# Is anyone else totally sick of FREE FREE FREE! Urgh, gasp, give me a break!



## tahliaN (Nov 6, 2011)

When I first got my Kindle, I   at all the free books available. I read until my eyes   but then came KDP select and an avalanche of free books. Everywhere I went I got hit with adverts about FREE books I could download. At first I did. I even tried to read them. That was when I first began to not finish books (a new phenomena for me at the time). Sure I found some gems, but 60% of them were rubbish. Sorry guys but that's the truth. 

I became more discerning then (checked out the reviews & read a sample) and made a folder called FREE which I filled with books that I mostly never read. Occasionally I'd dip into it, but I'd still find plenty of books there that I couldn't finish, ( I admit I'm fussier than most) Then I decided to only get Freebies that were Awesome Indies Approved, that fixed the slush problem, but it didn't stop the incessant noise coming into my social networks screaming FREE FREE FREE. Now I've turned off notifications from all the pages & groups that scream free at me and I delete any email that tells me they have FREE books for me.

I'm sick of having free books shoved in my face.  I'd rather pay 99c for something that I actually want and are likely to read. I am so over it. 
Anyone else feel the same?  
How many unread free books do you have on your kindle?


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## NicoleSwan (Oct 2, 2011)

Agreed.  Obviously I ignore it now, but yes, it has become rather saturating. I have market sustainability reasons for also not liking it from a writing perspective as well.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Well, I don't subscribed to anything that shoves freebies down my throat. I do use www.ereaderiq.com to view freebies and sales at my leisure and control but I don't subscribe to the daily email/notifications. 

The freebies have really reduced since Amazon clamped down on affiliates promoting them but I still keep an eye on them and only download the ones which are well reviewed (ie, they have a lot of reviews and the general consensus is positive).

However, I find that even among the $0.99 books the vast majority are crap and there are only a few gems.

At the moment, I'm getting a lot of free ARC's from big publishers through NetGalley.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Yeah, I have to say, I don't get freebies shoved in my face. I don't 'friend' authors or publishers. I do get notices from a couple of book related recommendation sites on FB -- if the book looks good I click through; if not I go on. I pay most attention to titles recommended here in the Book Corner. Books that are free _and_ look good I might get. But I don't feel obliged to get them just _because_ they're free any more than I reject them because they cost a buck or two. And I don't feel obliged to read them right away, though I likely will eventually. That said: realistically, I have enough on my kindle now that if I stopped buying I'd still be able to read for another 30 years. 

I guess I don't have quite the level of passion about it as you do, though. Yes, when I first got my kindle -- July of 2008 -- I jumped on free books. All kinds of them. And read most of them. It was definitely a novelty to be able to get decent reading material for free. But I did soon realize that I didn't need to have every book -- though not because I found them routinely poor quality. Yes, I have hit a few clunkers -- usually that was as much because it was a genre I didn't usually like and the book just confirmed that for me -- but, for the most part, they've been at least 3 star reads for me and there have been several that were 4 stars. (I only very VERY rarely will call a book 5 star.) In many cases, I went on to pay for subsequent books in the series or by the author.

For anyone getting 'spammed', my suggestion would be: if you don't want to be notified about free books, don't subscribe to notification services or blogs by email, and don't 'friend' publishers and authors on FB, GoodReads, Shelfari, etc. It's really not hard to avoid the marketing, I find, but perhaps it doesn't bother me as much either. I learned early on how to ignore things like that and not let it get me riled up.  I'm not even signed up for much from Amazon -- I think I get the 'daily deal' email and that's about it -- and while I get the ereaderiq email, it's a matter of a few seconds only to decide if the book has come down in price to my 'buy' point. I have it set to notify me for even a penny drop, and still only get one or two notices a day, on average. I suspect if you give them something much more restrictive, like $0.00, you'd only get one or two a month! 

For the record, I very much want there to continue to be free books offered. I think it's an excellent way to get people to dip a toe into water they might otherwise shy away from. As I say, in some cases, for me, I've found a new author that, if I'd had to pay for the book in the first place, I might never have tried. Yes, in some cases it's confirmed that a particular genre or whatever is Not My Thing, but that's o.k. too. I eat peas now and then too -- just to see if my taste has changed. Hasn't so far, but I have found that zucchini can be yummy whereas, when I was a kid, I hated it. 

I also think there are people who maybe could not afford to read as much as they like if they had to pay $4 or $5 or MORE for a book. I expect they really really appreciate the free offerings.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm with Ann on this one...I don't feel like "Free" is shoved in my face. Of course, I don't hang out on author FB pages or websites, and I don't follow any authors on FB or Twitter (except a couple who are actually friends, a strange concept, I know), which is where I think most of the spamming occurs these days.

