Why Going Free With Your Ebook Still Works
- Jan 2nd, 2015
- by Admin
There was a time, a long time ago (and yes, I’m using an old grandpa voice here) when giving away free ebooks resulted in a spectacular spike in your sales. Correspondingly, one made a whole bunch of money. In the grand scheme of things, this time lasted about as long as a butterfly’s sneeze. Amazon closed the “loophole,” dropped the value of a free ebook download, and ended the binge. Thus, began the bemoaning of authors--to no avail.
All is not lost, however. No, you cannot make a three month’s salary in a few days of a free ebook promotion. But, one of the things that we continually research is what our subscribers (who we call “pack members”) and more importantly, what our prospective pack members search for when they want a new ebook. Far and away, some of the most searched terms are for “free ebooks,” “free Kindle ebooks,” and variations of those with some of the most significant categories such as Contemporary Romance, Mysteries, and Thrillers.
Now, you may say that what people may be searching on the web is not necessarily relevant to you as an author. After all, you aren’t as focused on driving traffic to your website as we at eBookHounds are. You would be correct, in part. It may not be directly relevant, but it absolutely underscores where demand is in the market. Free still (and always will) draw people in.
That is a nice segue to another topic for this blog post. You aren’t using your free ebook promotion to have that ebook come out of the promotion and rocket up the sales charts at Amazon. That doesn’t happen anymore, even when you have tens of thousands of downloads. What you need to contemplate using that promotion for is getting your ebooks in front of thousands of readers. Thousands of readers that otherwise would never had heard of your work. It should also drive home the point that you need multiple ebooks, in multiple series, if you really want to start making money. The one hit wonder with a bestselling ebook that then prompts them to write more is almost like a black swan event. Don’t even consider something like that happening to you. Instead, focus your efforts on getting 3, 4, and 5 ebooks in a series. Then, you can capitalize on the number of products on your shelves with a free ebook promotion.
We’re always here to discuss what we find on the “backend” of our own research and promotions for free ebooks. Contact us anytime at admin@ebookhounds.com and we’ll be happy to share what we discover on a daily basis!
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