Free!
Free books.
Why on earth would I give away my work?
Bear in mind it took me about seven years to get the Secret of the Scroll from conception to publication. During that period I rewrote it three times and added a second and third book. A conservative estimate of my time would be at least 700 hours. At minimum wage rates that would amount to £7000.
The there's the external costs of making the book fit to read. Editing included several passes of structural, a line edit and two lots of proofreading. The people I use are professionals and have to be paid accordingly. No change out of £2000 for that.
Then there's the cover, formatting etc. Another £500.
Total around £10,000 if you include my time, which, if you ask me, is very much undervalued.
But you can have the product for nothing. How can I justify that?
It's all about visibility. If I do the maths, I need to sell about 5,000 ebooks at £2.99 in order to break even.
That's not going to happen unless readers know my book is available and that it's quite wonderful. That's where my free promotion comes in. Think of Netflix. There, all the films are free once you've paid the subscription. So giving one a try for 20mins is painless and easy. If it's unwatchable, you've lost nothing but 20 mins of your time.
So, my resistance to renting an unknown film for £2.99 is far greater than trying it on Netflix. I can still feel the stinging disappointment of the ones that turned out to be a waste of money.
If you take my book for free, you will be doing me a big favour. This is how:
1. You move me up the charts. After 1 day of my free promotion the Secret of the Scroll is No. 1 in Epic Fantasy. That means more people get to see it.
2. You give me a chance to hook you with my writing.
3. If you read my book you might leave a rating or review. Ratings are massively important for Amazon sales. Ratings also help qualify for the book promotion services with the greatest reach. Until I get 50 reviews, I'm practically invisible.
4. Most importantly, though, you might read my book. Which is the main purpose of writing it. Forget about economics, all I really want is to be read and enjoyed.
So, you're not robbing me. There's not need to wait for the price to go up. Be my guest, take a free book now and I hope you enjoy it.
