Does Free Hurt Sales

RH did an interesting study on this and presented at the 2009 Tools of Change conference, a summary is below...

RH said that for the 8 giveaway titles of theirs they studied, "the free downloads were correlated with a slight increase overall sales. As the report describes it, one RH sci-fi/horror novel "was promoted heavily around the time of the download [which began right before publication] and sales grew by a third at the time of the free download before dropping to lower, but not small numbers in the weeks that followed." For another sci-fi title with a film tie-in, the promo download offer "coincided with a 4 % increase in sales of the MM edition that had been released a year earlier. In the 4 weeks that followed, sales of the print edition were more than 40 % higher. Sales of the EBK were twice what they had been before the promo was announced." In a different promo, offering a free download of a high-profile literary first novel shortly after pub, it coincided with a rise in CD sales and EBK sales. But HC print sales, "which had been declining, did not improve during the promotion." For all books in the RH study, avg. sales rose 19% during the promo period, and were up 6.5 % during the defined promo and post-promo periods. There was great divergence however, with actual sales ranging from a 74 % decline to a 155 % gain. For O'Reilly, they monitored 3 P2P sites and found only eight frontlist titles from books the house published in 2008. (They also noticed that overall, books comprise a very small share of the files sites such as Pirate Bay and Scribd.) On avg., those unauthorized postings were made 20 weeks after publication (the fastest was posted in four weeks). As soon as an unauthorized download was detected, they monitored sales of that title--and on average, sales rose 6.5 % here, too.

HarperCollins Publishers Offers Free Promotional Samplings of Book Online

HarperCollins Publishers announced a variety of online promotions to allow consumers exclusive sampling of books on www.HarperCollins.com. In the “Full Access” Program, a select number of titles can be seen in their entirety for a limited time; in the “Sneak Peek” Program, readers will be able to view 20% of many new titles two weeks before their on sale date; and the remaining titles in the digital warehouse are now available for 20% viewing after the on sale date in the “Browse Inside” Program.

In the “Full Access” Program, HarperCollins is working with individual authors to test how free access affects books sales. For a one month period the following books will be available in their entirety on www.HarperCollins.com: Paulo Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello; I Dream in Blue: Life, Death, and the New York Giants by Roger Director; Mark Halperin’s The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose; Mission: Cook!: My Life, My Recipes, and Making the Impossible Easy by Robert Irvine; and Warriors: Into the Wild, the first volume of the bestselling children’s series by Erin Hunter. In addition, a Neil Gaiman title will also be included. After sampling online, consumers can follow a link to buy the book from any retailer. Additional title promotions will be decided upon on a case-by-case basis moving forward in consultation with authors.

Random House Offers Individual Chapters For Sale Online

Random House announced a pilot project to sell individual chapters of a book online, starting with a single title: Chip Heath and Dan Heath's MADE TO STICK: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The six chapters and epilogue are being sold for $2.99 each (The hardcover book is listed at $24.95). Buy one and you get the introduction and index free. Consumers who buy a chapter will receive an email with a link for downloading the purchased file, which cannot be shared electronically. Adobe Systems Incorporated is providing the software (Adobe Digital Editions) and service (ADEPT) for fulfillment and copy-protection of these files.

Tor Books Offers Weekly Free Digital E-Books

Tor Books announced a program that promises free digital books from bestselling and award-winning SF and fantasy authors. Subscribers will receive a TOR newsletter and a link to download a digital book. A new book will be offered every week. The first week's free ebook was Mistborn, by rising fantasy star Brandon Sanderson. Followed by Old Man's War by John Scalzi, 2006's winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Publishers Weekly Signs Up Electronic Galley Service

Publishers Weekly announced a partnership with Rosetta Solutions, Inc., a leading global publishing services company. PW will be the first major book review medium to implement netGalley, a new online service designed to help publishers connect with both traditional and new media communities through electronic distribution and tracking of galleys, press materials, title metadata, and promotional plans. PW will use the netGalley application to capture information at the point of submission. One of the key benefits of netGalley to participating publishers will be the ability to upload vital book and promotional information. Hachette's Orbit imprint is the only current "pilot" participant.

