The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 44 – Are Free Books Worth It? (Survey Results!)

What is the best way for readers to discover your book?

If you give it away, will readers ever actually read it?

If you've wondered those questions, you'll love today's episode as Jesper and Autumn not only debate the topic but share results tabulated from the answers of hundreds of readers!

Help us with the survey on how readers find books by sharing a link to the survey in your newsletter.

We'll share the final results in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group.

You can find the survey at https://forms.gle/4cnjZZNP1VtVmRhC6.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Hello. I am, Jesper.

Autumn (32s): and I'm autumn,

Jesper (34s): this is episode 44 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to talk about something as exciting as free books today.

Autumn (44s): Yeah,

Jesper (47s): yeah, yeah. A lot of people do. But, but actually we're going to look a bit into that. And, uh, just for reference here, these are also called Permafree books, uh, because it's about books that you are setting up so that they are permanently free on all platforms. So that's what we're talking about today. Um, and we actually also covered this topic slightly on a previous episode already. Uh, but since then we've actually gone out and ask for Rita opinions on this topic.

Yeah. And it's better than just being us, us authors here among ourselves, speculating on what we thinking about offering free books. So, uh, yeah, that's what we're going to look into today and also discover if it's actually worth it anymore nowadays, but, but more on that later. How have you been since our last recording? Autumn

Autumn (1m 41s): that was definitely a little bit of a personal one. If anyone hasn't listened to it. Talking about feeling overwhelmed and yes, life hip cups. So thank you. I've actually been doing, you know, well there's still ups and downs and days like that, but I will say, you know, I've been talking about that. I've been struggling with my writing and of all things. I'm very busy at the moment cause am I do my newsletter to my readers on the first and the 15th of the month. That's just when I do them. And so I have this to do and not to do, I've been doing some book cover commissions and so I really don't have, like right now the writing hasn't been doing well.

So I'm like, of course I'm not going to write, I'm not even gonna. Look at it. I'm stuck in this scene. I hate the scene and I figured it out. And so I, I wrote myself two minutes on my phone and I hate writing notes on my phone, but I did two minutes of writing notes and it really came down to a phrase that I had already written. I just was stuck at. And by turning it into a negative, changing things slightly, I think I can finish up the scene that has had me stuck and move on. So I know I'm very excited.

I mean I literally, I'm doing like 500 words a day at the moment. I just, it's kind of a, I actually am not even doing that right now. It's hopefully when I get back to it later this week, it'll, it takes like half an hour. This is not a big deal. It's just to make me feel better and feel like I started my day right. Um, to keep writing cause I'm, Hey, I'm an author, but life's a little chaotic right now and overwhelmed and other things. But it feels good to keep it going. And I'm so excited that I think I figured this one out. I'm going to move forward to the next season that could trip me up.

But that's, that was a good week to have that. That idea. I knew as soon as I got too busy to work on it, it would finally come unstuck. And it did. Yeah. Well that's good news. Yeah. I mean progress is always good. I mean, even the small small steps counts as well. Right. And I think, I think that's a lot of like authors. We love that, that moment of, Oh, that epiphany that when things click into place that especially ones that you've been struggling with for what, two months, uh, when that finally clicks and you suddenly have, you realize why things pulled together and why they mean something, that's what really gets authors so excited that we're stumbling over our words and we're just kidding.

You were jumping up and down in our partners in our lives are going, are you okay? You're excited because you had a night. It's all right. But I love it. I love it. It gives you a whole new energy. And so I am definitely feeling a little bit more positive and like maybe my life might be a little less stuck because my writing I think is going to be unstuck very soon. Huh. Excellent. That's good news. So how is your week going? Yeah, well good.

Um, I know, I was actually thinking that, uh, it's been a while since I shared one of my referees story. Maybe I could share one today.

Jesper (4m 37s): Okay. Because I was refereeing this weekend and uh, the rain was just pouring down, but that's actually not what I wanted to, to share. But w but we got really soaked but, but that's not the point. But something, something happened, you know, this weekend that I've never tried before, it's due. So, uh, yeah, so the, the away team, they manage to turn up without any clothes for the players.

