Monday, January 20, 2014

Free Dumb? Let’s Try It for (a) B.I.T.

<<free eBook notice at the end of this posting>>

So. I’ve been at this ePublishing thing now for two years. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been meeting my writing and publishing goals (the things I can control.) On the other hand, I am PAINFULLY AWARE of my deficiencies when it comes to self-promoting and marketing. My sales so far amount to less than 2 per month, so one of my new goals is to research what I need to do to PUMP UP THE VOLUME.
I’m done reading, and the one thing that comes closest to guaranteeing me a boost in my sales is: GIVING MY WRITING AWAY FOR FREE.
This seemed totally counterintuitive to me at first, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought about it (I spend entirely too much time thinking), the more sense it made. Here’s the idea:
1.      If you give away your book, more people will read it.
2.     The more people who download it, the higher you go in the volume rankings, which makes your book show up in higher in the searches.
3.     The more people who read your book, the more reviews you’ll get, and getting more reviews will also increase your search ranking.
4.     The more people who read your book, the more likely it will be recommended to others.
5.     People who read your free book (and enjoy it) will now be more likely to pay to read another.
And of course, you can always go back to charging for your book once it’s built up some reviews and recommendations.
Be aware of how alien this is to me. How many of us with a NORMAL job would say: “Hey! I think I’ll go into work today and not charge my employer for my time”? I know I wouldn’t – I’m not into slave labor, and it might even be illegal for my employer to let me do it. Well, my stories take me a lot of TIME (the only truly nonrenewable resource), and as much as I enjoy the creative process, I don’t do it so I can give it away.
Still, I thought it through enough that I’m willing to try it. I’d pick a story, make it FREE at all my retailers, announce it to the world, and study the results to see if it really is as good as they say.
But I can’t do that, because I am being thwarted by vendors who don’t want to give me the FREEdom to set my books FREE.
I publish through 3 venues:
·          Barnes & Noble, which won’t let me price below 99 cents, and I can’t let the list price be greater on B&N than at any other retailer,
·          Amazon (which will only let me make my book FREE for a limited amount of time, and then ONLY if I sign up with Kindle Select, which means I can ONLY sell my book through Amazon.) They also dictate that the price on Amazon not be greater than at my other retailers.
·          Smashwords, which not only allows me to make my book FREE, but encourages it.
So it won’t be the pure give-away that I had hoped. If I want to make a book FREE, it can only be published on Smashwords. If it’s a new book, I’ll have to publish on Smashwords only, then when I’m ready to end the FREE promotion, I can add it to Amazon & Barnes & Noble. A FREE promotion for an eBook I’ve already published will require that I withdraw the book from sale at those two retailers while the promo runs. Hopefully, this will increase my volume and visibility on Smashwords, and eventually bleed over into increased sales on the other two sites via increased word of mouth. Let’s see if it works…
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For the next two weeks, I will be experimenting with the concept of FREE: My story B.I.T. will be withdrawn from Amazon and B&N so it can be FREE at Smashwords at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/134102?ref=notimetothink 
Check it out! Give it a read, and then rate and review it, and tell your friends. Thanx!

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, including:
·          His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY

Connect with him on Facebook at:   http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink

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