I recently realized that I haven’t paid it forward in a while now. I will do so with a series of posts running throughout April, dedicated to some of the wonderful people I’ve met along a way. Some are author friends. Others offer services I’ve used and enjoyed. I hope you enjoy this upcoming series of posts.
I start with my author friend Charles E. Yallowitz and his latest news: he just made Beginning of a Hero, the first book in his famous Legends of Windemere series free. As I’ve read it and loved it, I celebrated the news and asked him for a guest post explaining his top 7 reasons for doing so, in his own, inimitable way.
Take it, Charles!
Top 7 List of Reasons to Go Free
Thank you, Nicholas, for helping to spread the word that Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero is now free. This is the first book of my epic fantasy series, which is filled with plenty of action and humor.
Now, several people have asked me why I’m doing this, especially since the book has been around since 2013. My reason is to create a loss leader to create a risk-free opener that will help the rest of the series. Yet, there are other reasons besides this. Here are the top 7 that I assure you are 100%, totally, swear on my left toe true to some extent.
- The #free hashtag looks so pretty on Twitter. Who needs royalties when you can draw people in with one of the most beautiful words in history? Yes, I’m Jewish. Why do you ask?
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You’re addicted to Top 100 lists and the free ones are said to be easier to get onto. Sure, you’ve been there a few times with a new release or during a limited free sale. This is different, though. We’re talking permanent, which means you can become the King of the Mountain. Just can’t afford a crown that doesn’t say Burger King on it.
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People keep asking for free copies of your book. Amazon hates it when you give away free copies of your book. Now everyone is happy and you can go back to your email without fear of breaking someone’s heart.
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Seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Everyone else is doing it and most of them are successful. There are plenty of sites that only promote free books too and you have so many friends joining those. Now, you hate to admit to being on a bandwagon. Though your feet are tired and you could use the ride. Music isn’t half bad either.
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Your spouse saw your Amazon sales page and isn’t happy with your low numbers. A free book with a lot of downloads still counts as high numbers, which will help you the next time you forget to log out on the family computer. Just make sure you don’t make the same mistake with your royalty account.
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So much easier to market it for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and whatever gift-giving events you can think of. It might not be the most romantic gesture and cause a few fights. Still, what are the chances of the receiver checking the price? It isn’t like most of those who get free books write reviews. Oh, I think I made myself cry on that one.
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Great job, Charles. Got a few free ones available myself!
Best wishes, Charles.
By giving away my first book In series I get many more sales of the other three.
Sometimes you can optimise the description of your free book on Amazon so a book gets returned high in the list of search results for books like your book – although you’d have to optimise it for phrases about epic fantasy if you don’t want it sidelined as a sub genre of romance. The Amazon algos are a bit odd like that, pretty much everything was a sub genre of romance last time I looked. Some folks report it gets them more downloads though.
You can also give them the second book in return for mailing list sign up. Then you have a group of people you can tell about your new releases who really want to know, and want to buy them.
Good luck with it, I hope it ‘sells’ well. I’ll be downloading it.
Cheers
MTM
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! If you ever feel like expanding in a guest post, do let me know 🙂
I’d be happy to, ping me an e and let’s set one up. 😉
Working the keywords toward ‘subgenre’ lists is a big thing. Though I’ve noticed that not every one of those has a ‘Free’ version. The more obscure ones seem to only for the Paid books. I’d try a mailing list, but I’m battling time issues enough without adding something like that. Not really sure how to do it, but it looks like it requires a steady schedule and having the time to put something nice together. Also, I’ll admit that I’m not really sure about giving two books away for free. If I do that with the 2nd book then doesn’t that mean people can only get it through the mailing list, so nobody can really stumble onto it? Not to mention that copy wouldn’t be protected and could be shared around the Internet without much worry.
I hear you on the time front. I have taken over a year to set up a mailing list and a proper automated thing that sends out a series of emails when people join. It’s one of those things I’ve been chipping away at since about 2014!
The second book is stored on a site called Bookfunnel, I use a code which expires after a year. I also use a smashwords code sometimes, again one that expires after a year. But to be honest, if someone on my mailing list lends my books to people, which is essentially what they’re doing, I don’t mind. Because the more people read my books, the more will become fans and, hopefully, buy the next one.
