On marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog today, Godin talks about giving away e-books for free, and how it helped him sell his paper book Unleashing the Ideavirus. He explains that his publisher passed on publishing the book after hearing he wanted to give it away free on the net—so he decided to give it away free anyway and see what happened.
A Google search finds more than 200,000 matches for the word ‘ideavirus’, which I made up. Some will ask, “how much money did you make?” And I think a better question is, “how much did it cost you?” How much did it cost you to write the most popular e-book ever and to reach those millions of people and to do a promotion that drove an expensive hardcover to #5 on Amazon and #4 in Japan and led to translation deals in dozens of countries and plenty of speaking gigs?
It cost nothing.
Although Godin does not mention Baen or Cory Doctorow in his entry, this is yet another example of the philosophy of giving away the ebook to sell the p-book proving out—and not just another author, but a man whose entire career is based on an expert understanding of the marketing field saying so. Wouldn’t you think publishers should start listening by now?
The Free Model…
Last week, I blogged about Radiohead’s pay what you want release.
I’d like to explore this idea a little more deeply. After one more reference to the idea of free music, I’d like to talk about free writing.
Now it’s not surpris…