Within aĭay, there were 30,000 downloads from my site (and those downloaders License that encouraged my readers to copy it far and wide. Was published by Tor Books in January 2003, I also put the entireĮlectronic text of the novel on the Internet under a Creative Commons Published in Forbes Magazine, Dec 1, 2006)īeen giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy I did not sell more copies of the book (it was out of print) but the additional traffic got my name out there, and purchases of my second book increased significantly.īottom line: People like getting things for free. After posting it, traffic to my blog increased ten-fold. Martin's, so, like Cory's book, it had a pedigree. Nonetheless, Cory had an interesting approach, so I decided to try it myself.įollowing Cory's lead, I placed the entire first edition of my medical book on my blog Onward Through the Fog. He had an advantage over self-publishers in that his book had already been picked up by Tor, which provided a pedigree. But, unlike the current practice of using Amazon - where your book will be forced to compete against thousands of other free books - Cory gave his book away through his website.
Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow was one of the first authors to give his book away. With giving it away becoming increasingly costly (while producing fewer sales) it is no wonder authors are beginning to doubt the wisdom of the strategy. (There are also free promotional services, but, increasingly, the trend is to charge.) The enormous range of free books on Amazon means competition is fierce. The result is a cottage industry of services that will, for a small fee, advertise your free book. And, Amazon's KDP platform has become the vehicle of choice for book freebies. Since this article (below) was published, it has become standard practice to give away ebooks, especially those that are self-published.
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