Smashwords Launches eBook Publishing Platform for Publishers and Authors

Smashwords, a new digital publishing startup, unveiled an ebook publishing platform for authors and publishers. The company began accepting applications for a limited number of beta testers at http://www.smashwords.com. Smashwords allows anyone to become a published ebook author in minutes. The site is ideal for full length novels, short fiction, essays, poetry, personal memoirs, non-fiction and screenplays. Authors receive 85% the net sales proceeds from their works, and retain full control over sampling, pricing and marketing. The site offers authors free viral marketing tools to build readership, such as percent-based sampling; dedicated pages for author profiles and book profiles; support for embedded YouTube book trailers, author interviews and video blogs; widgets for off-site marketing; reader reviews; and reader "favorite-ing."

Oprah Offers Free eBook Download

Oprah Winfrey Show has announced that a free downloadable version of Suze Orman's bestselling book WOMEN & MONEY (Spiegel & Grau) is available at Oprah.com for a limited time (two days). The PDF file was offered in both English and Spanish versions, and the site includes this message: "This book is copyrighted. You may view and download the file, but you may not copy the file or share or forward it to any other person.” This represents the first time Ms. Winfrey has offered an entire book for free to her viewing audience.

Booker to Provide Free Downloads?

The Times reported yesterday that talks have been underway to offer all six of the Booker shortlisted books for free online, in their entirety. They note: "Negotiations are under way with the British Council and publishers over digitising the novels and reaching parts - particularly in Africa and Asia - that the actual books would not otherwise reach. Jonathan Taylor, chairman of The Booker Prize Foundation, said that the initiative was well advanced, although details were still being thrashed out."But the only publisher cited, Jonathan Cape deputy publisher Robin Robertson (where winner Anne Enright is published), expresses a preference for posting just a sample. And the newspaper gullibly passes along that, while Bookscan showed sales for THE GATHERING of 3,306 hardcovers and 381 paperbacks before the prize was given, "Enright's publisher said that the actual figure was 35,000, including sales in Europe." Times

Library Thing goes Wiki

LibraryThing started a "social cataloging" wikish initiative called Common Knowledge and they already report recording over 17,000 edits from 650 site members. The immediate goal is to add more detailed information about authors (places of residence, awards and honors, agent) and books (important places, character names, publisher's editor, description) to their existing database. As they explain on their blog, "LibraryThing means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some come for the cataloging, some for the social aspect. A lot come for what happens between those two poles." And the data accumulated will be fully shareable, under a Creative Commons Attribution license. LT Blog

Penguin UK Launches Community Site with Book Focus for Teens

Spinebreakers is the name of the new project, which the Penguin blog describes as "a hugely interactive site - teenagers everywhere are encouraged to send in audio, video, writing, alternative covers and basically just get involved." Blog postSpinebreakers site

Amazon releases suite of widgets

Amazon Adds WidgetsLast week the e-tailer unveiled a suite of widgets that make showing off selections from their product (and embedding accompanying associate links) easier than ever. Associates blog

HarperCollins Launches Site for Author Web Pages

HarperCollins has established a pilot site called AuthorAssistant that allows authors to create, and control, their own Web page using HarperCollins backend technologies. The site, which rolled out with 40 authors from the Avon imprint, offers, according to Carolyn Pittis, senior v-p of global marketing strategy and operations, a way for authors to have a strong presence on the Web without forcing them to create and host their own site. “Maintaining an author Web site is a lot of work,” Pittis explained. “Now these authors have a platform in which they can very simply use our system to add their own content.”

Encouraging the authors on AuthorAssistant to add the kind of words and links that frequently crop up in search engines, Pittis said the site “uses their content and the science of search engine optimization” to get the writers more attention and, hopefully, more readers. HC plans to roll out the program imprint by imprint. Article

HarperCollins optimzes BookBrowse for iPhone

HarperCollins Publishers on Wednesday announced it has optimized its BookBrowse widget for the iPhone platform. As a pilot program, samples from 14 new titles, most debuting in August and September, will be made available online in an iPhone-compatible format through HarperCollins' "Browse Inside" application, the company said.
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