More than half of the “best-selling” e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-reader, are available at no charge.
via www.nytimes.com
I am going to muse about the business model of Free Kindle Books.
First of all, I think it's great that there is good recent free content available on for the kindle and other e-readers. I actually think it's smart of authors and publishers to give away certain books for a limited time.
Here's a great example - for a while you could download "The Queen of the Orcs: King's Property" by Morgan Howell, for free. As soon as I finished the book I promptly bought the second and then the third books in the series. I hadn't otherwise gotten around to reading that series and who knows if I would have or not. So by giving one away they sold two of the follow up books. Smart.
The problem I have is that when I look at the "best sellers" view on Amazon for kindle books the list is skewed by the free items getting a lot of download. I mean face it - the risk is low - just have it magically sent to your kindle by Whispernet and if you don't like it, delete it.
But I want to see the bestsellers list and see recent good books that are being purchased so I can get an idea of what's new and hot right now. They need to separate the free stuff (especially since some of it is admittedly junky) from the bestsellers list.
The linked article from the New York Times is pretty interesting. The old school publishers quoted do not want to consider the idea of giving free samples as a way to capture public interest in your franchises. I think the free for a limited time concept can be a great enticement and a way to start to develop a relationship between a reader and a new writer.
