Does Amazon Allow Free Samples? Depends Who You Are.
A level playing field?
The “freemium” model has driven the success of many an indie author. J.A. Konrath, Cory Doctorow, Scott Sigler, and many others have proven that readers are willing to pay for content even when the author gives it away.
Whether giving away eBooks, or audio versions, or even in cases of piracy, free content can and does drive sales for authors.
To many, the notion of giving something away to make money seems counterintuitive. You’re a writer, you want people to buy your stuff, right? Why would someone buy something they can get for free? The overwhelming fear is that you are somehow losing a sale for each eBook that you give away for free.
Perhaps that’s an antiquated way to view publishing, though.
Scott Sigler perhaps says it best in this quote:
“People who aren’t going to pay for your stories aren’t going to pay for them, period. But they may download a copy, love the story, then talk to people in their social circle — now I have people who wouldn’t have heard about me getting a positive, word-of-mouth endorsement.”
FREE OR NOT?
A couple years ago, Sean and I decided we’d write the serialized vampire thriller Available Darkness and publish it free right here on this website. This was an experiment to see if people would dig a serialized story, the kind that was “to be continued” week after week.
Just one problem with the experiment – most people, myself included, hate reading on a browser. Many said something along the lines of, “let me know when you come out with a book in print.” Sure, they could have been giving us the polite brush-off. Yet, we actually grew a small audience around the book until we had to put it on hold for outside work.
Less than a year later, a revolution was taking place.
With Print-On-Demand and Kindle ePublishing, Amazon was now allowing writers to bypass big publishers and find and cultivate their own audiences. People were starting to read on Kindles and tablets in record numbers. Suddenly, you could sell books very cheaply and give readers a great experience!
It was, and is, a beautiful moment for writers.
We cursed ourselves for ignoring our book for so long and got back to work finishing it. While we plan to sell the book via Amazon’s Createspace and Kindle platforms, we also wanted to give some copies away, particularly to readers who had emailed us asking when the hell we were gonna finish the book?!
THE ROADBLOCK
While we were finishing the book, I began to hear stories of authors who lost royalties because they gave away copies of their books on their websites. You see, Amazon has a price-matching policy which states that it may match the lowest price your book is available for elsewhere. So, if you’re giving your book away, Amazon may give your book away for free on its site.
Last week, one of my new favorite writers, David Gaughran, announced that he was writing a book on self-publishing which he plans to give away for free. He estimates the book will cost him around $1,000 to produce. The plan is that the book will be so useful that people will pass it around, serving as an advertisement for the paid book. And in all likelihood, his plan will work . . . if Amazon doesn’t ding him for giving his book away.
I hate being alarmist or warning of impending doom that is unlikely to occur. But at the same time, I didn’t want to see him lose money he was investing in his book. So, I warned him about the horror stories I’d heard and the possibility that Amazon could penalize him.
Gaughran is hoping that his free book will be different enough from the paid edition to avoid Amazon’s price-cutting knife.
“My position is that the free book on my website will be both a different edition and a different format, so I don’t think Amazon will (or should) price match,” Gaughran said.
I’m in agreement, particularly if a book is different enough from the one being sold.
However, what about writers who simply want to give away a copy of a book they already made? Who don’t want to create a different version (assuming a different format would protect you)?
I turned to Amazon’s policy for an answer.
From time to time your Digital Book may be made available through other sales channels as part of a free promotion. It is important that Digital Books made available through the Program have promotions that are on par with free promotions of the same book in another sales channel. Therefore, if your Digital Book is available through another sales channel for free, we may also make it available for free. If we match a free promotion of your Digital Book somewhere else, your royalty during that promotion will be zero.
We MAY make it available for free? Or will? The policy being a bit unclear, I decided to email an Amazon representative via my Kindle Direct Publishing Dashboard.
Hi,
I’m trying to find a concrete answer as the policy seems a bit vague. Can authors give away free PDF copies of their eBooks from their website without affecting the price of the same title on Kindle or royalties received?I’ve seen this described as the freemium model, that giving away the book in another, lesser format has helped to drive sales of eBooks on Kindle, especially when you link to the Kindle version for sale in the PDF.
Additionally, if an author website is allowed to give away free copies in PDF formats, are they allowed in mobi, epub, or other ebook formats? Please be as specific as possible as I’ve seen many varied responses from other writers and there doesn’t seem to be a mutually agreed understanding on this by writers.
This would seem not to be in competition with the more easily accessible Kindle version, but that’s my opinion. I’d like to know Amazon’s take on the matter so I don’t make any mistakes.
