Quote:
Originally Posted by Pascal Scheffers
The problem with that model this is only regarded to work for the mid to lower echelons of authors (any industry). The big fear seems to be about losing the big cash cows, the J.K. Rowlings. Once people know someone has already made half a million on a book, I think the numbers will reverse to maybe 10% paying, 90 taking. They really would hate to lose those.
But I really like the new model a lot. I've had too many reads where I picked up a book and didn't like it after three chapters, I don't feel like paying $10 for that. It is also something authors can do on their own, maybe even facilitated by a site like this one. I've certainly enjoyed -and- paid for a lot of free content over the last three years.
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I've heard the above claim made many times. But a number of those Baen books routinely hit the best-seller lists. For example, the David Weber books that included bound-in CDs in the hardcovers only had them in the first few copies... um, I mean the first printing of... wait for it... 100,000 copies. Which sold out, and went into a second and third HC printing, sans CD.
And the presence of the free online copies seems to have no more effect on the Weber books than on the less-popular books.
Your claim might be true for Steven King or J.K.Rowling (or might not). But we have an observed data point that suggests that hitting the middle of the NYT best-sellers list (around 6th-8th on the list) is not enough popularity to make that behavior kick in.
Xenophon