Free Free Free Blah Blah Blah

The other day Kevin Lucia did a blog post about the constant bombardment of the OH MY GOD MY EBOOK IS FREE TODAY AT AMAZON ORDER IT AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!! you see constantly on Facebook and Twitter. I don't really have much to add to that other than yes, it is troublesome. For newbie writers to grow an audience, how do they find readers? The 99-cent price point is a waste, in my opinion, so obviously the next step is free. But then if readers know you've made your book free once, they might assume you'll make your other books free, and won't buy your stuff. So ... what are you left with (besides, potentially, just being really annoying)?

Anyway, as I discussed recently, I enrolled some books into the Kindle Select Program to test it out. The deal, in case you aren't aware, is making your ebook available exclusively to Amazon for 90 days, in which Amazon Prime members can then "borrow" that book (members can borrow only one ebook a month, and Amazon kicks in a kitty of over $500,000 to the participating writers and averages out that amount to all the borrows at the end of said month). One of the perks, however, is being able to make your ebook free for up to five days. This can have a tremendous impact on your book. In fact, last month it helped my thrillers No Shelter and Man of Wax sell a ton of copies, and brought me even more readers. So I consider it a success.

My point? Well, I had three free days left on No Shelter, two free days left on Man of Wax, so yesterday I made No Shelter free, and today I made Man of Wax free to close out the month. The exclusivity is up at the end of March, and I plan to enter them back into the other stores and see how they do there (my NOOK sales have begun to pick up, and I wonder what having more titles available will do).

Anyway, so I made both ebooks free, and didn't realize until today that making both titles free at the same time might not be a good idea. After all, they had both sneaked into the Free Top 100 at different times, and on its first day No Shelter reached the Top 100, so maybe that would somehow keep Man of Wax out of the Top 100.

Nope. They're both there in the Free Top 100, where they will hopefully stay into tomorrow night when the promotion ends.

And before anyone asks -- no, I have no idea how they got so high up in the ranking. I really didn't do much except mention they were free on Facebook and Twitter, and even then their rankings were pretty high. Maybe they reached the Top 100 because they had been in the Top 100 before, but again, I have no idea how it happened. As with everything, the answer is luck.

However, wherever there is luck, there is also unluck (which I'm saying is a word). For some reason, Amazon is acting up and messing with reviews. I noticed it late last night how some reviews would disappear ... and then reappear a half hour later. I did some quick research and found this was indeed a bug in Amazon's system that they were trying to figure out. Which is all fine and good, but reviews are crucial, especially when a title gets all the way up into the Top 100 where it's most widely seen.

Case in point: before the free promotion today, Man of Wax had 19 reviews, 11 of which were five-star. Then, maybe a half hour ago, I checked the ranking and for some reason saw that Man of Wax now had only 5 reviews: 1 five-star, 1 four-star, and 3 one-star. Obviously I saw this as a problem in regards to finding potential readers. Then again, while the one-star reviews don't help with the algorithm, they do alert potential readers to the fact that the book is indeed dark and disturbing. This is good, because not every reader likes dark and disturbing, so if a reader is turned off by the book based on that one-star review, then that's probably for the best. At least they didn't try reading it and hate it enough to then leave their own one-star review. On the flip side, a one-star review that complains the book is dark and disturbing can actually motivate some readers to download the book, so there's that.

(And then there's the reader who says they loved No Shelter so they tried Man of Wax and thought Man of Wax was awful so they left a one-star review ... despite the fact they didn't leave any review for No Shelter. Say whaaaaat?)

But now I just looked again and all the reviews seem to be restored for Man of Wax, including two additional reviews, bringing it to 21 overall. So there's that. But no telling how long before some of those reviews disappear again.

So again, my point?

Well, that you have one more day to download No Shelter and Man of Wax while they're free. Go grab 'em!

Yes, Man Of Wax Is Disturbing

So I mentioned before how free e-books welcomed one-star reviews, right? Well, Man of Wax just got its first:

I was excited to begin this book as it sounded like it would be different sort of mystery. I prefer mysteries and do not need to tell you that many are very similar. With that said, I read about 15 percent and stopped abruptly when I came to a disturbingly gruesome part. I could not remove this book from my kindle fast enough!

