Giving Away Books For Free?
Giving away books for free to increase sales seems counter-intuitive, and maybe it is. After all, why would you buy something when you can get it for free? However, there is sense to it. When you have a product that is so low in demand, giving it away for free is a great way to boost demand. By boosting demand, you are reaching a wider audience and more potential buyers. In fact, think of it in this way: say you have a book, and you’re not a popular author. Without any marketing campaign to back you up, you may end up selling 1,000 copies.
However, lets say you also make that book available for free. By using a file sharing service, such as Pirate Bay, you are instantly reaching millions of people. Since your book is free, the only burden is downloading it. As a result, say 10,000 people download and read it. If it’s good, those 10,000 each tell two other people. Before long, your book has been downloaded tens of thousands of times. Of those, maybe only 5% will buy it. After 100,000 downloads, you’ve sold 5,000 copies whereas before you would’ve sold 1,000.
So there is economic sense to it, although it still relies on your book being good. In fact, it may even be worth doing it with the Young Writers Literary Journal.
Anyhow, if you’re interested in reading more about this, check out:
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