Reader Question Day #64 – SOUL OF SWORDS and free books
Cheryl asks, concerning my recent adventures with BookBub:
I love having a Kindle and being able to download free books. I’m curious how anyone can make a living being an author if they are giving away the books for free all the time?
That is a good question with a one-word answer, and that word is:
Sequels.
Giving an ebook away for free, by itself, might be a nice thing to do, but it doesn’t translate to sales down the road. If you give people a free ebook without any sequels, they’ll read it and say “oh, that was nice” and go on about their lives, and eventually forget about the writer and the book.
But if you have a free ebook, and that book has sequels, and people like the free book…there’s an excellent chance they’ll go on to buy the sequels. I have four free ebooks – DEMONSOULED, CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS, and THE TESTING – and they’re all the first books in a series.
A few caveats – it’s best if your free book is a complete story, and not a cliffhanger. People get annoyed by cliffhangers, especially at the end of free books. The ideal is a complete story that nonetheless has allows for the characters to continue to have adventures and emotional growth. Additionally, it’s best that the free ebook not be too short. THE TESTING was both a cliffhanger and only about 1500 Kindle locations long, which really annoyed some people. (If I return to THE THIRD SOUL universe at some point, I’ll bundle up the shorter novellas and release a couple of omnibus editions.)
And that is how you make money with a free ebook.
Numerous people also have questions about SOUL OF SWORDS, the final volume in the DEMONSOULED series.
When is SOUL OF SWORDS coming out?
First week in June, barring unexpected technical difficulties. To be notified immediately when the book is available, sign up for my new release newsletter – if you’re a newsletter subscriber, you’ll get a bonus when SOUL OF SWORDS comes out.
Will SOUL OF SWORDS be available on Nook?
SOUL OF SWORDS will be available on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords. It will also be available on iBooks and Sony, but it usually takes a new book a week or two to show up in iBooks and Sony.
Will there be a print version of SOUL OF SWORDS?
Yes! There is a trade paperback version of SOUL OF SWORDS, and it will be available shortly after the ebook is out. I’m afraid it will be a bit expensive, since the paperback came to about 403 pages, which mandates a certain price to cover the printing costs. But there will be a paperback version, if you want one.
-JM