Thread: Do free downloads kill paperback sales?
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Old 05-13-2010, 05:37 PM   #58
simplyparticular
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Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger View Post
So I put it to you folks: If you download a free ebook, and assuming you actually read it and like it, what are the chances that you'll pick up a paper copy of it, either for your own library, or to give as a gift to someone else? Do you talk it up and recommend it to friends? Are there less obvious ways in which you support the authors of books you like?
You are really asking if free eBooks will drive paper sales, or will free eBooks cannabalize paper sales? I think you're really asking an eithor/or question. And I think the answer is neither.

If *I* love an eBook I (free or paid), I buy more of the series in e-format, and recommend it to friends IRL and online. None of my friends or family read eBooks, so they are buying paper books, if they take my advice. I don't buy fiction books as gifts for adults - it's too difficult to gauge taste. I'm eBooks for everything except Kids and parenting/health (hubby doesn't do eBooks).

+++

Based on the replies you got here, an eBook, free or not, has little or no effect on paper sales OF THAT TITLE. The majority of people who are using a digital device to read are almost exclusively reading eBooks, not pBooks. Those who aren't exclusively digital seem to be more likely to borrow pBooks from a library, not buy. Frankly, it sounds like most eBook readers don't even enter bookstores anymore. So marketing to them is going to be very different...

However, the one exception that could have impacted pBook sales is cross-promotion of the EARLIER titles.

Did either the HC or the MMPB promote that Books 1-3 were available for free online? Did that overlap with the time that you could download Sunborn for free?

If someone saw Sunborn in paper, saw a Book 1-3 online promo and skipped Sunborn in favor of going to the website for free Book 1-3, (actually remembered to go to your site for Book 1-3) and then happened on Sunborn for free, then that definitely would have impacted HC or MMPB sales, depending on the timing.

But since I'm not sure on the timeline:
  • Sunborn Hardback
  • Sunborn MMPB a year later?
  • when did the free eBook get offered and then stop?
  • when did the paid eBook finally launch?
  • when did you begin to offer 1-3 eBooks for free?

So, some food for thought to get at what happened with the pBook sales:
  1. Did Books 1-3 launch in HC, or just Sunborn? that would skew your numbers compared to your other books
  2. How big was the gap between Book 3 and 4? Did you have fans bugging you for Book 4, were you doing updates on your writing/publishing progress your web site or to an email list? The mystery and romance series writers have this down to an science, but they also release series books very rapidly.
  3. Did the blurbs on Sunborn make it seem like it could stand-alone to potential new buyers, or was it obviously necessary to read the early ones?
  4. Did those early free downloads of Sunborn surpass your MMPB sales?
  5. Does your publisher have e-sales data to analyze?
  6. How are your Sunborn paid eBook sales to date? Crazy high, medium or stagnant compared to others in your genre?
  7. I'm sure the free version got posted to the darknet - I have no idea, but is there a way to track its activity in the week or month that the MMPB came out?
  8. Did you track used sales on 1-3 through Amazon when Book 4 dropped (did their rankings jump or did they get new reviews?
  9. Did you do less or more promotion of Sunborn than Books 1-3 or your other titles?
  10. Did Tor promote the launch of the eBook, since it launched separate from the pBooks?

It really is a shame that Tor wouldn't reprint the back titles in the series. FWIW, I think you did what you could with what you were dealt, although I probably would have been greedy and only offered Book 1 for free and then some kind of combo deal on 2, 3 and 4, but that's my job as a marketer.

Is the series done, or are you working on a finale or Book 5? If yes, it would behoove you to go in to your agent and editor with a rough draft of a marketing strategy for promoting the Books 1-4 in e-form to help juice the fifth book's sales in whatever format you can manage to sell someone.

HTH,
Bree
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