Thank you
They responded.
Hello,
We strive to make our Terms and Conditions as easy to read as possible. However, if you have any questions or concerns regarding the Agreement, we suggest you contact an attorney who can provide you legal advice.
Further, if you offer your titles for free in any other website, your title on Amazon website will be price matched with it and will be made available for free.
For more information, please review our pricing policy in the Terms & Conditions found here:
kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200627430
I hope this helps. Thanks for using Amazon KDP.
So, without consulting an attorney, it seems pretty clear to me — Amazon WILL price match your book down to zero (especially if you send them an email asking them if they will).
So, case closed. You CAN’T give your stuff away for free or Amazon WILL keep your royalties. Right?
Well, maybe.
SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT?
Several writers routinely give their stuff away for free at their websites. And not just up-and-coming writers you haven’t yet heard of, but big-name writers, the “top of the indie charts” kind of writers.
Yet, so far as I can tell, Amazon isn’t touching their prices or royalties. Or maybe they are, and we’re just not hearing about it yet.
So, how does Amazon determine which authors and books to price match and which to look the other way?
I decided to email Cory Doctorow, perhaps the pioneer of the freemium model among writers today, and asked him about his experience with Amazon, to see if he was being penalized by this policy.
“Well, that’s not what they do for me,” Doctorow said, “My books are free on my site and cost money in the Kindle store.”
Doctorow isn’t the only big-name author to give his work away for free.
J.A. Konrath gave many eBooks away on his blog, and actually endorses piracy of his book, to see how it will affect sales. According to his website, the free book has been downloaded 2,437 times (updated stats can be found here). I asked Konrath for his take on the matter and to see how well his piracy experiment worked. (I didn’t hear back by press time, but I will update if we hear back from him.)
I can understand a publishing house clamping down on free copies of eBooks. They have an investment to protect and while free copies may help sell many books, it might not sell enough, particularly in narrow niches. And it is a publisher’s right as owner of the content to determine if they want it out there for free.
However, when it comes to indie publishers and authors, and it’s OUR WORK on the line, WE should be able to give away samples of our work without being penalized.
And I can even understand Amazon wanting to price-match books, to keep a competitive edge on its rivals. However, the company should distinguish between competition and advertising efforts by the author giving content away.
GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY NOW
This isn’t a post about sour grapes.
There is no bigger fan of what Amazon has done for writers than myself. And no bigger fan of the writers mentioned here and what they’ve done for self-publishing. And I certainly don’t want Amazon to start enforcing this seemingly arbitrary policy across the board. But I am looking for something.
Successful indie writers today, such as John Locke, acknowledge why they’ve made it. Amazon has leveled the playing field between them and the big publishing houses. Any writer with good content can go up against any other. May the best stories and authors enjoy success!
What I’m seeking is the same level playing field that these authors enjoy — the ability to give my work away when it makes sense, without being penalized for promoting my books (something which benefits both myself and Amazon.)
Should Amazon let authors give their work away without penalizing them? Have you used the freemium model? If so, what effect did it have on your book sales?
Categories: news, rant - Tags: Amazon, promotion
11 Responses to “Does Amazon Allow Free Samples? Depends Who You Are.”
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Wow, their enforcement does seem selective. I guess you could always just give stuff away and hope they don’t notice. Though you did kinda put a bulls eye on your back by contacting them and posting this
Personally, I don’t need a free sample of Available Darkness. You all got me hooked when you were putting it online, so I’m buying.
@Jeremy – Thanks! And maybe I shouldn’t have written about the matter, I dunno. I’m just one of those people who likes to understand the rules before I go into something. If I decide to give any PDFs away and Amazon DOES knock my prices down, well, you can bet I’ll be writing about it again.
Hi David,
Interesting article (and thanks for the kind mention).
I’m going to look at it from Amazon’s perspective for a moment. I think they are caught between two competing motivations here.
On one hand, they pride themselves on their low prices. They tell customers that they will not be beaten on price. It’s a big selling point for them, and they have long aggressively pursued market share over short term profits. In short, the strategy works, so the will aggressively price match with who they consider competitors.
I think the key part of that last sentence was “who they consider”. Because, on the other hand, they also want to make money. There are a huge amount of indie writers who would love to be able to list their work on Amazon for free as a promo tool. Only some of them are aware of a loophole where you list for free on Smashwords, and use them to push the “free” price out to Sony, Apple or Barnes & Noble, inform Amazon about it, and then wait for their bots to verify it, and then Amazon will price-match.
