Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
The other day I wrote about the new kid on the block: The concept that, by offering something for free, you can make a living. My response: Free isn’t a business plan.
Here’s a case in point. One of my clients talked to a fellow author at the International Christian Retailers Show, who suggested my client offer an MP3 she had created of the first book in a popular series for free on her website. The objective: to win more readers for the series, thereby adding to the author’s client base and increasing sales for the series.
On the surface this sounds like a good idea. But I don’t see it that way. If you offer an entire book on audio for free, how do you make money off that product? You’re taking the chance that enough readers will be converted to the series and buy the other books to make up for what you could have made by selling the audio version.
After much discussion, the author (Robin Jones Gunn) and I came up with a better plan than just offering the audio for free. Robin offered the MP3 for Summer Promise one day–and one day only–in her online store. She orchestrated several layers of promotion to announce to readers the free download. Those who visited the site and downloaded the book received a discount coupon to buy product from the store. In this way, Robin is offering something for free, but it’s for a limited time (which makes it more desirable), is intended to drive additional purchases, adds the incentive to buy via a discount coupon, and will introduce the series to additional readers. You see what I was aiming for? Not just giving an item for free and hoping it would result in sales, but creating a plan to convert a limited, free offer into additional sales and readers.
The bottomline: Free isn’t a business plan.
We see the same concept at work with the Clunkers for Cash program the government is offering. Sure, you get a nice sum of money for turning in your clunker, but you’re taking a higher polluting car off the road, replacing it with a less polluting car that uses less fuel, and stimulating the auto industry. The money for your clunker is “free,” but it results in sales.
A business plan might use a free item to generate income, but it’s not a vague hope that sales will result. It’s a specific plan to bring in buyers and garner dollars (and readers).
Question: What free offers have you taken advantage of that resulted in sales for the person offering the free item?
Actually – one of the examples you gave in your last post: FlickR. I started as a free user but quickly became a pro account holder because the service was very good and the price was reasonable.
I can’t think of any freebies that I’ve taken which lead to a sale, but your post does lay the truth out clearly.
I do think the new book trailers that many authors are using are a good thing. Movies trailers are successful so I think these can be too. We’ve got to come up with new ideas of getting the trailers out to the masses.
Our son says of his dad and I that we are the perfect freebie-advertising targets. My husband brings home food from Costco that he never would have bought otherwise, but he loved the free samples
I’m the same way with books. If something said about a book, say in a blog, intrigues me, I’ll try to find an excerpt of the actual writing. When ABA author (unknown to me) C. M. Mayo described her writing process of a 500-page epic entitled The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, she hooked me by describing “every line of prose polished to shine like the lighthouse in Alexandria.” (And it was!)
For myself, I don’t give away anything but snippets of books I have that are presently in print. However, since I’ve been publishing a long time and own the rights to out of print books, I can post entire chapters or sections online.
However, the freebie I’ve gotten the best response for isn’t actually a part of any book. My two new books are about Mormonism, and I wanted to give readers something unique — and useful. So I have developed “audio postcards.”
A reader of my blog can sign up to receive in his or her email inbox a clickable notice that takes them to a site where they see an actual little postcard with my picture on it. They click on that and can hear my voice giving them a 3-minute, bite-sized hint about “How to Talk to Your Mormon Friend.” The recipient can listen when the notice first arrives or wait weeks to listen to several in a row, if they wish. Or they can opt out automatically (and only one person has done that!)
Sure, it took time to learn how to work Garageband (a podcast generator on Mac) and the technology for the audio postcards and handling a mailing list.
But since I write controversial things, people can hear my voice, see my photo, and see that I am not bitter and have first-person insight.
And then they know who to come to if they want more information….
Latayne C Scott
http://www.latayne.com
I just added another comment to yesterday’s post, but I’ll refine my response here…
I listened to free podcast novels by Mur Lafferty, J.C. Hutchins, and Scott Sigler.
I hope to buy the EXACT book I listened to by Mur Lafferty, because I think it’s great and hope to pass it on to friends who aren’t into audiobooks. She has an agent for the project, and I hope to see it in print soon.
J.C. Hutchins did an audio “prequel” to a book released in print only. Same characters and setting for both stories. I listened to one, bought the other.
