The Strategic Use of Book Giveaways and How They Can Increase Earnings Potential

Free books
by Patrick Goethe

Do free books hurt authors (or publishers, for that matter)? The short answer is no. For the long answer, keep reading.

FunnelWhat’s Your Funnel?

This is the key question that every strategic author needs to ask. The funnel is the path that readers take from becoming aware of you to becoming a fan.

Giveaways (or freebies) are popular for good reason; they’re a classic, frictionless way to make people aware of your work. Just about every industry has some way of using “free” to their advantage, particularly game, software, and app developers. If you can get a sufficient number of people in the door, and they like your stuff, you can sell them other things once you have some kind of trust or relationship in place.

If you’ve seen the famous Alec Baldwin speech in Glengarry Glen Ross—it’s a favorite of mine—it’s the same idea being expressed. A-I-D-A. First, get people’s attention—whether through an ad, a freebie, traditional media coverage, whatever. That creates interest. And if all goes well, you have desire and action to make a purchase later.

I don’t find it useful to discuss (or demonize) giveaways in the abstract, because unless we can tie it to a particular strategy for a particular author at a particular time, it’s impossible to evaluate it properly. If the giveaway leads to paying fans down the road, it’s smart. If the giveaway leads to no further action, then it should be reconsidered.

I don’t believe that one giveaway leads to an expectation that all of an author’s books will be free. When we get a free cheese cube at the grocery store, we don’t expect to carry away the whole cheese without paying. When we consider ourselves fans of an author, we might expect promotional pricing for buying early, and of course fair pricing in general, but not free stuff forever.

If there is a broader problem with giveaways specifically in the indie author community, it might be that you’re possibly cultivating readers who don’t give a damn about you and are only out for the cheapest read. In other words: giveaways can attract low-quality readers. But they attract high-quality readers, too. This is how business works. Some leads will be good. Other leads will be bad. Business savvy authors learn over time how and where to use the giveaway incentive to increase the high-quality leads and reduce the low-quality leads.

What’s Your Demand Curve?

When I recently interviewed Richard Nash, we discussed how every author has a demand curve. Here’s what he said:

Certain activities you engage in, you may do for free, and certain activities you engage in are going to be very, very expensive. It’s free to walk into the Prada store at Broadway and Prince, but it is extremely expensive to buy a dress. It is less expensive to buy cufflinks or a blouse. It tends to be that most people who go in there buy nothing—which is also true of the Apple store.

Take the novelist and poet Jim Harrison. … I know Grove is always trying to figure out, “How are we going to sell more Jim Harrison copies?” And the answer is: it is really f—g hard to bend a demand curve for somebody who’s been in the culture for thirty years. [You can’t expect] some deus ex machina to descend [and move] the point along the demand curve for Jim Harrison-ness—where there are 20,000 people who want to engage for $15—to where there are suddenly 40,000 people who want to engage.

But the thing is, there are all kinds of other places on the demand curve that are completely underutilized. So in the case of Harrison, I remember several years ago Googling him, and the second entry was a Wine Spectator article, which I read and I discovered that he is an epic gourmand. He has arranged these four-day bacchanalian orgies of food and wine in Florida in the winter with a bunch of food cronies.

If Jim Harrison picked a bottle of wine for you to drink while reading the beginning of his next book, you could get one of those wooden unvarnished boxes, stick the signed hardcover of the book and a little explanatory note from Jim in there, and sell each one of them for three hundred dollars, easy.

You can also have a 99-cent download, and you’re going to get more people to read him. Are you going to cannibalize a little bit of paperback sale? I don’t think so at all, actually. Even if [you do], from a revenue standpoint and from a readership standpoint, both numbers have gone way up.

I’ve been trying to advocate for this with publishers for years, but basically they just don’t seem able to handle it—not at scale. On an ad-hoc basis, you’ll see a few publishers trying a few things.

Fortunately, where publishers mostly fail, indie authors can excel. (And startups and online-based entrepreneurs have figured this all out, by the way.)

The giveaway is one of the more powerful tools in the new author’s arsenal because it’s a way to get attention when you may not have anything else going for you. There is no demand curve for you yet. And especially if you have no publisher backing you, then it’s important to provide social proof to potential readers, or have some way of indicating merit before they’ll invest time or money. (Thus the race for reviews, social media presences, etc—anything that indicates your work deserves attention.)

But should established authors do giveaways? The “permafree” strategy is well-documented as an effective marketing tool—which means you make the first book in a series permanently available for free, as a gateway drug to the rest of your work.

