Opinions? Smart to post published book for free?

[SuperWriter]

Is it smart for an author to post one of his published ebooks for free on here to pull in more readers or just stick to short stories?

Pros and cons?

For me, you might lose sales for that particular book but they'll be drawn to check out your other works. And you can always delete the book from Lit like a month later.

Anyone have personal experience?

 

[Requiax]

My first book is available as a set of chapters here on Lit and as an e-book.

I don't feel it has negatively affected sales of the ebook having it available here for free and indeed several people have bought the book having first read it on Lit (or so they say).

But you are limited in how you can promote yourself and your work elsewhere here. You can put a link in your profile bio but that is only ever going to work if people are interested enough in you as a writer to click through to it (which they might well be if your book is good enough, but most probably don't really care). And you can put it here on the forum and in your signature but if readers aren't interested in the forum, they'll not see that.

I think the few people who followed me from Lit to buy my book were people who were also already paying attention to my Twitter and other places.

Lit can work to promote your paid writing to a wider audience but only if you put the effort in to build a presence on other channels and link those into Lit (for example, I would always post a link on Twitter when I wrote a new Lit story and tag Lit in, Lit usually retweeted it and as a result there's then a link between people looking on Twitter and people who read Lit).

But by and large I think Lit isn't really for that purpose (having been told so myself and come to understand it). Lit is about Lit, it isn't about advertising your work elsewhere. If you have work elsewhere and the means to promote it, you will have some people crossing over, but by far the majority of Lit readers will simply be happy to read your work on Lit alone, and why not? It's free and gives them what they want.

It's not a bad idea putting the effort in (other, more successful writers will be able to testify that it has perhaps worked better for them than it has for me, because I'm relatively new to this and also write very niche themes with limited appeal), but to repeat myself, I think you'll find that as a tool to promote paid work, Lit isn't really the best option, because it isn't intended for that purpose, so it may not be worthwhile if making sales is your only goal.

 

[HeyAll]

I see writers do that a lot on Amazon. Make one free, then pay for the rest of the series. Or sign up to their mailing list and get a free book.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't think there's any traction to post books on Literotica as promotion for readers to go buy your books. There's plenty here to read for free. I don't think they'll hurry off to pay for your books. Posting teasers here to entice readers to pay elsewhere for a fuller version isn't ethical and most likely will get you bounced out of Literotica if the site owners catch on to it. I post my published books here a considerable time after they've been in the marketplace, but that's just to reach a lot of readers with what I write.

 

[JasonClearwater]

I don't think there's any traction to post books on Literotica as promotion for readers to go buy your books. There's plenty here to read for free. I don't think they'll hurry off to pay for your books. Posting teasers here to entice readers to pay elsewhere for a fuller version isn't ethical and most likely will get you bounced out of Literotica if the site owners catch on to it. I post my published books here a considerable time after they've been in the marketplace, but that's just to reach a lot of readers with what I write.

So, did you not build out your paid audience via Lit, but through publication?

 

[sr71plt]

I haven't had a single reader tell me they came to the marketplace to buy my work after reading me on Literotica (they have on another Web site). And I don't think enough have done so to promote this way. I'm not here to promote my published work as much as to celebrate it in addition to providing free reads that, I sure, are read more here than anywhere else. I do announce my books on the thread provided for this and in the last two years (out of twelve years here) I've used book covers as my avatar and put book covers in my sig line, but I haven't linked to sales pages at a distributor. It's only been this year that I've put a link to Amazon on my book announcement posts--and that's mainly because I can't figure out how to pick up a cover image and drop it into a discussion board text anymore.

 

[lovecraft68]

Short of someone from lit reaching out and saying, hey I bought one of your books you have no way of knowing if lit helps in the paid market.

I, like many here, get those comments "This is so good I'd pay for it' but roll my eyes every time. When I first started selling I used the author's book thread, offered coupons put things on my homepage and crickets (the coupon codes were only offered from lit so I'd know the sale came from here, never had one used)

However, last year I announced on my homepage I would no longer be posting here for free and said if anyone was interested in a list of e-books of stories never posted here I'll provide it.

Since then I've gotten maybe a dozen or so bites and offered a buy five get one free deal and that was taken up on. two days ago someone asked for a link to my website(which is set up with a cart to purchase directly from)

So now that I no longer post for free I've gotten a few bucks from here.

I find it ironic pushing e-books doesn't seem to work here, but people will donate to patreon and as a reward get a sneak peek at a chapter they know will be here for free eventually

 

[JasonClearwater]

I find it ironic pushing e-books doesn't seem to work here, but people will donate to patreon and as a reward get a sneak peek at a chapter they know will be here for free eventually

Honestly, Patreon and its ilk are likely the only way most of us (I'm not including you in this) could ever make money off our work.

What we really need though, is the Patreon of Smut, where you can be honest about what you create, rather than having to parse everything through the puritanical filter of brand protection.

But Patreon seems, to me, to make more sense for most creators. How many will ever make money from writing what they want to write? Especially via Amazon, and the Algorithm of Agony. How many will ever be able to live off book sales?

Patreon has benefits for creators and their audience in that it narrows the gap between creator and audience, creates a camaraderie (you, one of us, does a thing we enjoy, and we will 'support' you to do - vs pay for the product), it allows an audience to see how much the creator is earning, it creates a guaranteed revenue stream for the artist, so they know if they can pay their bills next month, and you no longer have to worry about sales, or units, or even producing cover art.

When art has been so devalued in an overcrowded market, your only hope of succeeding is appealing so much to your audience that they would crawl over broken glass for you to keep creating. And then once that monthly contribution's set up, they need never consider it again. Recurring revenue for the artist, no pain or decision effort on the part of the contributor.

Sadly, it makes sense. Death to the beauty of a finished book on your shelf. The winners in this market will be those who can create masses of horny content, consistently and constantly. Same as Netflix. The second you don't have any new content, people bitch and moan, then move on to the next source (I'm one of them). A ravenous horde of horny, hungry readers and viewers, desperate for stimulation.

For those who can't manage that much content creation on their own, it makes sense to have collaboration partners who write in a similar style, so that you can breathe between producing novel-length chapters.

Personally, I prefer my day job to that particular lifestyle. It pays way more than any audience for my content would, and if I don't write one month, the only person who gives a crap is me.

 

[SuperWriter]

Me

I agree a bit with everyone is saying. Personally, I've posted ebooks on Smashwords this month and made a couple hundred without posting anything at all - I'll be posting for the first time soon since putting links in my bio so have no idea how it'll affect them