Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
WHile I think there is some of both, Kobo's experiments/data was pretty telling. If I recall correctly they tracked best sellers in one experiment and freebies in another by collecting data from the readers (the hardware) to see how far readers progressed. Now some readers don't read on the reader and some convert the books and read elsewhere (calibre) but IN GENERAL, I think the study was interesting because it showed that readers very often bought best sellers because they hear about them, but that didn't mean they read them. With freebies, the data was something like...shoot. I can't remember the percent of the books that were opened--low number was even opened. Then less than 1 percent were read.
So let's be generous and say that only 10 percent are even being OPENED to the first page. That tells you that most people who download free books aren't even looking at them so the problem isn't really formatting or other. Sure it is some of the time because I download freebies and then read two or three pages and toss them aside.
For me there are two data points: You give away freebies and can't expect most of them to be looked at or read. Of the number who do read them, you can't expect reviews or ratings very often. The WORST part of free is that there are also a certain number of free readers who NEVER buy books. They are attached to the free model for whatever reason and don't go on to read the others in the series.
The BEST part is that free spreads the word/provide visibility. It does attract readers who go on to read the series and other books. To be most effective, most authors tell me that you have to advertise the "Free" book. (I didn't do any ads. I mentioned it on my thread on mobileread and that's it. I didn't even mention it on my blog or fb). It took 2.5 days to give away 1000 copies of Lunch and right at 3 days to get close to that with Moon (the shut off is hard to do precisely because Amazon can take a few hours to stop free or a couple of days!)
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On that Kobo study, on the freebies how long had it been out? 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or longer. That would be very useful to know. Was it a long term study or a short term study?
Though I can get behind the 10% because if an author puts several free and the first one is not good, it stands to reason the others will go unopened.
Oh and I pick up used books at the thrift store. About 1 in 100 have obviously never been read or opened.
Now I think I picked up your freebie. The problem there is I was using my k3 at the time. So your book along with 300 others, I will have to find on my manage your content page and send to a different reader.