Lots and Lots of people do not seem to understand how perma free works. It is a form of marketing. You give a way a book, so that people will take a chance on you with the goal of them buying your other books. It is adversting that costs zero dollars. Expensive advertising campiegn net you a 1-2% conversion rate if your lucky. That is 1-2% of people that click on the ad go on to buy it. Here is the hidden power of perma free in REAL HARD NUMBERS:
Here are my hard percents of conversion rate for each Month since the release of Book 2 (book 1 was permafree for several months before Book 2 existed):
June-2011 2.95 (partial month)
July-2011 7.17
August-2011 7.64
September-2011 4.7
October-2011 7.64
November-2011 5.81
December-2011 5.34
January-2012 5.05
February-2012 6.37
March-2012 7.85
April-2012 5.41
May-2012 4.43
June-2012 6.07
July-2012 4.46
August-2012 6.87
September-2012 9.89
October-2012 5.74
November-2012 10.74
December-2012 6.02
January-2013 5.19
February-2013 4.03
March-2013 6.9
April-2013 5.53
May-2013 3.27
June-2013 4.13
July-2013 5.3
August-2013 6.08
September-2013 1.65
October-2013 6.49
AVERAGE CONVERSION RATE TO DATE = 5.82 --> That means almost 6% of the shopers that grabbed book 1, went on to buy book 2. My conversion from book 2 to 3 and 4 is nearly 100%. NOTE: These numbers do not count the purchases of my omnibus, if i add them in the conversion rate is even better.
September-2013 was the first month I tried using actual advertisements, note the step fall in conversion rate. My downloads that month TRIPLED, but they did not carry over to book 2. So the lesson for me is do not do what I did in September.
In conclusion -> permafree works as a form of advertising.