Free or Not to Free—THAT is the question

Whether to give a book away is not the ONLY question facing authors who have control over such decisions, but it is one with implications.

When Amazon first made electronic book self-publishing easy, one of the successful promotion strategies was to give away a book—particularly the first book in a series. Readers were just getting used to eBooks and eReaders and getting one of your books into a reader’s hands was a successful strategy for becoming known. In the early days a free promotion could generate tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand downloads.

Fast forward to today and the situation is different. Few people are just now buying their first eReader, so succeeding by getting your book to be one of the first downloaded is like trying to hop on a train roaring down the track at fifty miles-per-hour. Even if they don’t have a dedicated eReader and want to try out eBooks, they can read them on their computer or smart phone.

Readers who want free books have dozens of newsletters to provide them links to free books in the genres they prefer to read. The only way for an author to stand out in a crowd is to pay for promoting his book.

Many voracious readers belong to Amazon Unlimited or other subscription services, where after paying their monthly subscription, it costs them nothing to read their next book—but unlike free promotions, reading those books provide authors compensation.

Lastly, I have an untested suspicion that we have fostered a large group of people who will only read free books (electronic or print from libraries) and will not pay for their pleasure reading. A subset includes people who download stolen books, upon whom I wish the worst of computer viruses. If my primary writing goal was to have people read my books, then free is fine, but I’d like compensation for my writing, which means I need to find readers willing to pay for their reading pleasure.

Before Saturday, I focused on reduced-price promotions of my books. I have had limited success with half-price sales or $0.99 sales of electronic books. Whenever I have promoted a sale, my Kindle Unlimited pages read for all the books in the Seamus McCree series increases significantly. I’ve read anecdotal evidence that the same happens when authors give away a book in their series.

Saturday I began an experiment: I reduced the Kindle eBook price of Ant Farm (Seamus McCree #1) to free for five days (the last day is May 23). I also dropped the price on the second book in the series, Bad Policy, from $3.99 to $2.99. The prices for the other three books in the series remain at $3.99.

I’ve taken out ads, will send out my newsletter, and have written this blog. We’ll see how this works. My hypothesis goes something like this: For every 1,000 downloads, say 10% read the book. Of those, say 10% become fans and read the entire series. At current pricing, it costs them $15 to buy the other four books. Under those assumptions, each 1,000 downloads will result in $150 of sales ($100 of royalties). Plus, I expect I’ll end up with more read Kindle Unlimited pages, and I hope the publicity will spur sales of other books in the series to people who have read and liked some but not been motivated to buy the next in the series.

Regardless of how it works out, one thing I know is that I will not set up free promotions for the later Seamus McCree novels. It’s one thing to give away the first in the series in hopes of attracting new fans; it is quite another thing to set up readers' expectation that if they just wait long enough, they can get all the books for free.

So, if you haven’t read Ant Farm, here is the link to get the Kindle version for free.

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Update on the results after two full days of the free-book promotion:

Over the weekend, ANT FARM had 4,552 Kindle eBook downloads. That was sufficient to drive it to Amazon's #1 free book in both the Suspense and Private Investigator categories. The book also reached #22 in the entire Kindle store! The promotion continues through Wednesday 5/23, so feel free to share the good news so others can discover and enjoy Seamus McCree.

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James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree mystery series. Empty Promises, the fifth novel in the series—this one set in the deep woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—is now available. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Feeding Your Addictions

The psychologists have poo-pooed the idea of an “addictive personality,” but I’m here to tell you that I have one. A “friend” recently introduced me to the Wordscapes app for my phone. (It’s available for Android and iPhone.) It’s been sucking up my time ever since.

Here’s the blurb for the Android app:

This text twist of a word game is tremendous brain challenging fun. Enjoy modern word puzzles with the best of word searching, anagrams, and crosswords!

You’ll never experience a dull moment after you try this addicting word puzzle game! (Emphasis added). Play this crossword puzzle once and just you won’t be able to put it down.

➤ Escape and stimulate your mind by visiting the beautiful destinations of Wordscapes!
➤ Get your word hunt on with over 3,700 cross word puzzles!
➤ Challenge your brain and vocabulary – this crossword puzzle starts easy and becomes challenging fast!
➤ Think you can beat these anagram word puzzles? They start simply but ramp up fast!

Wordscapes is the word hunt game that over 10 million people just can't stop playing! It's a perfect fit for fans of crossword or word anagram games, combining [the] best of word find games and crossword puzzles.

I prefer math games, but saw my friend playing this and thought it looked interesting. I downloaded it, and the rest is addictive history. The game is this: You are provided with a number of letters. (It starts with 5, I’m up to 7 and I don’t know what the upper limit is.) You are given a blank crossword puzzle setup, and the task is to fill in all the entries. (The only clues are the number of spaces.) Sometimes there is a “bonus” word that is separate from the crossword. Those suckers are a problem because the only thing you know is the number of letters and that the word does not appear in the crossword.

There is no time limit or penalty for wrong guesses. The app is free but comes with ads. For $2.99 you can eliminate the ads; I don’t pay for aps (expect birding aps), so I put up with the ads, which don’t last so long as to break my addiction!

Here are a couple of hints for new players. Check in every day and accept the free gift box which often contains coins (see later for coin use). There is a daily puzzle which can earn you extra coins. When you play it (and why not?), try to find answers for the entry that includes a butterfly. You’ll earn extra coins that way.

Coins – currency of the realm. Want a free letter? It will cost you 100 coins. If you are stuck, the first thing to do is rotate the available letters. Often that is enough to find new words. However, if the only missing word is the bonus word, I’ll sometimes buy the first letter. With that, I always find the answer.

So, that’s my current addiction. I invite you to try it out. After all, these games are good for preventing dementia and Alzheimer’s, right?