Scott Sigler did serialized podcasts of his novel, built a rabid fan base, then got picked up for “traditional” publication, and ended up on the NY Times bestseller list! I listened to his bestseller, and I’m buying a different book that he’s self-publishing because the genre was too darn weird for his current agent to be able to place it.
I, however, am not willing or able to hustle for fans like these three are, so I don’t think all-free is the path for me. I think I’ll be in the category of those who blog, and eventually offer a chapter on the website…
I use WordPress for my blog and I also use a lot of freeware. When I download a plugin that I particularly like or when I find a program that is useful, I click on the donate button.
Give me a good product for free and I’ll be happy to pay you for it once I find it works. Give me a crappy product and I won’t pay.
As far as books go: I get cheap books at second hand stores. And I make decisions about whether to buy more books by a certain author based on those cheap books. I think others check out new authors at libraries. So giving a free book on the Internet may be a good idea. We’re not going to buy your books until after we’ve checked you out for free somewhere. There are too many bad books out there. Either I’ve read a substantial portion of an author’s writing for free or I have had the book recommended by a blogger I trust, or I don’t buy the book.
Hmm… I’m always leery of free offers because there are usually strings attached. I’m reminded of time-share sales offers- Free weekend in Vegas if you listen to 90 minutes of a guerilla sales pitch.
I just committed to a “buy 2, get 1 free” sale at the spa. I was given a gift card to the spa by the teacher I work with and decided to use it before school started up again. The spa counted my visit that day as one of my purchases. Since I only spent $50 of my own money, buying a second treatment at full price, in order to get the third free seemed like a good deal. I’ll end up paying less for three treatments than I would have paid for two. I figured I’m worth it ! : )
I don’t succumb to these tactics very often though.
I heard a talk by a webcomic creator a few years ago, the creator of Girl Genius, who had numerous publishing problems in the first few years. He said he made so much more money when he started giving the comic away for free on the web then when he was still trying to sell it in print format — because he now sells accessories. T-shirts, toys, posters, etc.
Not to say this will work best for everyone — probably not novelists on their first book at least — but I’d say it depends on what you want to sell. If you want as many people to experience the first book as possible, to convince them buy the rest of the books in the series, it isn’t a crazy idea to offer it free (like on suvudo). If it’s a first book that you want people to buy, you have to look around for something that can be offered to hook people in.
The point would have to be to figure out where you can make the money to support your writing (or comic drawing) habit then see how many things you can add to it that will make it more valuable to others. Then decide which ones are the best to use as promotions and how.
I wondered about that trend of giving away books myself.
I even wonder about giving away first chapters. When a potential reader then picks up your book and looks at the first page will she think she has already read the book?
Good word, Janet! My thoughts are you get what you pay for.
I have a free e-mail account @yahoo, a free blog @blogger, and credit cards that I cancel at the end of the first free year. Somehow,those companies are still making money, but I’m enjoying free services. Doing research, I’ve found things on Google Scholar that saved me a trip to the library, and which I never would have purchased for the one-or-two pages I looked at. I don’t pay for this service, but I try to contribute where I can, and feel good when I have done so (for example a photo-essay I blogged about Descanso Gardens still draws a dozen hits a month, 16 months after I posted it). But when it comes time to sell one of my books, I would like it to generate income, and I’m not writing a series. I’m hoping my novel will end up on university reading lists. I could see giving it away free at a convention of English teachers, but not in electronic form.
“FREE” is not about the vague hope for sales but in building community. When properly managed, free builds community and initiates a binding of that community’s loyalty to the product. The community is then an eager, enthusiastic consumer base, already tuned into the product and compared to the general consumer, much easier to persuade to part with a few dollars.
The problem is very few authors – since we are in the realm of books – will have the experience and determination to deliberately build community. “Free” without community, is next to worthless. An author/agent who considers that simply releasing a free mp3 will bring tangible results is misunderstanding “FREE” altogether.
C
an “FREE” become a business plan?
Yes. Each member of a community brings value. Sure, it is far less tangible than a traditional cell value in a spreadsheet, but community spends, and community promotes – driven by loyalty. In my experience working in this space professionaly, community, once motivated, is a hugely powerful force that can drive product sales globally without the saturation marketing required to reach the broader consumer base (and without the expense).
Latayne C Scott above mentions Scott Sigler and JC Hutchins, both of which have obsessively motivated communities hanging on their every word, and have done an exceptional job of growing their sales with the selfless support of tens fo thousands of individuals who initially did nothing more than downloaded and listened to a free mp3.
