Did you all hear?
She gives away …ebooks… for free. (PSSSTTTT… they are down on the right hand side of the blog. Anything that is Stardoc related or a John and Marcia story, they are wunnerful.)
So I was reading my October issue of Romantic Times. Tried to find a link to the article on ebooks on their site and no luck. But that’s okay. I’ll condense it down for you. There was a huge article on ebooks. It was quite nice…mentioned Ellora’s Cave, Samhain~hey, I know those places. ;o) Also mentioned one of the Ja(y)nes from Dear Author, and it showed a couple of ebook readers that I very, very much want.
Along with this article was a little inset, Setting E-books Free. Miz Viehl, that terrible woman, was mentioned, along with a Melanie Lynne Hauser, because they give away ebooks to readers. Viehl has tie ins to her Stardoc series and the Darkyn books, and some totally unrelated. I remember when there was a freebie read that was actually the beginning of Michael and Alex’s story. See how these freebies can translate to wonderful things for us readers?
Anyway, some people are ticked off at them for giving away ebooks. Apparently, those who give the ebooks away for free are “undercutting those of us who aren’t giving it away”. The guy (Dr. Howard V. Hendrix) then goes on to mention something about getting publishers to pay a better wage for their hard work.
So somehow, PBW giving away these ebooks somehow relates to publishers not paying better? The undercutting thing? Eh, that’s reaching. Chances are if a reader wants your book, they’ll buy it. These free ebooks are more for the in-between readers. It’s sort of like bait~you try to catch them and then you try to reel them in. If you want to catch those inbetweeners, do the same thing. Chances are you’ll probably end up with new readers.
Okay, here’s how I see it~and my income from ebooks makes up the bulk of my income at this point. However, I’m no authority and this is all my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.
The occassional reader isn’t going to mess with buying ebooks or looking for free ones. The one who is going to buy ebooks or look for free ebooks is the voracious reader. Oh, we love voracious readers. Those who haunt the bookstores, those who are on a front name basis with the UPS dude, those who live on the epub’s site come release day, just waiting for those new releases.
These voracious readers buy much, much more than the occassional reader. They spend much, much more. (although we do like the money regardless of which reader is doing the buying)
Free ebook reads like PBW does are a good way to break the ice, so to speak, with those die-hard readers that really aren’t so sure about ebooks. They try one, they like it, HEY, lets go look for more! I can read these on my pocket PC, and I can buy this the moment I see it and I don’t have to wait for the brown truck and the nice UPS driver.
Free ebooks can also invite an iffy reader to try a genre or an author they may not have tried before. I know Miz Viehl has picked up some readers through her freebies. Hmmmm… I bet other authors could do the same.
Giving away free ebooks as an enticement to try a new author or a new series doesn’t hurt other authors. It helps the entire industry. How does it help? Well, a voracious reader will read much faster than even PBW, La Nora or my bud Lora Leigh can write. So they look for more. They look for other authors in their chosen genre, or if it’s somebody that crosses genres like JD Robb books, or the Stardoc or Darkyn books, they might start checking out those new genres too.
This, my friends, leads to sales. We like sales. What helps one author can eventually help many.
Now, you want to talk about the bad souls out there pirating ebooks, this is a different story. I hate seeing my stuff pirated.
To those who want to know why…pirated ebooks are bad, bad, bad. Plain and simple.
And for those who don’t know me well enough to understand my weird sense of humor, this wasn’t a dig at PBW~I adore PBW. I’m almost slavishly devoted. I might have even been one of her first fan girls.