Why I’m Offering All My Books for Free!
4 reasons why you may want to offer yours for free as well
I was analyzing my books’ sales reports when I realized some points that made me adjust the price of my books on all of the platforms they’re available.
Thinking about these things and considering other factors regarding my books, I decided to offer all my books on Gumroad for free.
As for those on other platforms like Amazon, I’m offering the digital copies for $0.99 or less (check to see which ones are totally free!).
(Note that on Amazon, you can’t normally reduce your book price to less than $0.99. To offer it for free, read my post “How to Make Your Amazon Book Free Outside the KDP Select Program”)
Here are my reasons for giving all of those books away:
1. I’m counting on people’s generosity
I can’t believe how generous people can be when I look back at the sales figures for some of my free books on Gumroad.
Thinking about it now, I received so much more than if I had offered the books at prices I normally thought they could sell. I even received tips in addition to the price people paid for my books.
As you may know, you can set your book price on Gumroad at zero while letting other people pay you for the price they think is fair for your book. Hence, even if they can download it for free, they can also enter $1, $2 or more for that book.
2. I want to break down the barriers that can keep people from reading my books
Deep within me, I’ve often had this thought:
“If I were rich enough and didn’t need the money, I’d just offer all of my books for free so that anyone who wants to could read them!”
Well, it seems I didn’t have to be that rich to do that. I can let the people decide at what price they can afford to pay for my books. If they want to download it for free, they can do so instantly. If they could offer a higher amount, I thank them with all of my heart. They have just allowed me to continue writing and to provide this service to all.
3. I want to sell more printed copies of my book
I noticed that some of my books on Amazon had higher sales for its printed copy than its digital version. Secondly, even those books I have offered for free digitally had sales for their paperback copy.
This means that many people still prefer to read the printed version of the book. They would rather pay for slightly more than read the digital version online.
Some of them may have even bought my paperback and hardbound books as a gift for others.
If this is the case, I want to expose my book more to these people by offering my Kindle version for only $0.99 (almost free).
How would this work? Amazon has a ranking system when it comes to books (including those priced at $0.99). When more people buy your book (because of its low price), it would rank higher and more people could see it. The better also would be the book’s chance to be bought along with its printed copy.
4. I want to get more subscribers
Offering my book for free can also increase my chances of having more subscribers to my Substack Newsletter.
This is how I do it: I put a link to my Newsletter within my free ebooks. That way, people can be encouraged to check my Newsletter and even subscribe from there.
I currently have a steady number of paid and free subscribers for my Newsletter “Single Catholic Writer” and that could still improve with the distribution of my free books.
An Invitation
To get a better idea of my strategies above, you may visit my Gumroad store or my Amazon profile page.
Here are just some of the free e-books you may now download on Gumroad. The same are offered at about $0.99 on Amazon.