I have to be honest -- I sort of love this review. Yes, Man of Wax is not for all readers. It's disturbing on many levels. In fact, right now it's probably my darkest book. However, the one-star review doesn't play well with Amazon's algorithm, so if you've read Man of Wax and enjoyed it, please considering reviewing it. And if you haven't picked it up yet, I advise you to do so quickly. Like, really quickly.

So E-Far, So E-Good

The free promotion for Man of Wax and Phantom Energy started just this morning, and already Man of Wax has gotten here:

Yes, that's right -- it's in the top 100. After No Shelter had managed to sneak into the top 100 last week, I doubted Man of Wax would be able to replicate the same success. In fact it's done even better. Why? Who knows. There really isn't any rhyme or reason for why a free book is downloaded more than another free book, as far as I can tell, and the only promotion I did was here on this website and links posted on Twitter and Facebook.

As of right now, Man of Wax has been downloaded over 14,000 times since this morning. Phantom Energy? About 150.

Anyway, the inevitable response will be something along the lines of Yeah, that's great and all, but why in the blue blazes are you giving away your stuff for free anyhow?

I was actually asked this question just the other day, and my answer then was the same as it is now: Why not?

If you believe that every free download is a missed sale, you have a lot to learn about the publishing business -- or practically any business. Companies -- such as, you know, publishers -- give away products all the time. Free is always the best form of promotion (which isn't the same as pirating, but that's a whole other discussion for another time ... though I will say that, while I think pirating is wrong, I don't lose sleep over the fact that several of my e-books are currently available on torrent websites).

Of course not every person who downloads the book is actually going to read it, but for the few seconds it took them to download it, they at least saw the cover and title and my name. And who knows, maybe they will read it at some point. Yet out of the 14,000 downloads so far for Man of Wax, how many readers will actually try the book? I'd be happy with even a tenth of that number, but I think that's being too generous. Then again, maybe not. After all, the whole point here is to be read, plus -- wink, wink -- the second book in the trilogy is slated to be released this April ...

The downside of free promotion, however, is that not everyone is going to like whatever it is that's free. This seems to be especially the case with free e-books. In my experience, many one-star reviews are the result of free e-books. It seems readers who don't care for a book they didn't pay anything for find it their duty to tell the world. And you know what? That's okay. No writer's work is ever universally loved.

But you know the massive upside of free promotion, especially at Amazon? The more free downloads, the more your book gets recommended, both during the free promotion ... and even after.

Last year No Shelter sold around 300 copies. That's 300 copies for the entire year of 2011.

After last week's free promotion, No Shelter sold nearly 300 copies in just one day.

Let me repeat that -- No Shelter sold nearly 300 copies in just one day.

So think about that.

And while you're thinking about it, download Man of Wax and Phantom Energy if you haven't done so already. Did I mention they're FREE?

An Encore Of Free

Last week's free promotion of No Shelter and The Dishonored Dead went so well, I decided I wanted to do it again. So for the next several days, the following e-books are free in the Kindle store -- that's right, FREE!

Kindle US / Kindle UK

Kindle US / Kindle UK

Again, these two e-books will be free for the next several days, so please do help spread the word by tweeting it, Facebooking it, Tumblring it, sky-writing it, and, if possible, telepathy-ing it to all your friends and family and neighbors. Thanks, and enjoy.

Buy As Gift

A huge thanks to everyone who's participated so far in the "Give One, Get Two Free" promotion I'm currently running for Man of Wax. The response has been great. As I noted in the initial post, the promotion only applied to Kindle readers, as Barnes & Noble didn't allow e-books to be gifted. Well, that's since changed, and now if you go to the Man of Wax page for Nook, you'll see this:

That's right -- you can now buy and send any Nook e-book as a gift.

Such as, you know, Man of Wax.

So now Nook readers can get in on the fun!