The Cow and the Milk
There's been a lot of talk about giving away content for free lately. Authors, I've heard, should give away their stories and their books for free to build an audience. There are many sites which do this. You can Google them if you'd like.
I have no problem with this. In fact, I think it's a good idea.
Give away stories, give away novels, give away podcasts. It's a great way to build an audience, sure. I've picked up tons of free books in my day and it's introduced me to many of my favorite authors. Guys who's later books I've shelled out countless dollars for.
The problem lies when authors giveaway content and then try to sell the same content. If I get a book for free, I'm unlikely to go out and buy that book. You want to give something away, great. But if you then want me to buy something, it better be different.
Lou Lamoriello, General Manager of the New Jersey Devils, was at one point head of the Nets as well. Before he took over, the Nets had a bad habit of giving away tickets and never selling out seats. The moment Lou took over, he ended that process, believing you can't sell something that you're willing to give away.
The same goes for the recent trend of pumping up Amazon sales with a small press or self-published book. Weekly I get on Facebook, and as I'm about to update my status for the seventh time that day about what I'm going to have for dinner, or my exact latitude and longitude at that moment, there's someone else telling me I have to go on Amazon at this exact moment and buy some book to pump up its sales rank on Amazon.
Apparently it's a plan to show New York publishers they can get people to buy their book. And sometimes it works. (Mostly because if you get 300 people to buy your book in one day, it's going really mess with the sales rank. Hell, 30 people over 2 hours is probably going to put you up pretty high, numbers wise.)
But I have a question about that... let's say the person sells their book to a big time publisher. What are the odds the author is going to get someone who ALREADY bought the book to buy it again?? It cuts into sales. It's very hard to sell and re-sell a book without some form of new content. An introduction. A new short story sequel in the back of the book.
You have to give the customers something new.
Now, I don't have a Bookscan account or sales numbers in front of me. I could be dead wrong. A free book followed by trying to sell the same book may work. These books may be selling like gangbusters.
I know there's some great stuff out there. Seth Harwood is out there doing it, and he's written a quality novel. From what I understand, so has Scott Sigler is a bestseller according to his website. David Wellington too.
But each one of them is giving free content that is different as well. Harwood has the great Crimewav website, for example.
So, what's the solution?
First, write a good book. No publisher is going to buy a crappy self-published book, no matter how well you bumped the Amazon numbers. And no reader is going to buy it either.
Second, I think publishing has to think about giving away a first book for free. Draw an audience in that way. THEN, sell the second, and the third. Sell NEW content.
(For example, I've given lots of stories away for free. You can check most of them out @ Thrilling Detective. If you like what you read, you can purchase either of my books in the sidebar.)
Will it happen in publishing? I don't know.
Will the attempts to sell the same thing three times over continue? Probably.
Again, I don't have sales numbers. I could be way off. But, as a consumer, I think it's common sense. If I can get the milk for free... I'm not going to buy the cow.
What do you think?
I have no problem with this. In fact, I think it's a good idea.
Give away stories, give away novels, give away podcasts. It's a great way to build an audience, sure. I've picked up tons of free books in my day and it's introduced me to many of my favorite authors. Guys who's later books I've shelled out countless dollars for.
The problem lies when authors giveaway content and then try to sell the same content. If I get a book for free, I'm unlikely to go out and buy that book. You want to give something away, great. But if you then want me to buy something, it better be different.
Lou Lamoriello, General Manager of the New Jersey Devils, was at one point head of the Nets as well. Before he took over, the Nets had a bad habit of giving away tickets and never selling out seats. The moment Lou took over, he ended that process, believing you can't sell something that you're willing to give away.
The same goes for the recent trend of pumping up Amazon sales with a small press or self-published book. Weekly I get on Facebook, and as I'm about to update my status for the seventh time that day about what I'm going to have for dinner, or my exact latitude and longitude at that moment, there's someone else telling me I have to go on Amazon at this exact moment and buy some book to pump up its sales rank on Amazon.
Apparently it's a plan to show New York publishers they can get people to buy their book. And sometimes it works. (Mostly because if you get 300 people to buy your book in one day, it's going really mess with the sales rank. Hell, 30 people over 2 hours is probably going to put you up pretty high, numbers wise.)
