Over the weekend, I published my third book using Amazon KDP. It’s a completely free book, a first for me.
Why write a book and put it up completely for free? For a number of reasons that we’ll go into later in this story.
This book was the toughest for me to get approved on Amazon KDP for a number of reasons. The print book won’t be ready for a while because the cover doesn’t want to fit within the guidelines. But that’s neither here nor there.
This book is about online stories I’ve written, how much money they’ve earned and how many views they’ve garnered. I’ve mentioned it a ton already, but the book is FREE. Check it out if you can: 15 Stories 180,000 Views: Read and learn how to write high-performing stories
Learn how and why I did what I did.
1) Expanding my catalog was my main goal
One of my major goals in publishing this last book was to expand my catalog. Hopefully, it’ll drive more sales to my other books and work. I learned about this trick while reading some other books for freelance writers.
After the first 3 days of the book being published, I found downloads were in the double digits every day. This meant people were actually getting my free book and I didn’t have to spend a cent on marketing for them to do it.
It really boosted the book’s Best Sellers Rank on Amazon. Take a look.
That’s only after three days and it’s #1 in blogging. It’s looking like this book is doing what it’s supposed to do. Paid e-books offer daily income, free books offer something else for authors.
2) Try offering value for free
I wanted to give readers something for free before they decided to buy another book of mine with real money.
In a perfect world, readers will like my style of writing in the first book and want to get another one. They might also fight links to my newsletter and other online endeavors, which would also be great.
By offering this book for free, I’m giving readers a chance to run away with a piece of my work. As a writer, that’s all I could really ask for.
Some will come back to see what else I have to offer and others will get the book and never read a word of it. Both scenarios are OK to me.
3) Why to consider going free
It took hours of my life to create this free book.
It cost money from my business to design this book.
It was priceless to click the publish button knowing this book wouldn’t earn me a cent.
My long-term goal here is to use this book as a digital product/asset to hopefully leverage more readers to my writing brand. I’m not sure if this will work but it’s worth a shot.
How did I get this book priced for free?
Amazon doesn’t allow authors to price their books for free. The lowest you can price an e-book is 99 cents. But if you go on Amazon now, you’ll see mine is priced at free99.
How did I do this?
By uploading my e-book first to Barnes & Noble and requesting a price match on Amazon. It’s a process I researched and executed the first day my book was published.
Amazon honors lower prices from competitors and I took advantage of it. Unlike my first two books, my most recent e-book IS NOT enrolled in Kindle Select so I’m allowed to publish it wherever I like.
This process is one of the only ways — that I know of — to get an e-book priced for free on Amazon.
Check the book out yourself! It’s free! Also, learn how to create an audiobook for free too!
Related: Learn about the best side hustle books you can buy today.