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Giving away free ebooks – controversial among publishers
January 23, 2010 | 10:49 am
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By Paul Biba
The New York Times has an article about how some publishers are giving away free ebooks in order to build an audience for an author. The number 1 and 2 slots on the Kindle best-seller list this week were taken by such books.
Harlequin, Random House, HarperCollins and Scholastic are doing this, especially when it comes to series works. On the other hand, some publishers descry the practice. Hachette and Penguin feel that this practice is illogical and devalues the value of books.
Thanks to Raymond for the heads up.
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Comments:
And as usual, not one word about Baen, who has been giving e-books away free for over ten years and who the New York Times itself covered for doing so back in 2001.
Well Hachette and Penguin are right – it does devalue that book. I won’t pay Baen for a book that is in their Free Library (except as part of a Webscription). However that being said, I have completely lost track of how much money I have spent at WebScriptions but do know that it’s a lot, and conversely I can’t remember the last time I purchased a Hachette or Penguin book in either e or p.
So I think Hachette and Penguin have forgetten that it’s about getting a customer and not about selling a book.
Hachette and Penguin are 100% right…
…if by “book” you mean dead tree pulp.
If you consider the publisher’s job to move bound paper bundles then giving them away is clearly a “bad” thing.
Or, if the market for your product is fixed and finite; if your product has total and absolute visibility, then every single copy you give away is a lost sale because if if you wait lobg enough, everybody who could possible want to buy the product wil guy itvon *your* terms. It’s not as if they have a choice, right? It’s as of they can possibly spend the money on something else.
Now, if you consider the publisher’s job is to make money for themselves and their authors by distributing information and building their authors’ “brand” and find markets for their licensed content, well, then free books are “merely” the most effective marketting tool out there.
If you have a quality product for sale, judicious use of free samples can bring in significant exposure and word-of-mouth promotional value, the newly-rediscovered/renamed “viral marketting”. If your product is substandard and you know it, you know no amount of promotion will move it. Which is why folks who trust their product are willing to help it find its own audience with the occassional promo.
It all comes down to knowing what business you’re in and what your own value-add is. And whether you value total profit over margin. It sort-of helps to know some basic economics…
To a lesser degree, it also helps a bit to know what century you live in.
Once all the world’s media is digitized and available electronically the value of individual units is vastly less than traditional publishing houses believe.
Skeptical on Penguin & Hachette’s point of view.
I read that free e-book by Terry Brooks when I first got my Kindle. “Magic Kingdom for Sale” or whatever. I didn’t care for the story that much, but learned that I like Terry Brooks’ writing a great deal. Bought “The Sword of Shannara” in paperback for my niece, and will buy the e-book from Amazon for myself when I’m ready to read it. I can say that about a few free titles I’ve read. I know “The Sword” has been out forever. I just never wanted to risk it. So the ‘free book intro’ theory worked on me.
Maybe Penguin and Hachette aren’t very convinced that we’ll like their authors. Like the Hollywood studios knowing they have to make their money on opening weekend of a dog of a motion picture, because once word gets out, *no one* will go see it. If I were one of their authors my feelings might be hurt.
Everyone loves free and promotion can work, so what’s the problem. As I see it (and I do free book promotions so I’m not against them, just cautious), there are several risks. First, there’s the notion that eBooks are inferior so they can be given away to stimulate paper book sales. I’m not seeing as much of this logic lately, now that it’s becoming clear to a vastly larger group of consumers that eBooks are not inferior. Second, there’s the fear that giving away eBooks will create a customer expectation that eBooks SHOULD be free. This expectation is highly dangerous, at least for publishers who want to provide a rewarding experience for their authors and editors. Just as some publishers have pushed back against Amazon’s $9.99 pricing (and their recent decision to change royalties to publishers who adjust to Amazon’s proposed pricing shows this fear is not irrational), it’s also rational to wonder whether eBook give-aways cheapen the book.
Rob Preece
Publisher
Back when Tor.com was sending out a free ebook every week, I read one of the books, from an author I had never heard of… and then immediately bought the other nine books in the series. They didn’t even lose any money from me by giving away that first book, because I didn’t even know it existed.
So Rob, does selling books for a buck cheapen the book? Where do you draw the line? While it’s all anecdotal, Eric Flint argues that the Baen free library improves the paper book sales of the books in the library, as well as improving the general sales of the author. Free ebooks probably doesn’t work for a author without a backlist, but free samples works in all sorts of markets, including ebooks.