Giving it Away Again or...FREE

I will be doing it again. Mica Highways my third novel (Southern Mystery) is the story of an African American  man and a woman in 1968 who are murdered for having a relationship and will go on FREE kindle download November 19-23. This novel is the follow up book to Tobacco Sticks that was on free download before and while I understand the logic behind these giveaways they are hard to get used too. Why in the world would you give something away to sell more?

But that is the new marketing. Read it to sell it and of course this is only possible with the ebook because a publisher would go broke doing this with a real book. But of course the big publishers do give them away. They give away a thousand copies and more to create buzz for their lead titles. For their smaller titles maybe twenty ARCS (advanced reader copies) And these publishers knew then that if they flood the booksellers with comp copies the booksellers  will read it and recommend the book.

Now take the new modality. You allow people to download as much as they want of a book for a restricted time period say five days. On Tobacco Sticks 31,000 people downloaded the book. Staggering. That many people got the book for free. Is there anyone left who will pay to download the book? Maybe.

But that is what is now. Free to sell. Crazy world we live in.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
Mica Highways
 

The Theory Behind Giving a Book Away

I have another book on Free promotion Tobacco Sticks  and it  is tough at first to get your hands around the whole idea. It really goes against everything you were ever taught. Work equals result equals pay. This is the way we conduct our lives. We go to work and then we expect pay. But now there is a new paradyme. Work and then give it away in hopes that down the road someone will pay for something. It is strange at first.

Lets compare it to crabbing. You drag bait through the water and bring the crab in and then you net him. This works because the crab is busy with your fish head or whatever and doesn't see the net. And so you have him by giving away some bait. Not so different with books. You get someone to read your book and hopefully they are so taken they click on the link in the back and pay for your next book. This then is the theory.

Of course the problem is a lot of people download and don't read. They just build their library. Or they read and figure they will wait for the next freebie. Or they read and don't like it. Or they read and like it but still don't buy. So it is a gamble.

But like crabbing you never know until  you throw out your bait. The trick is to net them when they aren't looking.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The PItcher