Free can be a very tricky thing. One cannot deny that free is fabulous for the receiver, they have no risk. It’s like Christmas without having to give thought to what you should give back, or being invited to have tea with the Queen without having to perform a single act of bravery or without aging to the point of spontaneous decomposition. For an indie author, giving away your work for free is about the only way you can guarantee a glance at and perhaps a curious download of your novel which otherwise would be an Arthurian legend. You know, a completely immoveable sword stuck fast in stone until the golden hand of Arthur (or luck) comes along. In the writing world this golden hand of luck is also known as the occasional reader who will pass their enjoyment of your novel onto their friends.
Why would you give away something for free, on the off chance that that person will remember to tell their friends, their relatives, their pet goldfish? This question has stopped many an author in their promoting tracks. People are forgetful creatures, and if they are like me, they download the free copy (just so they don’t forget the name) add it to the end of the 20 book long queue (which constantly gets updated with new books from favourite authors) and by the time they get to reading it, telling their friends in a visible, public way, is the last thing on their mind. Hence authors get caught in this Catch 22. Free is how you move forward, but people are notoriously lazy and absent minded, and unwilling to pay for an unknown book from an unknown author.
You can save the applause for later, but I have found a fantastic strategy that allows free and promotion in one neat package without 500 downloaders nicking off with your work, never to return. I am talking about the wonderful website, Pay With A Tweet. Basically you can create a button for your webpage, Facebook page, blog, or author profile that allows people to download your product (and in our case, e-book) for the price of a tweet. The reader can change the tweet to whatever they wish (from your cool, entertaining, carefully worded one), but they cannot change the link that leads to that Pay With A Tweet button. Therefore, to get your free novel, they have to tweet about it first. Even more exciting, the creators of this facility have also developed a pay with a Facebook status option as well.
Twitter is a phenomenon whose social power has barely been tapped. Twitter is used by every well known company, department and personality in the world. NASA has Twitter feeds for several of their projects and tweets have even come from outer space. The LA Fire Department spread information about the 2007 fires via Twitter because the news channels weren’t fast enough, and that could mean a life saved or burned. The general public see social media as a way to ‘keep the bastards honest’ as we say in Australia, meaning keeping big companies honest on everything from the quality of their service to their offer of a free product. As such a tweet or Facebook status from a friend is seen as a true testimonial of a product or group to their trusted circle. Pay With A Tweet can help authors in an unprecedented way, allowing them to take advantage of the ‘free’ phenomenon, and get a guaranteed promotion from it at the same time.
Imagine the possibilities! This is how you integrate readers in such a way they become part of your campaign. It is a tool people will use over and over again and willingly tell their friends about it in exchange for what you have, their entertainment. One press is currently using the Pay With A Tweet website in a great way. Keyhole Press have several books for sale at an average price of $12.99 OR you can pay with a tweet. What is a person going to pay? The money, or get $13 of value for the price of a measly tweet? I can readily believe that readers will promote before they read without a thought, because they don’t have to pay for it. Then the viral marketing truly begins. Keyhole provide no synopsis, no genre, just a brief, 10 page pdf excerpt of the file. Just enough to give the reader adequate confidence to go ahead and Tweet for the download.
From there you can easily track the URL to see how many people have Tweeted your book to the world, all because you gave a reader something for free. Instead of paying with money, your readers are paying with social advertising. And you didn’t even have to buy them a drink to introduce yourself.
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ReplyDeleteHi Jackie,
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to let you know that I did get your comment about ebooks. Generally I don't mind if people put their urls/twitter name in their comments because they add something constructively to the article, the information or just the conversation. But the direct copying of your friends website as well as all of their background information (which I found slightly odd) was a bit too much.
So I have deleted the comment, but I would like to thank your friend Michelle Franklin (http://www.goodreads.com/mrsdenasaan) for refering you.
Cheers,
Em
This is an interesting concept. I hadn't thought about using this strategy before, but it is definitely something worth trying. I have four eBooks available, as well as their print counterparts, so getting the word out about them is crucial. Twitter is a powerful marketing tool which can be used to an author's advantage in so many ways. Thank you for sharing with those of us who need a little guidance every now and again.
ReplyDelete@DianeZiomek
Pleasure Diane, thanks so much for dropping by! With four ebooks this might be a way you can get people sampling your book without them taking it and running! I'm glad it helped!
DeleteSounds interesting. However, I'm not quite clear on how this works. The people tweet about your book and in return they can download first 10 pages of my book? Which website do they have to go to do this? I don't think they'd have this option on Amazon where they can download a free sample which is longer than 10 pages. So the only difference is that they have to tweet about your book first.
ReplyDeleteHi Firetulip,
DeleteThat's right, they have to tweet about your book first. Though I would suggest giving the WHOLE of something away for free as it's unlikely people are going to be willing to exchange one of their precious tweets for a sample only. That's why I recommend giving away a lead-in novella/short story or book and at the end of this freebie it lists your books you are actually selling. You organise this through the website Pay With A Tweet, however you have to host your freebie somewhere on the web. Might I suggest a hidden page on your blog or perhaps Amazon s3?
Warmly,
Em