Where I think indie authors run into trouble is when they only have 1 or 2 books to sell, and they have nothing else to offer readers—and even worse, they don’t establish any means to contact the reader in the future (via e-mail newsletter or social media). So there is no funnel or path for readers to follow. It is a dead-end road. The potential fan finishes the book, and then … you lose them. Maybe they’ll find your next book, if and when it comes, maybe not.

The other catch here is that your work has to have quality that matches the expectations of your audience. If it doesn’t, no amount of giveaways help. When the cheese tastes bad, you stop taking the samples.

What About Traditional Publishers?

As Nash points out, some are better than others in thinking more strategically about an author’s demand curve. They occasionally use the power of the giveaway, but more often they use the power of deep discounting. (Some have started their own versions of BookBub!) I do recall one notable experiment when Suze Orman’s newest book was given away in PDF format, right before its official release, in conjunction with an appearance and announcement on Oprah. The next week, the print edition hit the bestseller lists.

Also, while I was at Digital Book World, subscription services were discussed as a way to increase discoverability for authors’ backlist, and to get new attention for old books—an opportunity to build a pipeline of fans.

Better Than Free

Giveaways can be an effective part of a larger content and marketing strategy. Don’t use them without considering your funnel, as well as your demand curve. If you have fans who value your work, they aren’t seeking everything for free—and in fact once you have a fanbase, they’ll be looking for experiences that are much better than a free book. Kevin Kelly commented at length about all the ways you can deliver something that makes it a delight for people to hand over their money.

Rather than pointing the finger at a community that you believe doesn’t value your hard work, ask yourself why what you’re offering doesn’t seem worth paying for. People don’t pay more for something because of a rational explanation (or an abstract complaint that culture costs money). They pay for something because they believe in it.

And if you haven’t seen the Alec Baldwin speech, here you go. (Language not safe for work.)

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32 Comments
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awriterofhistory

Love your funnel – reminds me of my selling days at IBM where the funnel was described as Awareness-Knowledge-Liking-Commitment-Buy. Thanks also for the insights around giveaways.

Frances Caballo

Jane – I love this article. I’ve argued with myself over whether offering my books for free help. I do offer a substantial eBook for Twitter on my website, and I did offer my first book for free in the early months of its release, but that’s all I’ve done. Well, that’s not true. I occasionally sponsor a Goodreads giveaway program. I can see the value of offering the first book in a series for free; I’ve seen romance authors do that. This is definitely a great post that gives me food for thought. I’ll be mentioning it in my podcast.

Roz Morris @Roz_Morris

Hi Jane! Funnily enough, we’re in agreement. Porter’s lovely article actually concentrated on the comments that were provoked when I posted about how authors use free giveaways but don’t measure whether they are working. We ended up having a very lively debate about authors’ value, but my original article encouraged authors to look at whether they were getting good value when they gave a book away – which is what you’re demonstrating here as well.
May I include a link to my original post? https://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/free-book-giveaways-when-do-they-work-when-dont-they/
Many of the authors who responded had found giveaways didn’t work – and this was because it wasn’t a suitable tactic for them. They had too few books, or were in a category where free books get little traction. But I also discussed the situations where free was a good strategy – as indeed we see from Uncle WordPress and Uncle Hootsuite!
Roz

William Ash

But free books are not free books, they are promotional material. It is simply one form of advertising. In this case instead of spending money on an ad, for example, you are spending money on the promotional item. And if you are just giving them away without a plan or goal or strategy, you might as well bury them in the back garden.

I think the fear is a self confidence problem that many artist have– they don’ t value their work and think no one else will. The pernicious idea have come in the self publishing community that reader will not take a “risk” on an unknown author, yet tradition publisher put out debut books buy authors all the time and the price for the new author and Steven King is the same–actually, the King novel maybe cheaper because they have the print volume to discount it.

I think Roz makes a great point in the Porter piece, why the two tier pricing system for indies and traditional? I am starting to think parity or even a little more for indies. But there needs to be a parity in quality and I would say variability in indie titles is higher. That does not mean prices need to be lower, but authors need to improve their books and learn the skills to recognize the deficiencies. We still have a lot to learn from tradition publishers about making quality books–and about promotion.

William Ash

BTW, I find it interesting how the conversation in the indie community is evolving. In the last few years, the tone has become far more sophisticated and nuanced as from topics here and with Porter’s site.

What has not gotten more sophisticate is the autocorrect on my iPad. Sorry for the typos in the first post, and probably this one.

Ernie Zelinski

Here is my take on using books as giveaways. I will not use ebooks as giveaways but I will use print editions. With the right product or service, the more you give away, the more you end up selling. I have now spent approximately $40,000 giving away over 13,000 copies of the print editions my books.