At the beginning of my journey, before ‘Fantasy’ became a subgenre of romance, I used to get about 800 people downoading the first book in my series each month, just through optimising the words I used in my product description. I made £200 a month on the back of that in sales of books 2, 3 and 4 – but more of 3 and 4 because some folks did join the mailing list to get 2. Then Amazon changed the algo to give more weight to book sales when people did searches. That meant the genre that shifts the most books, romance, became the top of everything and so now any genre of book you search for will be buried under 100 romance titles which are on top because 1. They’re in KU and 2. They are shifting more copies.
As a result, I earn nothing like £200 a month now, in fact it’s more like £30 on Amazon but I earn stacks more than before from the other sites.
I do also take part in email promos with other authors if I like their books which costs nothing and has definitely helped sales.
I also tell my readers about books 3 and 4 in the series of emails they get after they join my list. I get a fair few follow up sales from those, too.
It sits awkwardly to give my books away free but I’d rather give two away free and earn about £100 a month than go back to earning about £5 a month like I was before.
Cheers
MTM
OK, we’re so setting up that guest post! I’m emailing you now 😀
Got your e. Will reply Thursday if I can. It’s visit the parents day tomorrow.
Cheers
MTM
Super, thanks 🙂
Romance is definitely holding the throne. Erotica and zombies aren’t very far behind. The weird thing is that I’m finding all three sitting within the fantasy lists. Maybe Amazon should find a way to keep things more divided, but I doubt it would work. You have books that can cross genres, which means the mixing is here to stay.
Absolutely, which means the only way it could stop is if Amazon stopped trying to weight everything in favour of KU books and reverted to having search results based purely on keyword positioning … never going to happen.
Cheers
MTM
Probably not. I don’t mind sales and views being added into the mix, but the balance might be lopsided.
Sounds like valid reasons to me. Good luck, Charles!
Thanks. 🙂
Thanks for the post, great timing — getting close to launching a series and thinking to make the first one perma free.
Good luck with the series. I actually started with 99 cents. With the first 9 books out, it made it less of a risk to go perma-free. That’s just me though.
The thought of giving away my work is absolutely horrid. However, I know at some point in the future, I will have to bend.
That’s what happened to me. I made it just over 3 years before I went this route, so I can suck up some of my pride.
Love the blunt honesty of this list! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome. 🙂
Good one Nicholas
Thank you, John! It’s all Charles, of course 🙂
Of course.
Thanks. 😀
Some great reasons and a couple for laughs as well, Charles. I haven’t done the perma free route yet. I’ll be curious to see how it goes for you. Thanks for the #free tips 😀
So far it’s started off with a bang and trailed off. A lot of sites that promote free books require money, which I’m lacking in now. I’ll have to figure out a few tactics beyond Twitter and . . . well, all I have is Twitter now.
I know. It’s kind of hard to pay to give away something free. But hopefully readers will be hooked by the first book and purchase the rest. 🙂
I’m guessing it will take a month or two for that to happen. I got a 4 and 2 star review a day or two after the price change, which was impressive. The 2-star was because I write in present tense, so I’m used to those.
Planning to do the same, Charles,before the release of my third book.
Very cool. Good luck with the free book and the new one.
When does it start on Amazon.au? Still A$3.99 there 😉
I’m not sure. As far as I know, it should have been done already. That’s if it affects foreign sales in the first place. The thing is that the change is done by Amazon after I list my book on Smashwords for Free. So I’m not the one that physically does it and I think the whole thing is automated. I’ll look into if I can change it for foreign sales too.
Thank you for your trouble 🙂
You’re welcome.
All good reasons and I am thinking along the same lines- permafree- everything! Just have to work out how, and then get back to writing and recording audio instead!
The how was the tough part, but not as tough as the waiting. Basically, you sell your book on other sites (Smashwords, Barnes & Noble) for Free. Then you use the ‘report lower price’ link on the Amazon product page to tell Amazon about it. Then you wait for them to do it.
Sorry if that’s not what you meant by ‘working out how’.
It wasn’t what I meant initially, but since you have described the easily possible it will more than suffice! Thank you.
You’re welcome. Good luck. 🙂
Lol, Charles, I’m sold on your seven good reasons and I think I’ll just head off to ye olde Amazon and buy me a lovely free copy of your book 😀
Glad you enjoyed them. Hope you like the book too. 🙂