Free Book Friday: Author’s Newsletters- Worth the free book?

What is your experience with free books from authors? Many of the offerings from the promotional campaigns that I are involved with through BookFunnel and StoryOrigin are “reader magnets”, short sample books of an author’s work. Sometimes they are like the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon book pages (the first 10% of a book), often they are the first chapter or selected excerpts from a book. Some authors will give away the first book in a series, in hopes that you will buy the next/rest.

All a reader has to do is give the author an email address. What do I do with these? I send out a weekly newsletter with my weekly blog highlights, an entertaining blurb, all the links to the BookFunnel/StoryOrigin promos, updates on my new writing projects, and any book sale dates.

Many readers have downloaded my free book and unsubscribed immediately, others stick around for a few months, but many keep opening my weekly offerings. Is a weekly email too much? I’ve debated going bi-monthly, but I haven’t decided yet.

Let me know what you think about free books and newsletters.

Here is an earlier post you may like:

Free Book Friday: July 7 – Is free a good thing?

New Promos

Featured Author

“My Patchwork Heart is just that! It is a heart that has known love, anger, pain, loss, hope, faith and survival. It is a heart that has known many sleepless nights. The result of attempts at picking up its broken pieces, while working desperately to mend itself back together again…all the while, learning and growing. The poems that make up this collection of original poetry, have been written and collected for more than thirty years by the author. As much as possible, they are displayed throughout the pages in the same order in which they were written. A word-map, of sorts, of the author’s journey throughout life, and no doubt a reflection of some of life’s obstacles that many readers of My Patchwork Heart can deeply relate to. “

Current promos are here: Discover New Authors and Free Books

That’s it for this week!

Leon

The story behind Free Book Friday:

I’ve met many authors and readers during my time marketing, cross-promoting, and blogging. I think writers have a responsibility to inform readers about all the indie authors out there in the very crowded world of book publishing. You can’t do it alone, and why would you when you have a supportive group available?

Readers don’t just read one author – they stick with their favorite genres. There lies the power in cross-promotion. If one of my readers buys a book from an author I promote, then chances are there will be a reciprocal effect, or so is the hope. Do I want to boost sales? Of course I do. Do I want to boost other’s sales? Why not. It’s called karma.

Published by Leon Stevens

I am an author, composer, and an artist. I published my first book of poetry: Lines by Leon – Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020 and a book of original classical guitar compositions. My latest book is a short story compilation of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called, The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. View more posts

4 thoughts on “Free Book Friday: Author’s Newsletters- Worth the free book?”

Hmm, I think free books are okay, but maybe free excerpts or chapters will be best. That way you can draw the reader in enough that they feel that have to purchase the full book to get the rest of the story. Maybe for your newsletter you can release a chapter every week to help keep the subscribers.

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Leon Stevens says:

August 21, 2021 at 7:08 am

I think that doing a chapter/week is a great idea if you are a prolific writer. Unfortunately, I don’t write in volume, but it is a way to give value to the newsletter. Thanks for commenting!

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