Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff - Selecting "New Market" EBooks

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

My fiction reading has switched almost completely to series. So many authors have begun offering the first in a series for free that I can find eight or ten new books at a sitting. Most of these do end up in the "chaff" pile, but for every four or five that I start and discard, I find one that's worth finishing and of those, probably half are worth buying the rest of the series.

Sounds like you're beating Sturgeon's law.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sounds like you're beating Sturgeon's law.

I had to look up Sturgeon's Law, but I suppose that's probably close to true. The way I used to buy fiction is to find an author I liked and then read everything that author wrote. That was mostly because I hated spending $8 or more on an unknown book that I'd probably end up not liking, so I stuck with "tried and true". I'd agree that I now read more crap than I did before, but I think that's just because I'm reading more overall.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

My fiction reading has switched almost completely to series. So many authors have begun offering the first in a series for free that I can find eight or ten new books at a sitting. Most of these do end up in the "chaff" pile, but for every four or five that I start and discard, I find one that's worth finishing and of those, probably half are worth buying the rest of the series.

That is a clear change in habits and one that makes sense. It is of course only possible because of one of the "new market" marketing strategies, offering a whole book free of charge. I can't say that this never happened at all under the traditional system, but I can't think of an instance. The closest thing would probably be the remainder bin, usually totally disorganised and with prices still as high or higher than many new ebooks now.

I'd imagine that some traditionalists would regard free ebooks as devaluing the value of books. And, as a generalisation about life in general, people often do take for granted what they can get for free. Some people no doubt avoid free ebooks because, sometimes subconsciously, they doubt their quality simply because there is no charge. As readers, we should be conscious of this tendency. Offering a book for free, whether the first in a series or a teaser by an author seeking wider recognition, is now a legitimate and succesfull marketing tactic, and does not indicate that a book is, to quote Sturgeon, "crud".

Personally I have not been taking advantage of these free ebooks. Perhaps I myself have subconsciously fallen victim to the syndrome I describe above. I now intend to try some of these free ebooks.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by darryl

Personally I have not been taking advantague of these free ebooks. Perhaps I myself have subconsciously fallen victim to the syndrome I describe above. I now intend to try some of these free ebooks.

Pre-ebooks, free books cost money. At least nominally.
The closest to that in the old, pre-multinational takeover days were book club editions and the coverless paperbacks that were supposed to be destroyed but were instead sold for a quarter or so: technically illegal but ignored by the publishers precisely because it at least raised the author's visibility.

With ebooks, there is no real cost associated with free copies which is why BAEN did it regularly through their bound-in promo CDs and Harlequin and Tor tried it, too. The BPHs, as a rule, are so hung up on their delusional perceived-value dreams and reader-spend obsession that they ignore this proven marketting tool as much as they ignore pretty much every other marketting tool this side of payola. Their loss is the smaller publishers' gain... in market share.

And open-minded readers' gain.