Today I’ll be focusing on a very important question in regards to marketing, Free E-Books. You’ve spent a LOT of time writing your book – to give it away for free – is it worth it? Well that depends…

Q. Have you found it effective to offer free ebooks to “get the word out?”

A. Yes and no. If you have one book and one book alone, a freeby can be helpful IF the reader leaves a review (or mentions it to other people). A Review is the BEST way other potential readers will know your book is worth their time and money. If you remind them at the end of the book to leave a review and offer a link to make it easy for them, you’ve upped your chances at success.

If you only have one book, consider offering the first half of your book for free. Half a book is better than the whole one, especially if you only have one.It will still get the readers hooked and they’ll have to buy the last half to finish the story.

Free E-books can also be good marketing tools if they are checked out at a library as well. Yes, they are reading your book for free, but when you use the last page or two of your book to tell about you and other books you’ve written, it may draw them in to look for you.

BUT – If you have a series, a free e-book is definitely worth it in the marketing world! I can’t even begin to tell you how many sales I’ve gotten of books 2 and 3 of my trilogy after the reader read the first book for free. They got invested in the characters and had to get help off the ledge of my cliff hanger to see how it was going to end.

Additionally, if you are creative enough to write a side story that intertwines with your series, you could always offer that, even if it is a short story, as a freeby instead of the first book. It will still get the reader invested in your characters or world and if you put a teaser at the end for your other books, it’s going to lead the reader to them.

The point is, if you are going to offer free, make it a form of marketing and always make the reader want to do something when they’re done.