Free

The Oldest Indie Tactic, and Whether It Still Works

"Make book one free" is the single most repeated instruction in this business. The mechanism that made it work has quietly changed several times.

Free is a book in the Indie Author Guide Line: short, source-checked guides for independent authors who have finished writing and now have to be found. This book examines the tactic as it actually stands today, rather than repeating advice that was true a mechanism-change ago.

Every claim here is tested against how the platforms behave now, with the check date attached.

What's inside:

• What making a book free actually does to visibility today, not five years ago
• What a free download is worth against what it costs you
• Why the same tactic produces different results in a series versus a standalone
• What read-through rate has to be before the arithmetic of free actually works
• The permanent-versus-temporary free decision, and how to choose between them
• How to tell whether free is still doing anything for your specific catalog

This is not a repetition of received wisdom. What it will do is re-examine one of publishing's oldest instructions with current arithmetic, so you know whether it's still earning its keep.

From the Indie Author Guide Line, from Novel Concepts Publishing.