[WFT]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

The Paul Coelho story is true. You can verify it through the sources supporting this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho#File_Sharing.

I remember when news broke that Coelho was supporting the pirating of his own book. Coelho started distributing the book himself online (I think he may have been doing it in secrecy for a little bit in fear of what the publisher might say--but I don't remember exactly) and has attributed his success largely to that. I think there is definitely a strong correlation there but, of course, there is no data that can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that such a direct correlation exists. Publishers will usually argue that every free download results in a lost sale because this argument allows them to better fight piracy in the courts. The argument is silly because people who download tend to download a ton of things that they never would have purchased in the first place (people don't have unlimited funds for entertainment) and often times people are downloading things they never would have heard of were it not for finding the file promoted for free online.

I did not mean to insinuate that you must choose monetary reward or releasing a free e-book. I'm definitely in the Doctorow/Coelho/Rose camp. I phrased the statement that way because, more often than not, when people are more concerned about money, they become very uneasy about the idea of releasing their works for free. They see things from the Publisher standpoint: a download correlates with a lost sale. I think a free ebook may result in loss of an ebook sale but is more likely to help print sales. People (especially people like the ones on this board--adamant ebook fans) will pay for something they think deserves their money. I think that "pay what you want" idea is pretty good. Radiohead did it with their album and most people downloaded it for free, but not everyone. Furthermore, I believe the physical album sold very well. I didn't know you were publishing a print book, as well. Knowing this, I would definitely say a free ebook can only help you. Free ebooks increase "word of mouth" promotion and if someone sees your book in a store they're much more likely to buy it if they've heard of it. Even just the name. Requiring people to pay for an ebook will make people more hesitant to try it out, especially given that this is a book that tackles a topic as dense and murky as economics (even though you try to make it simpler and more accessible as part of a larger story). I think you may be surprised by the free promotion you receive simply by putting a free ebook out there. I have seen people on these boards post threads about free ebooks without even reading them first and then format shift and distribute it not only on this site but Feedbooks.com and similar sites.

At any rate, that's my opinion on the matter.

Interesting stuff, no doubt about it. I still want to dig deeper to discover why it worked out so well.

I'm also interested in hearing what you have to say about Stephen King's experiment with ebooks. I remembered hearing about it previously, but I had to go look it up just now to find out that it was a series of books called, The Plant. He apparently stopped offering it free after the sixth book in the series.

I looked over the pro and con arguments on the question of whether to "go free ebook" yesterday. As usual, my mind worked on the problem overnight, and when I woke up it occurred to me that an important con argument seems to be missing. Before I tell you what it is, let me tell you a very short story.

In 2000, I was involved with a small group interested in opening a Sudbury-model school in central Connecticut. The school eventually opened on September 11, 2002, exactly one year to the day after those horrible attacks. You can see the school's website at mountainlaurelsudbury.org.

During our first organizing year, we held a series of monthly public meetings, inviting members of the public to come and learn about the Sudbury concept. We did get visitors each month, usually in the range of 2-10 new people, but we weren't getting anywhere. People rarely came back for the next meeting.

Finally, my co-leader and I decided to start asking for small monetary commitments each meeting. In the past, we'd put out a basket with a sign asking for donations, and occasionally we got something, but it was very sporadic and measured in tiny amounts. It amounted to almost nothing.

So at the next meeting, we made an announcement. We announced that we were each going to put at least $2 into the basket each meeting out of our own pockets, and we would ask each attendee to do the same. We said that the reason we were doing this was that we wanted people to become committed to the cause and help out rather than merely lurking and attending an occasional meeting.

That was in February or March 2002. From that day forward, an astonishing thing happened. In the past, when someone showed up, it was very unlikely that they'd come back later. After this initiative, people started coming back every meeting. Our numbers started to grow. So did the number of meetings each month. Further, so did our cash box. By April, we had 20-25 people attending our meeting, and for the first time our new co-founders talked seriously about opening the school. By June, some of their kids involved themselves in the discussions, and that's when things really started to take off. There's nothing so motivated as a kid who realizes that this school they're talking about means real freedom!

Three months later, the school opened.

This is normal human behavior. It's like what happens with kids. If you give them a toy, tell them it's a toy, and expect it to be treated as a toy, they treat it as a toy. They abuse it. They beat it up. They show it no respect. But if you share with them something of value, even slightly delicate, and you explain to them that it's not a toy, that it's real, and that it has value, they treat it with much greater respect.

It also happens with kids in school. The Sudbury model is unique in that it empowers kids every day to run their own education, to make their own decisions day by day, minute by minute, regarding what they'll learn next. They don't even have to go to classes if they don't want to. They can play all day, every day, if they want. They take part in the school's administration. And it works out superlatively. I won't bother going into details about all the ways that it works out real well. Suffice to say for the sake of our discussion that it works very well.

Critics of the model say it can't work (despite a long history of success with the model) and to prove it, they try an experiment in a public school. They announce that for that day, the kids can behave the way a Sudbury student behaves. The result is always disastrous. The kids merely act up. The classroom becomes chaos. None of the successes that a true Sudbury school experiences manifest themselves. Then the critics smugly pat themselves on the back and say, "See? We told you so!"

Can you see what went wrong? It's really very simple. The true Sudbury students knew that the freedom promised to them was real and valuable. The public school students who had one day of freedom saw right through the lie. They treated the experiment the way it deserved to be treated: as a waste of time.

So what's the con argument I mentioned before? It is that the free ebook concept depends on a critical foundation. It depends upon the idea that when people get something for nothing, they'll value it as something anyway. That doesn't normally happen.

With this framework, the question with free ebooks now becomes: why did Coelho's books buck this natural tendency? I don't know the answer... yet. I'll try to dig deeper to figure it out.

Let me ask you a few more questions.

(1) If The Pirate Bay is what drove Coelho's sales, why is it necessary for me to offer my e-book for free in order to gain the "free e-book" benefit of The Pirate Bay? As you pointed out, they'll tend to pirate it anyway. Why does it follow that I need to offer my e-book for free in order to gain that benefit?

(2) What do you think of the alternative that smashwords.com and others offer of giving away the first portion of an e-book for free? In other words, give readers a chance to sink their teeth into it, then require them to pay to see the rest of the story. What do you think of that alternative?

(3) Do you see a downside to giving away free e-books?

I'll be interested in your replies.