[gmw]

This is an interesting dilemma and I'm not certain there is a good answer.

Yes, the idea of offering something for free is to "show off" and appeal to people in the hope they might be willing to buy your other work. In this light it would make sense to offer your very best for free in the hope of appealing to the most people.

But I do think there is another side to this. If people turn from a 3500 word freebie and pay for a thousand word one - and like it less - there may be a backlash. Whatever the marketing lessons say, people have different expectations for freebies than they do for paid things.

And then there's just how it feels to you. I would feel better being paid for my best work than my lesser work.

Sometime in the not too distant future I'm going to have three books of a series available. The standard recommendation in this situation is to offer the first for free - that's something I'm still considering - and realistically, if I want to offer a freebie, there is little choice - the first book in a series is the first one you want read so there is little point in offering the second or third. BUT, the first one is not actually the best (I presume most authors hope this is true, I believe most readers expect/hope so too).

And the previous paragraph, I think, reinforces the idea that freebie need not be your best work. (Even though, when not presenting a series, you have more choices.) It needs to be a good work (we, of course, hope we are only ever publishing quality work), but I don't think you need to choose best and suspect that doing so could possibly backfire.

I recently wrote a short story (4300 words) - such brevity is very unusual for me. I like it a lot, but it's a little peculiar. I've been wondering whether to offer it for free off my website, but also wonder if it might put off more people than it attracts. No idea. For now I'll sit on it and wait to see if any others show up in my head.