First there were the 99 cent self published books, now people are starting to give their books/novellas away for free! What’s up with that?! Join me as author Beverley Kendall explains why she decided to give away her self published novella for free and why it’s working for her.
On June 26th, my first self-published book (a novella), ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION went live on B&N and Amazon. I suffered all kinds of nervousness about its release. Would readers buy it? Would they like it enough to read the prior two books in the series. More importantly, would their interest be peaked in the next book in the series, AN HEIR OF DECEPTION, of which I’d included the first three chapters at the end of the novella? I had no idea but I cross my fingers and prayed.
Fast forward to the end of September, my novella has sold a modest amount of books–approx. 3300 
copies. Amazon and B&N are completely swamped with self-published books, both front list books and reissued books. Ninety-nine ($.99) books seemed to dominate Amazon charts. More and more, it’s getting harder and harder for authors to compete for readers’ dollars with so many books and so many, many cheap books.
The sad fact is, no author wants to sell their full-length work for $.99. Most authors do so in an effort to compete, in the hope of selling enough to land the book on a list. Being on a list means more visibility. More visibility means–hopefully–more sales. More sales, of course, means more readers reading your work and that’s what every author wants. The ultimate would be that a good portion of these readers like your work enough to buy you again.
So with all of this motivating me, I decided I try to reach more readers in a different way. Instead of charging money for my 30k novella, I would give it away free for 2 weeks but just in the Apple iBookstore. At that time, the novella was already in the iBookstore through Smashwords for $.99 but it was only selling a couple copies a day. I really didn’t think I had anything to lose. I then opened an account with Apple myself, took it down from being distributed to the iBookstore through Smashwords and put it up myself. This way, I would get a daily download count.
On October 9th, ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION went free in the iBookstore. A TASTE OF DESIRE didn’t do too bad when it went up in the iBookstore January 5th. It spent a fair bit of time in the Top 100 Historical 
Romances and then it fell completely off around the summer. But on October 10th, it jumped back on the Top #100 Historical Romance list went as high as 3. Since the novella went free, it’s sustained a ranking in the Top #200, unlike the period when it was first released, when it was popping on and off of that same list.
Unlike A TASTE OF DESIRE, SINFUL SURRENDER didn’t become available in the iBookstore until September 2011. Not sure why since it came out January 2010. I do know I emailed my former editor at Kensington in August to find out why it wasn’t available. Anyway, SINFUL SURRENDER had similar results once the novella went free. Two months later, it maintains excellent rankings and hasn’t yet fallen out of the Top #200 Romance.
Fast forward to November 1st. ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION goes free on Amazon and a day later goes free on Barnes & Noble. Here’s what happened to both Kensington books on Amazon. I’ll explain B&N results in a bit.
The effect of the free novella was almost immediate. Both books appeared on Amazon’s Top 100 Historical list and remained there for approximately one month. Sinful Surrender ranked #20,684 in the Kindle store October 29 and shot up to #951 November 2nd, the day after the novella went free. Likewise, A Taste of Desire was ranked #17,783 and shot up to #1,236. I find that Amazon is much more price sensitive, so it’s no surprise that SINFUL SURRENDER, priced at $2.99, this time around, sold better than A TASTE OF DESIRE ($4.49) and still maintains a better ranking.
Unfortunately, my free novella had no effect on my sales in B&N and here’s why: Barnes and Noble does not advertise their free ebooks. There is no link on their site and no list ranking Top Free eBooks as there is in the iBookstore and Amazon. Even if you search free eBooks and drill-down to Historical Romance, my book (and most free historical romance ebooks) is not listed on the page. There is a definite cause and effect in play here, and if readers can’t readily find my free novella on the site, they won’t be downloading it. This was the one fly in the ointment. I hope one day B&N will reconsider this and advertise their free ebooks.
Lastly, let’s talk numbers (the ones I think I know). Prior to the novella going free, both of my Kensington books were selling approx 1-20 books a day combined on Amazon. At the peak of their resurgence, they were selling a combined approx 115 books a day (according to Theresa Ragan’s Amazon Ranking Chart).
To date, between Amazon US, Amazon UK and iBookstore, there have been 95,060 (iBookstore) + 50,585 (Amazon US) + 4,795(Amazon UK) = 150,440 downloads of ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION.
Lessons Learned
1. Free works
2. Include an excerpt to other books at the back of your free book
3. Readers should be willing to pay money for the free book. In other words, don’t scrimp on anything: cover, editorial review, story.
4. It’s easier to promote a free book than a paid book.
5. Free book helps weed out readers who won’t like your paid work, which hopefully means less negative reviews of paid books.
6. Free works better with series (connecting books).
7. Authors don’t have to be slaves to cheap book pricing. If readers love your work, they will pay a fair price for your books. (Personally, fair to me is $4.99 for a full-length 90-100k book).
However, the biggest lesson I learned was if you’re going to include an excerpt of other books in your free ebook, make sure the book is available for purchase. I made this mistake by not having AN HEIR OF DECEPTION available and sorely regret that missed a great opportunity to sell that book now, when the interest is hot. Believe me, it’s a mistake I won’t ever make again.
A special thanks to Beverley for offering up her adivce and info. And everyone is a winner because you can download Bev’s novella, ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION, for free on Itunes, Amazon and B&N.
I’m trying it out now and def. seems to be working. I had 2 novellas at 99 cents that weren’t making me much money at all. So I figured, why not? I didn’t have much to lose and they were short stories.
About a week ago, one of my short stories went free on Amazon UK. The short story, Love Letters, has an excerpt of To Seduce an Earl at the end. So here are my numbers compared to last month on Amazon UK and this week since Love Letters has been free.
Last month:
Love Letters: Sold 7 copies at 99 cents (made less than 2 dollars).
To Seduce an Earl: Sold 5 copies at $2.99
This Month:
Love letters at free: 3133 downloads
To Seduce an Earl at $2.99: 32 copies sold.
Not a huge amount, but its good for Amazon UK. Plus that’s over 3,000 readers who have probably never read my books and I’m hoping To Seduce an Earl sales will continue to go up this month. Giving up the less than 2 dollars for Love Letters was certainly worth it since I’ve sold more of To Seduce an Earl at 2.99.
As for Itunes, I wasn’t even on the charts at all. To Seduce an Earl has been in the top 200 for about 2 weeks now. And once in awhile, Wild Heart (my first Kens book) pops on there.
I don’t know how long it will last, but i’m def. for it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to put all your full length books up for free, but a novella is certainly worth it.
Beverly and Lori, this is a great idea! Next year I’m going to start a new series. I already planned to start with a novella and a book, put them out at the same time, with the novella for free and charging for the book. I hope mine goes as good as yours, Beverly! And, Lori, those are great numbers for Amazon UK!
Those are fantastic numbers, gals. I’ve had a novella for free and it helped sales for the next book in the series. I’ve taken it down for a few months and then will put it back up next year. One of my publishers also made a full length novel in my super agent series free for two weeks and that was a great promo for the other books in that series. I wish they’d do it again!
Here’s to many sales!
Sorry I’m late, Lori!
I love to see figures to go with something like this. It really helps put things in perspective. I’m trying to get books up that I have written but like the idea of writing a novella to go with it. Definitely an easy step that shouldn’t take too much time. I have to admit, so far I haven’t had a ‘plan.’ I could use one
This was soooo interesting to read – from a reader’s point of view. I love a free novella – it gives me an opportunity to try a new-to-me author and if I like their voice I certainly go back and buy backlist titles.