Are you more or less likely to read a free book?

[mcspice]

I have read some free books that I really liked & a few that I really didn't care for - - all in all, my experience with free books has been very similar to that of books that I pay for. The biggest difference is, I never regret the money that I spend on a free book!

Seriously, I have purchased a number of 'follow-up' books from previously unknown authors after reading a free book that I enjoyed. I have a huge pile of free books at the moment that I haven't started - which is great because summer break is almost here & I have decided NOT to teach summer school this year!

[neilmarr]

***Hmm. Both neilmarr and elvira admit to completely ignoring free ebooks. Both of them are publishers. So.......only books which have a publisher are worth reading? No wonder new authors find it so tough!***

Thing is, Dickon, that I'm presented with hundreds of manuscripts a year for assessment of their publication potential. I guess you could call these 'free books'. Reading these submissions (we never allow a slush pile to build) is the most soul-destroying job my associate editors and I face.

Well over ninety percent fail miserably for the most basic of reasons: They're nonsense. Of the remainder, we will go with a dozen. And these inevitably involve heavy editorial work that sometimes spans months.

You can imagine how I feel about free books and $0.99 offerings when I recognise so many of them as the push-button 'published' raw copy of my 'hopeless' rejections ... with warts-n-all still stubbornly in place.

And we're just a tiny fish in the pond. It's depressing and worrying how much slush pile nonsense is instantly self 'published' these days by authors who haven't the nous to understand why they've met with rejection from all the publishing houses and agencies out there and learn the job.

There are, I am the first to admit, shining and refreshing exceptions by competent independent authors who bypass the traditional publishing system simply because they treasure their independence and want to make readers rather than profits (a few of these rare folks are MR members). With these excellent authors, I have no grouse. It's just a pity that they are swamped by countless thousands of unreadable cheapies and freebies.

Cheers. Neil

[Lemurion]

Seeing a book for free definitely does make it more likely for me to look at it, but I don't always download or read them.

As others have mentioned, there are different kinds of free books - and I treat them differently.

1) Major (ie. I can find them in the bookstore) publisher's promo: Most of these get downloaded unless they're a genre I don't read (say Christian fiction or romance), and a reasonable proportion get read. Books I haven't read by authors I've read before and enjoy get both downloaded and read.

2) Public Domain: Most of the PD books I download are ones I've already read (often several times) and want to keep an electronic copy of. Some I read, some I don't - but I just feel more comfortable being able to have these books on my reader because they are old friends.

3) New/Independent Authors: I download a fair number of these (often because I just want to give the author a shot). I don't read all that many of them, and these are the books I'm most likely to start and not finish. Still, I never know when I might find something really good.

[JSWolf]

I base my purchases on content AND price. Too bad that is not a poll option.

[Tattncat]

Generally, I will download and read (i read everything) a free or steeply discounted book, especially if it's an author I am not familiar with. However, if the book is poorly written or not of interest I'll delete the book and won't read anything more by that author.

[theducks]

Content rules what I read
Discount retail pricing (method) is Smoke and Mirrors Pricing.
For years merchants "Discounted" highly inflated Manufacturers List Prices, that almost no one sold at .

Discounts are for closing out sales dogs/obsolete models.

Charging more than the Dead Tree price (cheapest available edition) is exorbitant.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by theducks

Content rules what I read
Discount retail pricing (method) is Smoke and Mirrors Pricing.
For years merchants "Discounted" highly inflated Manufacturers List Prices, that almost no one sold at .

Discounts are for closing out sales dogs/obsolete models.

Charging more than the Dead Tree price (cheapest available edition) is exorbitant.

I agree. I hate discounts. They make me feel that I'm not paying the right price, and that I'm being tricked into buying more than I need.

[plumboz]

If you would like an author's perspective on the free vs. not who has tried both avenues in getting his book out there. When I was offering Boomerang for free I saw hundreds of downloads. Since I have pulled the free offer that number has dwindled considerably. B.
but if emails and other sorts of reactions is any sort of indication, the number of Readers has actually increased.

It's all quite lovely to see the numbers improve, including Amazon and/or B/N rankings, but if the intention is to get folks to read your book, I haven't found a considerable advantage to giving it away.

Best,
Alan

[seagull]

If I want a book I will buy it at any price but I do usually shop around to find the cheapest deal.

[queentess]

I'm more likely to snag it if it's free, though I've gotten much more strict about what I'll download because I've read way too much self-published crap that a publisher would have saved me from reading. (Note that not all self-published items are crap. But an overwhelming percentage are.)