And I also don't see much difference in quality between free and $0.99, and so if I'm going to go bargain basement, I'm more likely to go after "free." Even $0.99 builds up after awhile; I can put the $0.99 toward books by authors whose books I'm sure I will like.

My vetting process for indie authors includes reading author posts here; if an author is a good citizen here and creates interesting posts, and _isn't_ always just promoting their book, I'll put them on my list to try. Then I look at their books and consider cover, blurb, title, reviews and sometimes the sample if I'm still not sure.

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My vetting process for indie authors includes reading author posts here; *if an author is a good citizen here and creates interesting posts, and isn't always just promoting their book, *I'll put them on my list to try. Then I look at their books and consider cover, blurb, title, reviews and sometimes the sample if I'm still not sure.
> 
> Betsy


Yeah, this is definitely me, too. I've actually bought books outside my usual comfort zone from author members here because they just seem like nice people. 

I've also got a list of "do not buy" authors -- some of whom write the sorts of things I do usually read -- but because of their behavior/posts here I have no interest in giving them any money.  Probably won't even pick 'em up free or borrow them.

It is probably safe to say that almost every 'new to me' book I've bought over the last year or so has come to my notice via KBoards. I particularly like the "So what are you reading" thread as it's fairly random and eclectic. And the folks who post there usually say, briefly, whether they're enjoying the book or not. Because they're mostly folks I feel like I know, their comments are very helpful for me. . . .much more so than random stranger reviews elsewhere.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Well, my plan of action when I received my Kindle was to fill it with free books, since my book-buying budget is almost nonexistent. I didn't know that free modern books even existed at first. I was aiming for the Project Gutenberg collection of out-of-copyright books: free old books to supplement the free new books I get from the library. So, since Project Gutenberg had well over 30,000 books and counting, (up to 42,000 now, I see), I knew from the start that I'd have to be selective.

I've gotten less selective, once I realized that the free new books don't stay free. I have a 'grab now, read when I feel like it' policy, and I try to never waste time being upset that a book is bad--I just don't keep reading it. (I said 'try'--there are a few that stick in my memory.)


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## MineBook (May 31, 2013)

Hi,

I feel the same. 
Have many free ebooks which I read only first pages.

Can't understand why authors give away their ebooks?

*For good ebook is pleasure to pay money!*​


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I stopped going through sites like www.ereaderiq.com to find freebies of  interest since there are SOOOOO many and of those, so few are ones that pass my screening system to where I'd consider getting them.  Essentially, if I wouldn't pay money for it, I'm not interested in a book as a freebie.  However, if it's ones that I'm on the fence over buying at full price, I may well pick it up if it's free or if it's discounted.


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## ehhoward (Jun 26, 2013)

Actually, hardly any. Why would you bother to download a free book you don’t want? 
I sometimes cough when I get into a series and the first couple are 1.98, only to find the next one is 5.00 and higher. It depends on what I think of the series at that point.


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## Y. K. Greene (Jan 26, 2011)

While I think that "free" is a bad business model in general for internet content - I don't see it as something that can be done away with once started (Pandora's box can not be shut) so there's no good in being frustrated about it. 

Free ebooks are also a useful tool to sample the ebook market and see what's out there, making it possible to build quite a massive library to browse through with very little effort on my part. Of course I only download titles I'm actually interested in reading but I tend to ignore reviews entirely, the number of books I've seen with hundreds of reviews and four or more stars that I then find utterly unreadable is no small thing. Though I too have begun leaving books unfinished, the last three ebooks I picked up in fact, sometimes it's just necessary - I am proud to have only put a book down because I was more than a quarter into it and bored out of my mind.


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## Mandy (Dec 27, 2009)

Like many others, I grabbed hundreds of free books when I bought my first Kindle. I mean any and everything. I stopped when I realized that free doesn't always equal good quality. Now I still grab the occasional freebie, but I'm much more likely to make sure the book is of interest and I check the reviews to get an idea of the quality of the book.

