s free. This is the power of free. Free drives sampling and discovery.

It’s like trying a free sample of dessert at the grocery store. You try it because it’s free and you like dessert. Once you taste something you love, you want more of it. Some percentage of the tasters become paying customers. Unlike with sample bites of food, readers must sample your entire book to appreciate the full flavor of your luscious literary genius. Partial samples are inadequate. Give them a free meal and then hook them with your awesome sauce.  GIVE TO GET!

Some authors experience different results, however, sometimes  when the first ebook is free authors can get about 67% more income on average than other series.

Despite the proven power of FREE ebooks, very few traditional publishers take advantage of this method. Exploit this advantage while you have it.

Free is no guarantee of best sellers or that you’ll get rich. There’s a glut of high-quality free books. The competition for readers is HUGE.

Free works best in the hands of a skilled writer. Your freebie must be a super-awesome book. Good is not good enough. A mediocre freebie will drive no more conversions to paid readers than a sample of rancid cheese will motivate a grocery store purchase. Longer freebies work better than shorter freebies because the longer the book, the more trust-building time the reader spends immersed in your writing.

Free can work well for standalone titles, too, because once you earn the reader’s awareness and love, they’ll seek out your other books. And, even if you’ll only ever publish one book, free can still work as a temporary promotional tool to ramp up readership, generate word of mouth, and establish your first retailer reviews.

All major e-book retailers allow free e-books. Amazon supports free but with certain limits. If you’re in their KDP Select program, which requires exclusivity, you can only offer your e-book for free for up to five days per quarter. But this isn’t enough time to gain the full advantage of free.  Many author never use this free promotion of Amazon.

To make free work, you want permafree, meaning that your book is free for weeks, months, or years. The best way to do this at Amazon is to opt out of KDP Select, distribute the book everywhere for free, and wait for the Amazon bots to price-match.

Free deserves a spot in your best-practices toolkit. Give it a try!

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Empowered!