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I am not an author, but I have a blog where I review books and have a small readership who take my recommendations and buy. The advice I can offer is twofold:
1. Make sure your book is edited before going free. No typos. No obviously misplaced punctuation. No extra words from an earlier revision hiding inside your new prose. I see a lot of these mistakes in the books that are offered for free. Not to say every book, but a well edited free book is a rare gem indeed. And you want positive reviews from the free book to drive your sales.
2. If you want the book to be permanently free, make purchase a pay-for-convenience thing. Serialize the book on a blog (really draw it out at half or quarter chapters per post and post 3 times a week) but then offer a link in the side bar to where those who are impatient can buy the whole book, easily.
I know quite a few authors that do this very successfully to build an audience for their later works, but also get paid for this sample work too. It seemed like a good model so I filed it away and am happy to share.
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