But I have a question about that... let's say the person sells their book to a big time publisher. What are the odds the author is going to get someone who ALREADY bought the book to buy it again?? It cuts into sales. It's very hard to sell and re-sell a book without some form of new content. An introduction. A new short story sequel in the back of the book.
You have to give the customers something new.
Now, I don't have a Bookscan account or sales numbers in front of me. I could be dead wrong. A free book followed by trying to sell the same book may work. These books may be selling like gangbusters.
I know there's some great stuff out there. Seth Harwood is out there doing it, and he's written a quality novel. From what I understand, so has Scott Sigler is a bestseller according to his website. David Wellington too.
But each one of them is giving free content that is different as well. Harwood has the great Crimewav website, for example.
So, what's the solution?
First, write a good book. No publisher is going to buy a crappy self-published book, no matter how well you bumped the Amazon numbers. And no reader is going to buy it either.
Second, I think publishing has to think about giving away a first book for free. Draw an audience in that way. THEN, sell the second, and the third. Sell NEW content.
(For example, I've given lots of stories away for free. You can check most of them out @ Thrilling Detective. If you like what you read, you can purchase either of my books in the sidebar.)
Will it happen in publishing? I don't know.
Will the attempts to sell the same thing three times over continue? Probably.
Again, I don't have sales numbers. I could be way off. But, as a consumer, I think it's common sense. If I can get the milk for free... I'm not going to buy the cow.
What do you think?
Labels: Giving it away for Free, Promotion, Selling Books
posted by Dave White at 6:30 PM
3 Comments:
You're right on the count of shit being shit. The reason why most self published novels are self published is because they're garbage. Yeah, there might be a diamond amid the thousands of acres of turds, but it's unlikely. And as far as giving content away, I really have no issue with it, as long as it's worth my time. Once again it's an issue of quality. I actually listened to Seth's original podcast of JWU and chances are if what I was listening to sucked ass, I wouldn't have tuned in again, because I would've felt it was wasting my time, time that I would never get back. And when the print version of JWU came out, I bought it, not because I was trying to help Seth prove something to the New York publishers, but because a product I enjoyed was now being offered in a new format.
As for building an audience, isn't that what the zines are for? Isn't that what blogging is for? I personally think a lot of the folks who are self publishing should maybe think about learning how to write by churning out a few stories and sending them out before committing to writing a novel?
BTW, that pork shoulder you mentioned the other night, that sounded tastie.
I had a talk with Seth Harwood just yesterday about this. I agree with you Dave that trying to re-sell the same material is not a sincere way of building that audience. Giving stuff away engenders good will and then charging for warmed-over material ruins that trust. As a frequent contributor to the crime webzines I have no issue at all with the fact that they don't pay. The value for me is to get my work out there, start to build awareness and also practice, practice, practice.
After talking with Seth and seeing his success with the podcasting I am thinking seriously about podcasting my unsold novel. If I do that then, to me, that novel is dead and gone for later publication. But who knows? If someone wants to put it out for new readers who haven't heard of it then great for me. I would not expect anyone who has already heard it to buy a book.
As for having new material on hand - there are always more ideas. If you've only got one book in you, that doesn't make you a writer. Coming up with new material is easy part of this whole game. Getting anyone to buy it, old or new, that's the challenge.
Bare bones, the way I see it is this: yes, the writing has to be good. Ok. From there, I look at giving away free content (esp as a podcast) as basically advertising. Advertising that we, as writers, can do on our own! It doesn't cost us any money and it's effective--it actually works to get people to know about your work and ultimately want to buy it.
Dave, say you're in the 80-90% of the people who listen to my work and then won't buy it when it comes out. OK. Cool with me! Chances are you'll tell someone else about it and start to build the word of mouth that is what actually sells books.
On the other hand, let's say that you don't buy it and I only manage to get 5% of my audience to buy said book. In a world where the publishing ad men will only spend money to advertise and they count success on a range of 0.03% to 0.08% as a success, I'm fricking KILLING that scale by getting 5% return or buy-through. AND, I'm doing it myself without relying on anyone else's help or money.
To me, that's awesome.
Plus this: as writers, if we have to wait until we get those 4 or 5 books out there to build our audience and start to hear back from them, we're looking at a much longer period of lving in our own vacuum with our content. Fuck that, to put it frankly. Having gotten a fan base ahead of getting a book in stores, it's meant all the difference to my confidence, output, and career as a writer.
Straight up.
Seth
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