In the bad
old days of self-publishing — less than ten years ago, actually — an author
looked at a pile of his or her books and saw dollar signs. Not so much the dollars
the books would bring in the unlikely event they ever sold, but rather the
dollars in outlay they already represented.
Having gone
to a so-called vanity press and shelled out a significant sum of money for a
couple thousand books, the author was beginning deep in the hole, financially
speaking. The mere act of giving away a book to crazy Aunt Kate was painful
because it represented a loss of money already spent and diminished the limited
supply of inventory that could potentially be sold to recover some of the
investment.
Giving away
a bunch of books as free promotions to attract readers? Unthinkable. Might as
well start a fire in the fireplace and start throwing U.S. currency into it.
Only a wealthy author with an outsized ego (do authors have any other kind of
ego?) could even consider it.
Giving Away Pixels
The e-book
revolution and Amazon have changed all that and made free book giveaways a part
of the new author’s marketing strategy. With no ink, paper and shipping costs
to cover, it’s no problem to give your book away, and probably a good idea from
a marketing standpoint. It took me a while to realize that, but now I’ve
embraced it with a vengeance.
When I
published the e-book version of my mystery novel The McHenry Inheritance on Amazon last summer, the outsized-ego
part of me was expecting it to be greeted with a parade and a White House
reception, even as the rational part of me knew that was ridiculous. To the
great American public, I’m just one of thousands, if not millions, of unknown
authors.
I had,
however, signed up for Amazon’s Kindle Select program, which allows authors to
offer the book free five days out of every three months. A couple of
self-published authors I contacted through Twitter recommended doing that. Figuring
it would be worth a try, I put my book up as a free promotion the second day it
was on Amazon, and before I began notifying my friends, who I figure would be
willing to pay the $2.99 it cost otherwise.
On that
first free promotion day, 250 people bought the book, which was a very
respectable showing, and I’ve run several free promotions since.
Establishing What It’s Worth
At this
point, of course, a cynic could argue that all I’ve done is establish what my
book is worth, namely nothing. But I don’t see it that way. As an unknown
author, my first challenge is to find readers and start generating some word of
mouth among those who like the book. If a free promotion gets me a few readers
I otherwise wouldn’t have had, I consider myself ahead. Financially, I’m
certainly not behind.
My thinking
has turned from the original idea of making a little money on the first book to
the notion that the first book is the loss-leader that will set up sales for
the second one. Hence, the more freebies that get snapped up, the better. Last
weekend I did a free promotion day and moved 156 copies.
Who knows
how many of the people getting my book that way are actually reading it? I
suspect that fewer than half will ever so much as start it. But a few who do,
and who like it and tell their friends, can do me a lot of good. My fingers are
crossed.
