Thursday 2 February 2012

Free Books on Kindle - good marketing or not?

Good morning everyone:

There's a controversy going round now among writers about free books.  Some claim a free give away is an excellent marketing tool, other writers say it devalues their work.

If you are published on Kindle/Amazon, you have the option of taking part in the KDP select program.  The upside of this program is the free library lending.  I've a huge supporter of libraries and shudder to think what my life would now be like without all those books I read from a very young age that taught me about life. 

The downside of the KDP Select program is that if you opt to join, you agree to your books being given away for five days during a three month period.  If you want to know more about how this program works, please check out Amazon's website as I'm only providing a rough sketch of how it works.

My question is for those writers who have opted to join this program, what's your experience?  Is it a good marketing tool or do you believe it devalues your work?

2 comments:

  1. Not sure if it's a success quite yet but I DO know that for the first time, one of my books is ranked # 27th in Literary Fiction and I am sharing the same page as Jodi Picoult.

    IN theory I have heard that one's sales see a spike post-freebie offer so we shall see..... today is the final day of my three day offer. So far I have had 135 downloads of the book. Now if they pass the word and I make even half of that in sales it would seem worth it (to me) I'll be reporting progress on my blog if anyone is interested www.whatbrickwall.blogspot.com/

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  2. Wow, very impressive - 27th in Literary Fiction, sharing with Jodi Picoult. Thanks for sharing, I will definitely drop by your blog to see how it goes. Cheers, Hank

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