behold the power of permafree!
A common argument among indie writers is whether or not “permafree” is still a good tactic. The idea is that once you have a series of books, you make the first book free in hopes that people will read the book, like it, and then move on to read the rest of the books in the series.
As it happens, I was recently able to put the idea to the test. On December 1st, CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP, the first book in my CLOAK GAMES series, went permafree. That provided an excellent testing ground for examining the results of making the first book free.
Let’s see how we did!
The 2nd book, CLOAK GAMES: FROST FEVER, sold 6 times as many copies in December as it did in November.
The 3rd book, CLOAK GAMES: REBEL FIST, sold 6 times as many copies in December as it did in November.
The 4th book, CLOAK GAMES: SHADOW JUMP, sold about two and a half times as many copies in December as it did in November.
The 5th book, CLOAK GAMES: SHATTER STONE, came out on December 1st, so it really wasn’t useful for the test. That said, it did have the strongest opening month of any CLOAK GAMES book to date.
So in the right circumstances, it seems like permafree is still a useful marketing tactic.
-JM
Of course permafree works. For example, just yesterday, on your post “CLOAK GAMES: TRUTH CHAIN editing underway”, Sam wrote in a comment, “I got the first book in the cloak games series free though kindle a few days ago. I enjoyed it so bought and read the rest of the series…”
And that’s how I do the vast majority of series selection as well. What more evidence does anybody need?
There may be some other interesting effects of the permafree concept. As a thought experiment, imagine that permafree was illegal or hadn’t been invented or something. Then readers like Sam and myself would likely choose a different set of books. For me personally, I’d be annoyed at the books I had to pay for and didn’t like and I would read less. Way, way, way less.
So there would be way less money for indie authors in general and even less money for an author like yourself. So permafree is really, really good for an author like you in a winner take all sort of way, but possibly less good for mediocre to lousy authors. And probably much, much worse for traditional publishing.
I agree! I think the only traditional publisher that’s on board with the permafree idea is Baen.
Permafree is how I became a fan….all because Demonsouled appeared as a free title. I believe it was just after you offered it for free. I’m a vouple books behind now though.
I started getting the books of a couple other authors the same way.
It’s definitely an excellent way to try a new writer with no risk.
I found your books because of a free copy of Child of the Ghosts.