You know, where they have their normal clothes on of course. But they did not have, they hadn't brought any of the plain clothes at all. So let just showed up. Yeah. Well, so they had like a, not the coach, but they have like a team manager and he supposed to, he has one task and that is to bring the clothes. And that's the only thing he didn't do. So they, well, so there was a few of the players who had their own shorts and t-shirts. Some of them do that. They, they buy their own and then with the club branding on and all that, so they have the right stuff.

But, but the rest of the team, which was like seven or eight players did not have anything but the clothes that they were standing in. So like chips and stuff like that, you know, regular clothing. So they were just standing there and uh, then they, uh, they sent back a guy to pick up the clothes. Um, and of course I'm sure in, in us standards, the distances are not very far here, but, but here in Denmark they had to drive like 50 kilometers. I'm not sure what that is in miles, but in our standards, that's not a lot.

But yeah, probably. Yeah, but, but of course, if you have to start a medicine like 15 minutes, then it's pretty far back and forth to drive 30 miles or 60 miles. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So he, he, the coach then asked me, you know, can we start this match later because, you know, we don't have any clothes. So I said, yeah, you know, for me that's not a problem. But, but you have to ask the home team coach if he's okay with it.

Um, so he, he went and asked to tone gene coats on and I went with him. And then the home team coach set, I'm sorry, but we can't because several of our players actually have a double mat, so they have to play another match right after this one. So we cannot wait to start. We need to get started. And uh, so, so they, uh, some of the players were still hadn't come out to the pitch and a I and then told me, you need to, you know, you need to get your players out here now because we need to start.

And by this time we were already like 15, 20 minutes late, um, because they had forgot their gear. So, so that was really wonderful. So now he, uh, he then suggested that the awake coach then suggested but, okay, but could we then perhaps wait until our guy comes with the clothing and then we'll just shorten the, the match, uh, you know, playful, less time than normal. And, uh, the, the home team coach them said, no, I don't want to do that. I want to play full time.

Oh, he's just being, he didn't turn to me. Well, yeah, I dunno, but, but he is in his right. You know, it's not his fault that they forgot their clothing. So, so this a way team coach, he then turned to me, you know, as the referee, because I'm the one who needs to get the match started. And, and he said, well, so what do we do? And basically told him yet, well, you have two options. Either you can forfeit, which means that you're automatically going to lose the Mets three to nothing.

Or you borrow some green pullover shirt from the home team. And then basically you have your players play in jeans and regularly on the shirts. Oh, it is. And he was like, what? And I said, well yeah, that's your options. Either you play or your forfeit, what do you want to do that's very black. And I then he said that, okay, well we've, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then he said, okay, well we drove all the way here so we want to play and as if that's fine, then we're going to start in two minutes. So get on your green pullover shirts that you borrow here.

And then we kept going. And of course, you know, they hadn't had any time to warm up or do any pre-match preparation. So they were completely unprepared and they were standing there like half this, half the team and teams. It's ridiculous. And the home team was just laughing at them and yeah, it was horrible. And uh, but you know what the irony of this whole situation was? What's that?

So because they were arrived so late and I was so unprepared that da way team then ended up losing five nil. Oh. So actually if they had forfeited, they would have lost three needle so they wouldn't have gotten a better result by not playing at all. I was hoping for a better moral to this story.

Autumn (9m 33s): I hear that you know, either, you know, the other team like gave them extra clothing or the home team gave them extra clothing or that somehow they actually ended up winning. But this is like Lou's Lou.

Jesper (9m 48s): Well, yeah, maybe it's not a positive story, but I guess the moral is that you need to come prepared for stuff. You can't just show up out of the blue and think everything will work out. Right. Yeah. You'll just be able to wing it and it's fine. I guess maybe that's not the best way to do the same thing, but writing. Right. I mean you can't just, no, exactly. Yeah. And same thing with writing, right. You, you can't, you can't just show up to at your computer and think everything would magically work out. You know, you have to put some thought into it.

Autumn (10m 16s): Absolutely. That's, that's so true. But unfortunate. But yes, it is definitely always, I'm not a pantser, you're not a pantser. We're definitely always better when we am have a little bit of a plot going, which is why we're writing a plan plotting book together, which I think we keep mentioning every episode, so, okay. We'll move on from that one.