However, they don’t do it all the time. I know indies who have been trying for months to get Amazon to price match and list for free, but they don’t seem to get picked.
For example, one indie author I know has nine titles out. All are free on her website, and on Smashwords. But Amazon doesn’t consider either of those “competitors”, so her books remain 99c on Amazon. I could give you ten more examples.
However, I haven’t (yet) heard of one indie writer who was giving stuff away for free on their site only, and Amazon price matched.
That’s not to say I won’t get caught. Their policy, and how they implement it, could evolve. But, I’m pretty confident I’ll be okay.
Dave
@David – I looked all over for the posts I’d read from the writers who were complaining which I read more than a month ago, but can’t find them now (grrr). Maybe this post will draw a few out.
The only thing I found yesterday was a writer on the Kindle boards 207-171-168-158.amazon.com/kdpforums/message.jspa?messageID=72717 who gave copies away to Facebook friends and got knocked down to free, something the author did not want.
You’re right, most people won’t get slapped by Amazon. But at the same time, I think writers need to be aware that it CAN happen and to prepare for it or find an alternate way of giving samples away.
Amazon is certainly free to do whatever it wants in regards to pricing, but I think they need to be consistent in their policy. Like you said, you see a lot of writers giving their stuff away and they’ve yet to get price matched, even though many would LOVE to get price matched!
Meanwhile, other writers have been hit with the price match who didn’t want it.
One could easily say to these writers, “Hey, Amazon said they’d do it, so you’ve got no room for complaint.”
But at the same time, these writers were likely inspired by seeing so many other writers who have not been touched by Amazon.
I knew when I wrote this that I might come off as all doom and gloom, spouting off on something which a majority aren’t facing. My attempt was to clarify something which confuses me and likely other writers, and maybe get consistency from Amazon. But if everyone seems to be doing it and few writers are suffering, perhaps that is the rule, rather than the exception, and maybe I’ll roll the dice.
Well,
I’m going to be trying to make a pretty big noise on the release of this book, and the vast majority of my promo efforts will be in relation to the free version, so I’m happy to be the lab rat.
I have a slightly different concern about what I am planning: the readers.
Is there a chance a reader who first discovers the book on Amazon (and pays for it), will come to my blog, see that it’s free, and be pissed? Do I risk a string of one-star reviews and/or returns? Should I be upfront in the product description? Should I just mention that it’s “based on” my blog and let the bargain hunters find out themselves? Or should I put a note in at the start of the book, explaining that the PDF version is free, and readers are welcome to try that first?
All things I have to decide in the next five days. Release is penciled in for July 18.
Dave
I’m thinking you’re not obligated to tell people where they might get a version of your book for free. I don’t think Cory Doctorow or any of those guys put anything on Amazon telling people, “Hey, hold on, before you buy this, you might want to save your money and go get it for free.”
If people are upset over spending a few dollars to support a good book, then screw ‘em. You don’t need support from those people.
Having said all that, if a lot of the material IS from your blog, you can mention that in the sales copy, saying based on your blog, but collected here in super-convenient form.
I’ve bought several books which were little more than re-packaged blog posts because a) the info was convenient, and b) I wanted to support the bloggers.
At a rough guess I would say it’s 60% rewritten older material and 40% brand new.
I think saying some content is based on the blog but repackaged here… is the way to go.
Plus, one of the beauties of this is that if I do get a lot of negative feedback, I can always put an author’s note in the front of the book that everyone will see when they sample.
Thanks,
Dave
P.S. I think $2.99 is a bargain for this book so I’m hoping there won’t be complaints
David,
I just thought of something that might be useful for those who want to use “free”, but are wary of Amazon price matching.
#1 List the book as normal on Amazon/Smashwords with your normal price.
#2 Generate a coupon on Smashwords for that title for 100% off.
#3 List the book on your site, with the coupon printed underneath so they can download for free on Smashwords.
It doesn’t suit my current project, but it could be useful for others, and won’t alert the Amazon bots.
Dave
@Dave – Thank you. Worth trying out. If anyone reading this tries it out and it works, feel free to leave a comment.
I know one writer who does this continually. He has several titles out, so each month he makes one “free” on his website, by publishing a time limited coupon and providing a link to Smashwords where they can “buy” it. He rotates the title each month, and reckons it’s good promo.
This could never be caught by Amazon, as he is not selling, not is his price “free” anywhere. He’s merely publicising a coupon (as writers do all the time), his just happens to be 100% off.
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