Way to turn a bad idea into a fabulous one. You lit agents are so clever 😉
Robin Gunn did a good thing by limiting the free part. Twilight author had a few sample chapters available for free on her website before she became so famous. Amazon has sample chapters of books, too. It is nice to find out via free or sample chapters if the book is worth buying. I have a few free short stories on my webpage so people can see how I write.
Here’s the thing — this is all new territory for me in this quickly changing CBA market. An online shop, MP3’s, self-initiated marketing plans — all risky but I’m taking my time and seeking counsel and trying to be purposeful with each step.
Janet was brilliant when she suggested we offer the MP3 free for one day only but we haven’t tried it yet! Our FREE day is August 15th. After the FREE day we’ll keep it in the online shop and fix a price on it.
I’ll have to post again here at the end of the month and give a report on how the FREE day worked and whether or not sales continued when the MP3 was no longer free.
It seems as if writers need to take on a bit of a pioneer spirit these days as we venture into new territory.
Wagons Ho!
Isn’t that what pioneers say to keep the party moving forward? If that isn’t what they say, disregard that last part. But let’s do keep this party moving forward!)
Thanks each of you for contributing your thoughts and experiences regarding “free.” You’ve provided us with some creative ideas!
Neil, you are so right that just offering something for free isn’t necessarily going to reap a good return. Everything we do on the Internet needs to be based on the idea of building community because that’s when synergy kicks in. I didn’t take the space in my blog post to mention that Robin isn’t just flinging the offer of an MP3 out into cyberspace. She has been vigorously building community and has so many friends on Facebook, she’s had to open add new people as fans because you can only have 5,000 friends. She’s done much more than that, but the point is, when she announces the free MP3 (which will be available from 5 pm Aug 14 to 5 pm Aug 15, by the way), she’ll be doing so to those in the community she’s built. And we’re anticipating a gratifying response.
Excellent post, Janet! Thank you for sharing one strategy to turning “free” into much more than that.
As I read this article
(http://business.theage.com.au/business/murdoch-aims-to-charge-for-news-sites-within-year-20090806-eal8.html)
I thought about your post.
Great minds….
Excellent post, Janet! Thank you for sharing one strategy to turning “free” into much more than that.
OH! You’re my new favorite blogger fyi
I downloaded Naomi Novik’s first novel in the Temeraire series for free from the publisher. Now I want to buy the series. Of course I’ll buy the first one, so I’ll have the whole series available. Sounds like smart marketing to me, especially since that first book had been out for a while before it was made available for fre..
Excellent Robin! I hope it works out for you!
Robin Jones Gunn published SUMMER PROMISE in 1988, over twenty years ago. She’s was a successful author long before the internet became a factor in our culture, which means she already had an audience, a community.
While I’m sure she worked her butt off to develop that community, using her as an example for the “proper” way to give away free content is ridiculous. Free isn’t a vital tool for the Jones Gunns and Stephen Kings of the world, “free” is a great tool for aspiring writers and people with their first book out on the market. You have to build an audience of dedicated fans that know your material, and know that if and when they do spend their hard-earned money, they will get their money’s worth.
Say you’re a writer of books aimed at teen Christians. Say you don’t have a print deal (which is getting harder and harder to get as publishing collapses around us). Now say you want to sell your book, and the customer has a choice between a proven author like Jones Gunn and you. Where is the typical customer going to spend her money? By developing a campaign of consistent, free content, that balance tips your way. Now the customer thinks “well, it’s free, I’ll try this first and if it doesn’t thrill me I’ll grab the Jones Gunn novel anyway.”
That’s what “free” is about, getting in front of potential customers, giving them a no-risk opportunity to see if they like your work. A certain percentage of people will become paying fans, so the job becomes a) create great content, and b) expose that content to as many people as possible.
But you’re right, Janet, I don’t think anyone should give content away for free — I don’t want the competition.
I just received a free ARC copy of Deeanne Gist’s upcoming novel, BEGUILED. When I post my review online, several people will see it. I’m one reader who got a free book…but many may buy the book because of my review.
Amazon has sample chapters of books, too. It is nice to find out via free or sample chapters if the book is worth buying. I have a few free short stories on my webpage so people can see how I write.
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Excellent post, Janet! Thank you for sharing one strategy to turning “free” into much more than that.
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