Thread: How to attract readers
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:18 PM   #4
Rev. Bob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mitrodhar View Post
That is depressing. A lot of gurus out there still preach newbies to giveaway ebooks for free, especially the first in the series. I wonder if that is a viable method anymore?
I'm working with a new author on their first book, and we've been giving a lot of thought to this. Due to the content, a flat-out freebie doesn't seem like a good idea; it's significantly NSFW. That said, we still wanted to do a "low-price lead-in" to attract people.

The main work is a lengthy (150K) novel written in four parts. There's a good natural divide between parts two and three, so splitting it "in half" would give two chunks of 65K/85K words. There are okay divides between the other two parts, which would make everything around the 30K-40K marks if we went "four parts" instead of "two halves." There are also some side stories that don't fit into the flow of the book, but they shed some light on some secondary characters and fit into definite places - deleted scenes, if you will. Thus, the plan we've got right now is:

Launch: A short that stands alone but ties into the first half. Price it at 99 cents.
+1 mo.: The first half, possibly at a sale price at first, but not for long. A couple of weeks, maybe?
+3 mo.: Second short, this one tying into the second half, also 99 cents.
+4 mo.: Second half, again, maybe on sale at first.
+6 mo.: "Box set" that contains all of the above plus a third short. Timing gets iffy here, because there's a "win an exclusive short story" contest we've got planned (announced in both halves and expiring at this mark), and that short's going to be box-exclusive at first.
+8 mo.: Release the third short separately.
+9 mo.: Release the "collected shorts" if there's demand, probably at $1.99.

The alternative is to release each of the four parts of the novel separately, which means two more lead-in shorts. In that case, we'd probably put something new out each month instead of keeping that two-month gap between halves, and the shorts collection would be $2.99 because it's got five shorts instead of three. (We're going with the 7500-word cap on "short stories" rather than get mushy with novelette/novella. Short is short is 99 cents and clearly labeled.)

That's what we've come up with, but we're certainly open to suggestions.
Last edited by Dr. Drib; 11-14-2015 at 06:51 AM.
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