Jesper (10m 37s): Amen. Oh, week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So we have these, uh, small like topic teasers, or maybe I should call them talking points that we post every week in the amwritingfantasy group. And, uh, and, and maybe I should also mention that actually that every month we we do give away some very cool prices to those who engage the most, don't we? Autumn yes, we do. I think it's really exciting, this stuff that you can get

Autumn (11m 9s): everything from blurb reviews to a 3d books images. So yeah, it's kinda fun.

Jesper (11m 16s): Um, yeah. And we also offered to review five pages of writing, and I dunno, maybe it's actually time that I should give away another audio book of, uh, of my book of how to write a fantasy book description. What do you think? Maybe I should do that next month? Maybe we should, uh, yeah, we'll have to decide because I have to make up the image for what the price is going to be, so let me know. Right? Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's a good, uh, but actually what I wanted to say about those topic teasers or, or, or small snippets there that we post actually that I posted one this last week with the following text.

It just said, listen to music that reminds you of your character or scene to inspire your writing. And I was, and that was all he said, but I was actually quite surprised to see how many engaged with it. There was a lot of comments and posts then I really did not expect that on something as simple as that. So that was, uh, that was very, I was very pleased with that. So thank you everyone for all the posting there. That was awesome.

Autumn (12m 14s): That is, I, it's all a little bit of it. And it's funny how many people like, right, like writing to music or don't like writing to music. And I know occasionally that sometimes when I have a am, when I have, you know, a character I have problems getting in touch with. It really helps to listen to music that reminds me of this character. So I can definitely see the point occasionally and listening to music that inspires you to get into your scene and your character. But yeah, there's other times where it can totally not help too.

Yeah.

Jesper (12m 47s): Yeah. It's funny because I, I, well, I, on the flip side, I need a completely quiet environment. Otherwise I simply cannot concentrate on writing. But, but I don't know. Did you notice what Jason said that, that he was listening to all writing that really made me laugh.

Autumn (13m 0s): No, I don't think I saw what his answer was. He wrote BBC news. I think if I was listening that would inspire me unless I was doing a political thriller at the moment.

Jesper (13m 17s): Yeah. I just don't see how, I mean, if it works, then that's great for him, but I just don't understand how you can listen to news and then, right. I mean, that would be so distracting for me. Yeah. If, of course.

Autumn (13m 28s): Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say for me, unless it's a specific song that reminds me of a character and like I said, especially for the a few difficult characters I've done, otherwise I just do a YouTube Epic fantasy mix and put it on the background a drowned out what other noise. But if it's a perfectly quiet house, I'm good with a perfectly quiet house because I tend to zone out and not hear anything anyway. Right. But it's funny, I was actually looking at a different conversation in the Facebook group that really got me going. Yeah.

We, uh, I like it when other people post topics and ideas too because obviously, you know, that's really close to them. And Richie recently posted something odd, um, a blog post he had done where you've had a guest author come in and talk about mistakes male authors make when writing female characters. And I thought that was such a good topics. I, yeah, I had to read through the blog post and read through all the comments on it to see, and you know, the, the blog post is very authentic in saying, yeah, sometimes fee, you know, women writers when they're writing male characters are also making assumptions about what it's like to be male because obviously no one is putting on someone else's skin and living someone else's life.

But I did think it was some great tips on how to write a female character and some things to avoid because yeah, there's still some horrible, people don't treat female characters like Oh you know, a real character. And so it was really interesting to read through the post and see what some of the issues we're all the way down to a good solution is if you really are, have any doubts, make sure you have a female beta reader that you're going to actually listen to who can give you some female perspective about what you're doing to your women characters.

But it definitely, you know, both ways. You know, I'm a woman and I do write male characters and I know you have a written, some major female characters, so it's always nice to like, you know, double check your perspective and make sure you're doing right by all your characters and all your gender's, including the ones that are somewhere in between.

