Offering Free EBooks

Hi Stephen,
I have not done this myself, but I've read about a few people who've done it with some success. Whether it's worked for someone else though is only part of the equation.
The rest is to try to accurately gauge if it could work for your audience.

I imagine one outcome you're looking for is to give people a test drive essentially, in hopes that they will then want and buy the hardcopy. One of the people I read about who used this strategy felt it was a successful tactic and people did buy because of the give away, though I don't recall the specific stats.

To get some idea if this will work for you, you must do your very best to understand your readers. Start by simply considering if you read the genre you write (as you should) would this strategy appeal to you? How about your friends and acquaintances who also read it? Not sure, you need to ask.

Since it is a fairly new promo strategy, you may not have a lot to draw from as far as other examples. Another way to figure it out would be to survey your future readers who visit your site. I popped over there and didn't see a blog, newsletter or way to interact with you. Blogs or newsletters are two of the easiest/least expensive ways to build relationships, a following and to get feedback. Another option is Facebook (Myspace more so if your readers are teens/young 20s) where there are multiple ways to interact.

This type of analysis is a good idea no matter what kind of promotion you are considering. Knowing your audience and giving them what they want definitely increases your chances of making a sale.

Before you do anything like this, you should find out if you have the right to e-publish a version of your book; Tor may allow authors a creative commons license for epubs, but most publishers don't.

Coffeecup.com published the founder's web design book as a soft-cover and offered a free pdf download to buyers so they could start using the book straight away.
They also updated the pdf but not the "real book" (so far).
The book is sold out now so I will be watching to see if they update and re-release it.
I have no financial interest in Coffeecup, but they are one of my favourite software sources with a unique, genuine life-time upgrade policy.
John Williams

John Williams said:

Coffeecup.com published the founder's web design book as a soft-cover and offered a free pdf download to buyers so they could start using the book straight away.
They also updated the pdf but not the "real book" (so far).
The book is sold out now so I will be watching to see if they update and re-release it.
I have no financial interest in Coffeecup, but they are one of my favourite software sources with a unique, genuine life-time upgrade policy.
John Williams

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Hello! This is interesting, you mentioned that the book is sold out, but where? Do you mean the printed book has been bought from brick-and-mortar stores or the website? I found a press that's doing CC and am thinking of submitting to them.

Given part of it away for free as an e-book is pretty common.

DrZoidberg said:

Given part of it away for free as an e-book is pretty common.

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But giving the whole thing away isn't, right? There's a general fear that it's unprofitable, since why would you buy if you could get it for free?