I'm more likely to READ the thing if it's something I sought out and purchased rather than just an "OMG THIS IS FREE READ AND LEAVE A REVIEW".

There is, of course, some middle ground here. Several publishers offer freebies on the first books in a series, and I'm more likely to both download AND read these. Just got around to reading a freebie (Assassin's Apprentice) that was first offered about a year ago; loved it so much that I'm already working on the sequel.

[simplyparticular]

In my early e-reading days, I downloaded a lot of the Peanut Press/eReader and Fictionwise freebies because they were free. Out of about 60 freebies on my Bookshelves (that aren't classics), I 've read about half. Most were not good, in my opinion, which has dampened my interest in the rest.

I also used site promotions/discounts to test the waters with some new authors in favorite genres, and was (mostly) disappointed.

Now, I don't even bother with freebies or promotions. When I go to eBookstores, I have a specific author or title in mind and I buy. I save experimentation for either library eBooks or pBooks, where I can peruse and dump without financial consequeneces and less time constraints.

Bree

[basschick]

it's a no brainer IF you are aware of the discount/free promo at the time when you want to read the book. otherwise you may have already bought it or might not catch that it's on sale at all. and if i really want to read a book, i'll buy and download and read it, not wait for a sale.

the same applies to self-published ebooks.

Originally Posted by Dellaster

I can't speak for others, but I took the poll question to include normally-priced book releases that are free for a limited time. I wasn't really thinking of self-published amateur stuff when I voted.

In other words, would I more likely "buy" a free promotional, one that's discounted 40+%, or the same book at the normal $8.95 price? It seemed a no-brainer.

[neilmarr]

I see the gap between those who download free and cheap ebooks and those who actually read cheap and free ebooks is widening. That, in itself, is interesting.

It would be utterly fascinating, though, if this poll included the question of whether or not members feel they are more likely to find a satisfying read in a free or cheap book or in one carrying a realistic cover price. Results so far suggest the latter, I think.

My own wee publishing house offers PDF and ePub at $5.99. Same for our Smashwords editions in other formats. During Read an Ebook Week, we offered eighty-odd titles on a pay-what-you-want (or nothing) basis (revenue to the Red Cross). We saw over 600 downloads, about five percent voluntarily paid for at anything from a dollar to ten dollars.

Although I agree that it's early days yet, the feedback so far has been minimal (and that seems to be from readers who had paid something) when compared to what we see from downloads at regular cover price, suggesting that many of those downloads ended up -- like too many books on a real-life shelf -- gathering virtual dust in a virtual library.

Having said that, I have no gripe. The temptation to stock up for the future with the very best of reading intentions is great ... especially when, unlike treebooks, ebooks don't clutter up the house. And, unlike samples of cheese at the local supermarket, books do take time to digest and assess.

Cheers. Neil

[queentess]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

It would be utterly fascinating, though, if this poll included the question of whether or not members feel they are more likely to find a satisfying read in a free or cheap book or in one carrying a realistic cover price. Results so far suggest the latter, I think.

I've read several good free or cheap books, but they usually have a publisher. The problem (for me) with free/cheap books is that they tend to be self-published, and the price is a marketing gimmick to get people to try it. (After all, who wants to spend $10 on an ebook by an unknown, self-published author without a recommendation?)

I'm less likely to read self-published work because my TBR list has something like 300 books on it, which will take me years to get through. And that's if I only read the first book in the series that appear on the list, which is unlikely to happen.

I don't think that because a book is cheap that I won't derive value from it. But I do appreciate the added value that a publisher brings to the work. Especially from an editing standpoint. So in my mind, cheap prices are generally associated with self-published, which does generate some sort of pessimistic expectation.

Aside: sorry to sound so down on the self-published, but I've really had it with trying to slog my way through the horrible editing that accompanies many of these types of books

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by queentess

I've read several good free or cheap books, but they usually have a publisher.

I'm less likely to read self-published work because my TBR list has something like 300 books on it

These two points sum up my feelings. I was really surprised, when I did a spring hard-drive cleaning and went through my ebooks to tag and sort, that all of the free books I read that actually got a high rating from me were either classics, freebies of commercial books or by established authors or free/cheap titles from internet presses where there was at least some editorial (Double Dragon, BeWrite Books and Books for a Buck are all e-publishers I have had good luck with). That is not to say I could never read and enjoy a 'random guy on Smashwords' type of book, but given how large my TBR pile is right now, I probably would not seek out those types of books absent a recommendation since I know there is a greater time investment in clearing through the slog to find the good ones.