Jesper (15m 32s): Yeah. I guess maybe I, maybe I should have read that, uh, that blog posts before. Uh, well, of course it wasn't released back then, but, but actually at some point there's a slight, I don't know, maybe half a year or more ago, but I was, uh, I was interviewed on another podcast and, and the, the interviewer, the host asked me, uh, about me writing female characters and, and, and what, how, you know, what did I think about when I wrote the female character and how do I make sure that they are am

Autumn (16m 4s): realistic, I guess. And

Jesper (16m 7s): I guess I did not have a very good answer was because I was like, I was like, well, I don't understand. What do you mean? I mean, I just, if it's a male or female, the character has to be strong. They have to be capable because otherwise we just don't like the character. So it doesn't really matter if it's a male or female. And of course they have to have reasonable motives as to what they're doing and why they're doing the things that they're doing and all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, it's not really that different that that, I think that was my response back then and it was like, uh, but it sounds like this blog post is a lot better than what I came up,

Autumn (16m 45s): which is why I think it's the subtle, subtle differences that people might not realize when they're writing characters were like a few heads, some good examples where they started with a really strong female character, but then she got married and had kids and was no longer a warrior and only cared about having kids and that people were like, how could you do this to her? She was a strong independent female or, or using a character like I, the token female, you know, you and I are blog, you know, developing things. I'm always going like, we can't just have one woman, you know, this 50 50 or even if it's, you know, it should be something, Hey, I think it's really fun to have like a 75% female troop, you know, do something different.

Don't worry, don't stress, but definitely treat them is deliberately as you would any character. Hmm, good point.

Jesper (17m 35s): Yeah. So as I said in the beginning of of this episode, we have been debating for a while now whether the strategy of giving free books away actually works as a marketing tactic anymore. And uh, to get wiser I guess on that topic, we started the survey and we ask readers for their opinions on the matter and the point of this recording that we're doing right now, we've got 379 responses. That's pretty good. That is definitely not bad.

Autumn (18m 4s): Well, I'm hoping for more, but you know, that's getting pretty statistical at this point.

Jesper (18m 11s): Yeah, exactly. But I would really like to get to a thousand responses in total because then is, as you just said, is statistically relevant at that point. So I would like to, I guess put out a call to all our listeners year since all of you are also writers and am maybe autumn maybe we could ask people to help us out a bit. You know if I put a link to the survey in the show notes and maybe then if we ask our author listeners here to share that link with their readers, maybe in the newsletter or wherever, in order to basically get

Autumn (18m 46s): more responses. Don't you think that they would be willing to do that for us? I would hope so. I know I've put it in my nose letter and you put it in yours, but that'd be fantastic to get some other other readers out there to answer it so we can get it up to a thousand because I know we are going to calculate the results and have the answers and you said you're going to post it in the group in our amwritingfantasy Facebook group, so that would be, you know, you'll get the results if you'll help us out. You can find out as this is topic that we're about to discuss with our current slightly, not quite statistical enough average, but you know, you'll get those results and make a decision about how you want to run your books and if you should be doing PERMA free.

So please help us out. The link is in the show notes and if you have questions of course just reach out and let us know.

Jesper (19m 36s): Yeah, absolutely. And of course you find the a amwritingfantasy Facebook group. I just searching for amwritingfantasy in the group session of Facebook. And what I should also let you know is that this a link that we have in the show notes, it does not require your readers to sign up for anything or leave their email address or anything like that. I, I left it completely open so that is as easy as possible. And you know, people could just go and leave their response and leave again and that's all we asking. We're not gonna put them on an email list or anything like that. So uh, yeah, you can tell you that lowers the barrier of entry.

That's exactly

Autumn (20m 9s): double is take it yourself. We're not trying to swipe your reader list. We just wanted to have this question answered.

Jesper (20m 18s): Yeah, exactly. That's what we want. And um, basically what I have to do here today is now that I will share the results that we have so far with the 379 responses. And uh, I, I would think that is fairly accurate to be honest. Uh, I would be surprised if the remaining am amount of responses up to a thousand will completely change the results. But uh, yeah, just be aware that might change.

Autumn (20m 48s): Yeah. I can't wait to hear it because even I've been kept in the dark, so I don't have the stats in front of me. I can't wait to find out what some of the answers are. So yes, let's get on with it. So what are people answering and you know, are you seeing then a big enough trend that you, you're feeling pretty confident that these answers are pretty solid? Oh, good. I can't wait to hear that. Yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. But maybe before we get into the actual results it, it might be worth explaining. How do you actually make your book permanently free when Amazon doesn't allow you to put in a price of Shiro Dallas when you uploaded to KBP.