I give my books in many ways. For example, I am attending the San Francisco Writer’s Conference from February 13 to 15. Recently I received a newsletter from the organizers in which they asked for ideas for gifts to give away at the conference. I emailed them and offered them 10 to 20 copies of my “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”, which has just reached the milestone of having made me $1 million in pretax profits. I told them they could give away my million-dollar book in any way they want. They emailed me back and said they would take 20 copies. I have no idea what payback I may receive but I know that giving away over 13,000 copies of my books over the years have added to my success. My books have now sold over 850,000 copies worldwide.

But let me not dwell on my own case because I have one that is much better. A few years ago, Marlo Morgan self-published a book called “Mutant Message Down Under”. Three years later, Morgan had sold 270,000 copies. This is a remarkable figure for any self-published book, but the most extraordinary fact was Morgan had also given away over 90,000 copies of her book in those three years. She donated the copies to prisons, women’s shelters, and other institutions.

Giving away almost 100 copies each day for three years straight is not something even major publishers would consider, but it paid off for Morgan. Her impressive sales were a result of the word-of-mouth advertising generated from the copies she gave away. Better still, when the book finally came to the attention of HarperCollins, the publisher paid Morgan a $1.7 million advance to take over publication of “Mutant Message Down Under”.

Giving away your product or service for free may seem like a silly way to try to make a living. There is no better way to create word of mouth, however, as Marlo Morgan proved. Many people end up buying your product or service after hearing about it from someone. The key is to give your service or product to the influencers of this world. By influencers, I mean the “big mouths” of this world who know a lot of other influential people and will recommend your product or service to everyone they talk to.

One more note: I have given away over 13,000 copies of my book but I will not give anyone a copy of my book who asks for it. That is the last person who I want to give it to. The person expecting a book for free normally has a sense of entitlement and will be much more critical of the book than the person who believes in paying for it.

Ernie J. Zelinski
The Prosperity Guy
“Helping Adventurous Souls Live Prosperous and Free”
Author of the Bestseller “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller “The Joy of Not Working”
(Over 275,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

William Ash

Ernie, but this is anecdotal. I am sure people give away books and see no return. You are writing is a specific genre and topic, which probably lends itself to giveaways. While 13,000 copies seems like a lot, it is just 1.5% of the total distributed. Or to put it a different way, your are giving away 15 books for every thousand. While I applaud your success, most writers are not going to be selling 850,000 copies of their book. When a thousand copy can be a great success for many writers, I would imagine they would want to use or would need to use more than 15 copies as promotional material.

“Mutant Message Down Under” was self-published 15 years ago. It is an outlier. It is one of those books that comes along, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull or Celestine Prophesy, that captures the public imagination and takes off. There is no formula for that kind of success. I enjoyed Bach’s book and it was well crafted, but the other two did not reach fame and fortune because of the quality of the writing–I have read those as well (should I be admitting this?). Certainly, you cannot state that Morgan “proved” that book giveaways are a sure-fire way to success. There are other reasons for the success of that book.

I certainly think using your book as promotional material can be a very important and cost effective method. I become skeptical when pointing to anecdotal evidence of what are outlier examples as to its effectiveness. There seems to much of the “get rich quick schemes” in publishing, especially self publishing. While your success is great, I also think it outside the normal.

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Mickie Kennedy

Jane,

That GGGR speech always makes me cringe…

That aside, your funnel and its rationale is brilliant. There’s indeed nothing better than offering something up front for free, a strategy that works especially well if you have a series of books. If your third book is on its way out, give away the first two for a limited period, and watch as those freebies turn into sales for your third installment.

Of course, as you point out in the first step in the funnel, the key is to build awareness first — and that means advertising, social plugs, and getting some bloggers and journalists on your side.

Great read!

Thanks,
Mickie Kennedy
eReleases
http://www.ereleases.com/hello.html?a=76

Penny Sansevieri

Jane, hi there! I just love, love this piece. I have to say that you’ve got it spot on. I tell authors all the time if you think free isn’t working for you, then you’re doing it wrong. In an age where 4,500 books are published each day you have to find more creative ways to build your tribe, sometimes just one giveaway at a time. I read a book called The Curve: How Smart Companies use Freeloaders to Find Superfans (Nicholas Lovell author) – and it speaks of the same thing. Excellent read btw, I highly recommend it. Giving stuff away has always been a solid strategy for us and we encourage our authors to do the same. Excellent post and great to see you at DBW. I’m off to the SF Writers Conference, hope to see you there!

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