Quote:
Originally Posted by jgray
If the point of the author is to have his/her material read by a wider audience, then free or not, providing only a PDF is self defeating. Sure, some will read it on their "big screen" PC and a few will spend hours converting it to something useful on an ebook reader. Not me, and not many others are willing to go through this hassle any more. There is too much other material by too many other authors that we can be reading without dealing with PDF. If you want more readers, make it easier for them to actually read your stuff.
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I agree with jgray and I also thought he worded his feedback to authors very respectfully.
I saw this book in the store (pback) and considered looking it up as an ebook later so I was at first excited to see it offered for free. Finding out it was a free PDF cooled my ardor quickly. Yes, we can take 2 minutes to convert this *IF IT CONVERTS NICELY*. Conversion in some PDF's make a nightmare of formatting and I don't want to spend the time fooling with it when I have lots else to read. AND since I don't know if a PDF is a "GOOD" PDF or a "BAD" PDF (for converting) I am extremely likely to just skip the whole thing.
Which is jgray's point. If the author/publisher wants to give a book away for free in the hopes we like it and buy more of their stuff, it is in their best interest to make it as easy as possible by offering multiple formats (see Baen.com for the best example of "the first taste is free" marketing).
Hey, free is free and I'll not complain about anything given away...I just might not bother to download it if it even appears to be a hassle.