So maybe you could just cover that first autumn absolutely. This is something I've keep doing an undoing and trying to decide if I want to do again. So to make a book permanently free, the first thing you have to do is be wide. You can't just be on Amazon and it not just why to like it's free on my website you have to also have your book published on the big sites like Kobo, Barnes and noble, uh, Apple. Sorry, my brain just blanked. Apple books you need to have on the big platforms you book also uploaded.

And then those platforms, you do have the option of choosing free or if you go through a distributor like books to draft to digital or Smashwords, you also have options of uploading to free. So you have to basically push your book out to free everywhere. Again, those big publishers are the ones that are important. It doesn't matter if you have it free on what what pad? Amazon doesn't care what about Wattpad unless you happen to be in KDP select and have your book on what path they will find it. Trust me, don't do it but if once you have your book free elsewhere, what you need to do is you can do it two ways.

The smartest, easiest and most professional way is to email the KTP KTP help desk and say, I have this book you give your ASI en number is free on platforms on Smashwords Smashwords. Yes. You knew here on Barnes and Nobles at this link you must give them the actual link so they can click on the book and go and see it's free on Kobo, Barnes, noble, you know, give them multiple if you can and then say would you please price match? They will normally email you back saying it is up to their discretion to decide if they want to price match, but if they decide to do so that you will see it marked as free in a few days.

I can tell you that as the script they send you every single time and I don't think I've ever seen them not follow through and then make your book free. Now the other way is if for some reason you get a no response or if you are just really nervous for some reason about talking to the KDP help desk who are usually incredibly helpful and very polite and nice. Um, all you have to do is get you and all your friends. Social media works great for this reason and say, Hey, go and go to my book page on Amazon and there's a little button you know on the page usually helps.

If you Mark it out to people and say, click this. Say you found the book at a different price elsewhere and give them the links to where it is also free and just have, Oh, I've heard as few as 10 friends, I've heard as many as a hundred. I think the real number is somewhere around 20 to 30 people have to go and say, Hey, I saw this book free somewhere else. And Amazon will usually price match it that way very quickly as well. So you can do it both ways, but really it's easy unless you're really good at rounding up a whole bunch of friends, just email the KTP help desk.

But if that does fall through social media and tell people to please report your book as free on other websites and that'll work as well. Yup. And of course the strategy or the line of thinking behind making a book free is of course that am you lower the barrier of entry for, for new readers and and basically makes it like a no brainer for them to, uh, to give you a book, a chance. And then of course the idea is then all the strategies here that you're writing in a series, so you're giving one away for free.

And then the idea is that once they've read that, then they are hooked and like your story and then they go on to buy the other books in the series and am iron man is sexually to get to number 66 in the overall Kindle store with this strategy. Um, but the attentive listener will also remember that in a previous episode I talked about something I called Kindle stuffing, which was basically when readers download books free just because they are free and then they store them on their Kindle device and then they actually never read them.

And that was am the premise or line of thinking behind this survey that we did because I can certainly see on my books that um, that looks, it seems like there's a lot of Kindle stuffing going on because the number of readers who go through from book one to the rest of the series has seriously dwindled compared to in the past. Yes, I agree. It's called the thing that is just stuck. Yeah. It's called the read through rate. And there was a time where you give, like you do a big promo, you have your book for free and you know a thousand people download it and if you have a 10% to 20% read through rate picking it, you know they're picking up the next books in the series.

That's, you know, pretty successful and it makes the advertising worthwhile. But I agree recently it seems like the raid through rate is dropping like a rock and I'm starting to wonder to what the results of your survey going to be as if is this is Kindle stuffing really just taking the for and people aren't picking up or they are picking up free books but they're never getting to them because there's so many of them. Yeah, that's, that's the thing. So do you want me to, she has some results out. Oh please I wouldn't know the answers at least with the answers as we have them right now.

Yep. Okay. So I'm going to cover each of the questions I ask people

Jesper (26m 44s): and then I will give you the responses and I will also give you my reflection on it. And then of course you can sort of pitch in and give your reflection if you agree or disagree with me. All right, sounds good. Okay. So the first question I asked was, are you more likely to take a chance on a new author if the book is free? And basically 64% says that they don't mind paying for a book written by an author that they have never heard of before.

