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By David Rothman

Ahead are the five most popular freebie originals at Feedbooks, right now—followed by some commentary. The “most popular” is from last week, not all-time totals.

imageBlack Silk, by Jan Gordon: “Victoria Hudson is 29 and lives in the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone else. She has two great loves in her life — her cat, Mister, and reading books from her used bookstore. She doesn’t see her life changing much in the future. She’s stuck. Until one night when she’s saved from probable danger by a mysterious stranger… A light romance with a paranormal twist.”

imageHow to Disappear Completely, by David Bowick: “Sitting at the top of a Ferris wheel overlooking the Boston skyline, Josh’s life takes an unexpected turn, and things will never be the same. Along with the many surprises on his life’s new path, he’ll come to take life advice from a family of ducks, get in a bloody war with a dog, lose his job over a spilled drink, wake up in the hospital, apply to work at an adult-themed novelty bakery, and find out that people often aren’t what they seem…”

image His Robot Girlfriend, by Wesley Allison: “Mike Smith’s life was crap, living all alone, years after his wife had died and his children had grown up and moved away. Then he saw the commercial for the Daffodil. Far more than other robots, the Daffodil could become anything and everything he wanted it to be. Mike’s life is about to change.” In certain respects this is about a guy with one Stepford Wife, except the tone of the book is sweet—at least from a man’s perspective—rather than spooky. No human was harmed to make the wife.

image Turn the Porn On, by Xavier Leret: “An old man lies dying in a hospital bed. All he wants is for the nurse to turn some porn on. He wants to feel alive just once more before he dies.”

image Uncovered Passion, by Christopher Golliday & Melissa Golliday: “Sasha Verochka is an FSB agent assigned to her first mission. Her mission? Uncovering the motives for why a handsome, former Marine is in Moscow. Being telepathic, she never thought it would be so hard to reveal the truth about Garrick Caldwell. But then again, she’d never experienced desire like this.”

Any patterns here? You bet. Bizarre occurrences and sex, with sci-fi and the paranormal, seem to be the star attractions here—in other words, the stuff of lots and lots of commercial books. I’ll be curious to know if any of these titles get signed up by large publishers. I don’t have the download figures handy—perhaps Hadrien at Feedbooks can fill point us to the stats—but I suspect they’re all or mostly over 10,000.

The issue is whether free downloads will translate into sales. To what extent will the “free” audience overlap with the paying one?

Perhaps Black Silk is at Amazon, but I didn’t spot it. How to Disappear Completely comes in at 58,015 in the Kindle Store; I don’t see it elsewhere at Amazon. His Robot Girlfriend in p-book format has a rank of 4,804,364 and no Kindle edition. I didn’t see Turn the Porn on at Amazon. Did I miss it? Uncovered Passion is 45,379 in the Kindle Store. Would that I have time to check out other stores! Anyone want to fill in the gap?

But who cares about the numbers? Have you read any of these titles? If so, what do you think of them as entertainment and—if applicable—literature?

Update, 7:30: Plugged in the information about the time period of the downloads.

 
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