Should Your First Self-Published Fiction eBook be Free? Pros and Cons

You've just finished your very first eBook and you're probably feeling pretty accomplished and proud. Kudos! Now that you have taken your story idea, likely created a brief or detailed outline, wrote the first draft, revised/edited/changed a few details (or perhaps of LOT of details) proofread it, and then maybe proofread it again, and now that you've FINALLY got your story exactly how you want it, you're ready to publish it on an eBook sales platform or two. (Or three, or ten)

Now what?

Why Offer A Book for Free?

You've just put so much time, effort and energy into your new work of art and you may be feeling like you deserve to get something out of it after all of your hard work. But have you noticed that a LOT of authors on sites like Amazon.com, Lulu.com, Smashwords.com, etc... all offer free books?

Yes! You can always find free books, both fiction and nonfiction, children's books, Teen/YA...in literally every single genre. So why do authors offer their books for free?

A lot of new authors who are trying to get their name out there will offer their first eBook for free as a marketing tactic.

Think about it:

Yes, we as writers would like to get paid for our work just like everyone else, but if no one has ever heard of you as an author and they don't even know your book exists, even if you charged for your very first self-published book, you're still probably not going to make any money because no one is going to buy it!

The fact is, a lot of readers are not just going to fork over their money on an eBook by someone they've never heard of--even if its only .99.

Put yourself in their shoes: If you were just browsing through eBooks in your preferred genre, and you saw a book by an author you had never heard of listed right next to a book by an author you knew and liked, which book would you be more likely to buy?

The market is saturated with eBooks on pretty much every online platform, these days. If you do not already have a reader following, offering your very first book for free actually can help you get noticed.

FREE is the Keyword Here

Everyone and anyone likes getting stuff for FREE. That's just outright FACT. You like free stuff and everyone you know probably likes free stuff. Chances are, even if someone has very little to no interest in a product or service, if they are offered it for FREE, they are likely going to go ahead and take advantage of it.

This can be a great way to draw interest to your book and maybe win some readers over.

Now, just because you're offering it for free doesn't mean you shouldn't put forth your best effort because you only get once chance to make a first impression. Even if it's going to be free, make sure its some of your best work so that whoever read it will want to read more of your work in the future

Another FREE book marketing tactic:

Many readers of fiction LOVE series! You can write a series and break it up into separate eBooks. That way, you can offer the first book of the series for FREE, get your readers hooked and then offer the next book (or books) in the series for a higher price.

Or, if you end up publishing more than one book at a time, remember to offer at least one of your books for free-especially if you're a first-time self-publisher.

Stay tuned for more writer/editor posts and don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get a FREE short story delivered to your inbox each and every month!