Wow. Interests. So 36% chose the other options where I stated that they will only purchase books written by authors they already know. So that's, you know, people are willing to take a chance. 67% are willing to take a chance on a new or 64 64 that is really excellent. And that's surprised that that's a lot more than I thought. Yeah. I would have thought it was a lot less too. Yeah. And then I went on, so I basically spit out the questions here.

So the one, the people who are within the 36%, uh, pocket here, then the people who said that they only want to purchase books from authors that they already know. I asked them a sub question that I did not ask the other ones. Um, and this sub question was basically saying that if they would purchase a book from an author that they don't know if it, the book had good reviews and otherwise sounds interesting, uh, and for their taste and so forth.

Right. And do you know what happened? They still won't get it. 66% now confirmed that they would change their mind. Oh my gosh. Did you see a lot? That is a lie. You didn't put it at a threshold, like a minimum number of reviews. You just said like an excellent star rating. I just said great reviews. That's what the question says. And of course I did on purpose with all these questions. I made them very black and white because I want to force people to take either one side or the other.

I don't want all those in the middle answers. So that's on purpose that I've done it like this way, but 66% confirmed that they would change their mind. So if 64%, that was the number we had before, you know, out of the total pool, they said that they were already prepared to pay for the book and other those who then said that they wouldn't, you can still convert 66% of those people if you have good reviews on the book. So basically if I add those two together, then you're looking at more than 80% confirming that they are willing to pay for a novel.

That's exciting. That it really is to see that that many people are willing to buy a new book even if they never heard of the author. But obviously you've got to have some stuff there. Great reviews or, I mean, do you have questions on pricing? No, not as such, but we'll come to that. But, um, now I'm, any questions to go here? Let's go. Um, yeah. So, uh, so I thought that was very interesting. Of course it does.

As you just said to autumn. Uh, it just proved that if you have social proof on your book, meaning good reviews and stuff like that, then it does make a difference. But let, let's move on here. Uh, then things got really interesting as well. When I then asked if you bought a book, is it the next book you're start reading? And of course here I'm alluding to these Kindle stuffing topic, right? Right. So if they bought the book, 42% says yes, this just the next book, they'll start reading while 58% then says no, they will attitude there to be ruthless.

Autumn (30m 34s): Okay. Which we know how the big, the Tubi redless so, okay, so that's almost almost 50, 50 that, you know, most would go ahead and read it next and the rest are gonna just add it to the pile even though they know they bought it.

Jesper (30m 48s): Right. But listen to this then, because this is where it gets interesting because the next question I asked him is basically the exact same question. But now I sent us the question on those who get a, who got a free book instead of buying it. So basically the question went like this, if you download a free book, is it the next book you start reading and you know, what happened? What happened? So, so now only 32% confirmed that they were started reading it.

So we just lost 10% compared to the 42 from before. I think this, to me, this makes sense because if you spent money on something, you are far more likely to also take action on it. That's true. Right. Wow. That's so this leaves, yeah. So just leave 68% of the readers saying that they would simply add the book to the TUPE red list if they, um, God did for free. And that is the list that we don't not want to be on as authors.

You know, we want them to pick up the book and start reading.

Autumn (31m 53s): Yeah. It's, yeah. That to be redless. I mean, I know mine. Um, yeah, it's, it's a sad, sad thing that books on my to be read list because I just, you're right, if I see something that really interests me, I'm going to go buy it and read it. And I don't really care about what else is left that I picked up randomly across the net. So that's interesting. That's really see that coming out that readers are gonna look at the books that they purchased and bought money for we're the ones they picked up for a free might end up to the back eddies of the to be red.

Jesper (32m 29s): Yeah. And of course the, the, the critical listener could then say, well 10% that's not a laugh a lot. And yeah, I don't know, maybe it's not. But to me 10% I mean if you're out a lot of free books the fact that 10% of them are more likely to not read it because it just goes onto the, to be reckless to me that that is significant. I think it might be, I mean I definitely seeing a trend, but I'm sure you still have more questions to go. I do.

I do. Because the next question here then as onto the one that we just had here, and the next question is how many unread books do you have on your e-reader? Maybe the Kindle, the phone, the nook, whatever. Oh, this is going to be a scary one. Yeah. So if I tell you the bracket options autumn that I gave people, then maybe you can guess on where you think that 60% of all the responses fill in one of these brackets. Sure. You can guess.

I'll give you the brackets first. Okay. I'll give this a try. So yeah. So the first bracket I gave them was that they have none or no on read books on their e-reader because they always finish the current rate before they pick up a new book. That was the first option. Second option is that they have less than five mm. And third option is that they have between five and 10 unread books on the e-reader. And this last option is that they have more than 10 books on debt e-reader.

Which one do you think? 60% confirmed. I'm going to guess the last option. More than 10 yes. Isn't that scary? It is scary. 60% of Rita's has more than 10 on read books on their Kindle. I, it's just doesn't surprise me. You can put a whole library on there and it's worse. Am Adam has shared all of his unread books with me if I go into his account because you can do that with friends and family and wow, that's just a lot of books.

Awesome. It's a lot of, I mean, and of course it says more than 10 so we could be a lot more as well for some of the responses, right? Yeah. And then, and now we really deep inside the Kindle stuffing territory here, right? Because you saw the people who go around and find pre books and then, Oh, that's a free one. I'll just download it to my Kindle and then move on. And you know, five, 10 minutes later they probably forgot everything about that book because it's just there and then they think I'll get back to it one day. But we all know that they won't know. And I think that's the worst thing about when you're looking at your to read list on your Kindle, unless you're basically left with the cover, you don't have the blurb in front of you, you don't have the reviews, you're just looking basically at the cover saying, Oh, which one do I read next?

And so yeah, unless it's something that you thought, Oh, that looked good and I actually bought it, it's easy to just skip. Like I don't remember that one. Or this is where your cover has really got to stand out so that people go, Oh, that one's neat. Otherwise they might not ever open it again. Yeah, exactly. And this is then where at least for me, that those 10% that we talked before, those 10%, that 10% drop from people who just put it onto the to be read list, uh, from downloading it for free rather than buying it.

That that's where, for me, those 10% becomes relevant. Because if we are saying that these are 60% of readers, that it has more than 1,000 books on their Kindle. But these are also readers who have bought books of course. But if you can drop that number by 10% by saying if they purchased the book, then they will not, they will start reading it in 10% of the cases. They will start reading it right away rather than just putting it on that wait list there or read list. Right. So, so to me, that's where those 10% does make a difference.

To me

Autumn (36m 19s): it does. I really think it does make a difference of, you know, how many people are going to look at it and read it next. But yeah, that's a tough one because, you know, it'll be interesting as we get more, more answers in to see if that 10% ends up growing or shrinking. I'm getting gas. It might grow a little bit more, but we'll have to see.

Jesper (36m 41s): Yeah, yeah. We'll have to see. Um, so I thought that was very interesting, but I also have, I have one more final question. The last people in the same way. So yeah. And this was actually because I wanted to, I don't know if you could call it dispel a myth or maybe just at least get a confirmation if the myth was actually true. Okay. So the myth goes like this, that free books are perceived by readers as being of less quality and therefore you should not make you a books free Oh, that's an interesting thought.

That's a myth. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, did, this is a topic that I hear, well I wouldn't say often, but I've heard it many times, at least on on internet forums, on Facebook groups and from authors, you know, debating between themselves whether or not making the book free actually sends a signal to the reader that this is something I just slapped together. That's why it's free and I don't want to judge you for it. You know, a lot of authors has been debating this stuff and well, I don't want to debate it.

I will rattle. I will just ask the readers, what do they think? I like that answer. So what did they say? It was a crystal crystal clear response. There is absolutely no doubt. And even if we're getting more responses, it's not gonna change anything. 100% convinced that this is a, this is the final answer. So we've got 86% of readers responded that in their view there are not any difference in quality between free books and non free.

Autumn (38m 15s): Woo. That actually makes me excited. Yes, we'll add the boom for you. That is exciting because I know when I talk to authors and you know, I always, when I teach and stuff like that, I've always saying this should be your best work. Your gift is the widest distribution. It's going to touch the most people. You wanted to be like, Oh, this is wonderful. It's so good that that message, you know, readers are willing to believe that a free book is, well, at least 86% of them think it's just as good as buying a book.

Or could it be that some of the bot books aren't that good? I'm not sure.

Jesper (38m 51s): Well, I think it's, it's shows more about the fact because the, the readers don't know about this debate that authors has between themselves about, well, if I put the book for free, then I'm signaling it. It's poor, poor quality, but it's not because of course I did everything I could to make it a professional and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, the readers don't know about that conversation. They just pick up the free books and they read them. Yeah. And of course if they pick up a ton of free books and every time they read it, they're like, what is this crap? You know, then well, it will show clearly in the responses. You then most people would say the opposite.

They would say, yeah, every time I pick up a free book, it's, it's horrible. So I think this is just a myth that exists between authors and it's not real.

Autumn (39m 31s): I think that's exciting though. It's good to know that, you know, the quality of books out there is good because it's reinforcing, reinforced by the reader's saying, no, I pick up free books and they are good and I've had good experiences, so I'm excited. I think that's a really awesome result. And the whole thing is interesting that really if you want your book to be read sooner, it's better if they're buying it by these results so far.

Jesper (40m 0s): Yeah. That that's uh, yeah. If, if you, if we're trying to conclude a bit that that's certainly a conclusion, right? Uh, there's a higher likelihood that readers will read the book if they bought it rather than download it for free. I think if I look at the result like helicopter view, it's also pretty clear that readers have way too many unread books on their Kindles and there is, it's just a problem. It honestly, it's a problem. I could see that and, and yeah, I'm what I was about to say is to me the only way to get around this stuff, and this is just my personal opinion and everybody can, you know, have make up their own mind about what they think and, and whatnot in my personal opinion is like, yes, you can still get people to download the first book in your series for free.

I in full transparency, I still have my first book in my trilogy for free and I really don't plan to change that now. Um, so that, that's just for full transparency here. But if you give it away for free, yes, you can still get people to download it that not as many people downloaded as they used to do. Uh, but if it can still happen. But the thing is that when we then talk, cha-ching read through, which is basically, so as we said before, people reading books one and then going on to read the rest of the series.

Yeah. It, uh, there's really, it's really bad because people just have way too many books on the Kindle and they never get to it. So at least if you want a slightly bigger chance of people reading

Autumn (41m 34s): your book and then reading the rest of your series, I would say if I had to put out a new one now, I would not make free I don't know what you think. Autumn well, like we said, I still have my book one, my debut book one as a PERMA free and I mean, I'm over 200 reviews and a 4.4 star rating on it. So I'm thinking part of me is wants to put a price tag back on it and do some AMS ads and, and see how it goes.

But I haven't, you know, life's a little crazy and overwhelmed right now. So I think I might wait on that in a couple months. But I'm seriously considering maybe changing things up. I've always thought maybe a Permafree doesn't need to be permanently free maybe it should be switched to a different one. Maybe I should make the first book and my second Epic fantasy series. Make that one free just shake things up a little bit because it is interesting. That's all marketing is about is shaking things up and trying new things.

So I'm always one to figure this out. So yeah, I'm not quite 100% away from Permafree. I think occasionally giving out a free sample of free something. But I do think you're right. The read through rate is definitely lower. And you know, I think you're my, no, I'm working on my next two series and both of those, I am not using PERMA free so you've got to buy the book to play, so we'll have to see how it goes.

Jesper (43m 5s): Yeah. And of course another strategy that that you could consider is, is to put it for free once in awhile and then flip it back to priced and then laid on, flip it back to free again and, and basically then you can promote the fact that it's free. Now if you want to get into the series, right? I mean, but you're still going to hit the Kindle stuff in problem. He has an a and I, I just don't see any way around this because for way, way too many years now or I mean three, four, five years ago or more. This was a very, very good strategy and you could really get a lot of readers this way and, and uh, that was read through, but nowadays I think, yeah, the train has left the station and it's too, it's too late to get on board now.

So you should have bought your ticket. For

Autumn (43m 51s): I agree. Woo.

Jesper (43m 56s): All right, so next Monday we are going to talk about how to write good dialogue.

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