I certainly don't mind the advertisements for free books because I know that the vast majority of these authors are your average everyday people who just want to promote their work and can only do so through limited means. But then, I don't get bombarded with freebie advertisements...I usually only see them when I seek them out.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I never did get into the free thing in a big way. At a guess I'm far fussier than the OP, and I always hear my mother's voice in my head, "You get what you pay for." Once in a while I see a free book mentioned somewhere by an author I know and like or that sounds interesting by the description and try a sample, but not often, same for $.99. The truth is I'd rather pay $7.99 for a book I really like than get something I abandon before finishing at any price.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Hi!  No I am not tired of the free books.  I can't afford nor would I pay $100 a month to keep me in reading material.  I do not know what you mean by seeing free books everywhere.  Did you subscribe to all the free e-book stuff?  Because that is the only way I know of that you would be seeing free books all the time.  You know you can unsubscribe to any e-mails you don't want and if you have liked a bunch of things on facebook, you can always go unlike them. That should help with not getting blasted by free books.  I get 12 e-mails a day on freebies and reduced priced books.  I know I signed up for every one of them.
I got all but 3 of the JA Konrath/Jack Kilborn/Blake Crouch books when they went on a free promotion.  I could not have read them otherwise.  Also Carolyn McCray books and Larry Hill.  No as for totally unreadable books, I think I have only started but not finished about 5 but I was glad they were free because all I lost was a free minutes of my time.  Since I got my kindle fire back in December, I would say I have read well over 100 books.  I also like there are freebie craft and cookbooks.  Now as to getting free books, I only pick up books in the genres I like to read or the occassional biography.  
Now I don't like hominy does that mean that there should not be hominy?  Or in book terms I do not like Christian Fiction so should we get rid of Christian fiction because 1 or 2 people don't read it.  
Oh and by the way 2.99 and 3.99 books are usually better than .99 books.  I have found that most 99 cents books are teasers or prequels to get you to read other books.

And to your other question as to how many unread books do I have at the moment well over 2000. Some are big name authors others are indies.  
This is not counting the 2100 (yes I looked) free cookbooks and craft books I have picked up at amazon.

So the truth in my opinion is you don't like free books, I do but that does not make your truth any more valuable than my truth.  Everyone is entitled to spend their money or save their money the best way they see fit.

I generally just get the promotional books that go back up in price in a day or two.
And I did enjoy getting all the classics free.  Means that if I want to read Oliver Twist and my paperback book falls apart then I can finish reading it digitally.  For the record that is what happened with Pride and Prejudice.  It fell apart as I was reading it.  In the book's defense my mom bought all the classics in 1968 in paperback.  So it might have been a bit old.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

cinisajoy said:


> And I did enjoy getting all the classics free. Means that if I want to read Oliver Twist and my paperback book falls apart then I can finish reading it digitally. For the record that is what happened with Pride and Prejudice. It fell apart as I was reading it. In the book's defense my mom bought all the classics in 1968 in paperback. So it might have been a bit old.


Ah, that's nothing. . . .my mother's set of Jane Austen that I now have she got when she was in high school. . . .in the 40's!  We also have a first edition of _Gone With the Wind_. Not mint condition, though, since all of us in the family read it.  I now have it on my kindle, too.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I am very selective in picking my free books. There was a time early on in my kindle ownership (200, where I grabbed books like they were going out of style. But I also have to say that there were some fantastic freebies also early on, many by big publishers. I got the first in the Fever (Karen Marie Moning) series free, I also got one of the Lady Grey (Raybourn) free and many others like that. Those publisher books have kind of dried up. 

I am now at the point where I mostly only pick free books that are of the back list variety. Those that have been published in the past and now either the author, or another publisher is bringing them back. Saves me some time on the vetting. I don't get a freebie only email anymore like I used too. I get the bargain and sometime freebie emails.  

If I have time on my hand, I might browse through the free stuff, but I always drill down to the genre and subgenre I like anyway, so there aren't as many. 

So I basically never see most of the freebies out there anymore.


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

cinisajoy said:


> Hi! No I am not tired of the free books. I can't afford nor would I pay $100 a month to keep me in reading material. I do not know what you mean by seeing free books everywhere. Did you subscribe to all the free e-book stuff? Because that is the only way I know of that you would be seeing free books all the time. You know you can unsubscribe to any e-mails you don't want and if you have liked a bunch of things on facebook, you can always go unlike them. That should help with not getting blasted by free books. I get 12 e-mails a day on freebies and reduced priced books. I know I signed up for every one of them.
> I got all but 3 of the JA Konrath/Jack Kilborn/Blake Crouch books when they went on a free promotion. I could not have read them otherwise. Also Carolyn McCray books and Larry Hill. No as for totally unreadable books, I think I have only started but not finished about 5 but I was glad they were free because all I lost was a free minutes of my time. Since I got my kindle fire back in December, I would say I have read well over 100 books. I also like there are freebie craft and cookbooks. Now as to getting free books, I only pick up books in the genres I like to read or the occassional biography.
> Now I don't like hominy does that mean that there should not be hominy? Or in book terms I do not like Christian Fiction so should we get rid of Christian fiction because 1 or 2 people don't read it.
> Oh and by the way 2.99 and 3.99 books are usually better than .99 books. I have found that most 99 cents books are teasers or prequels to get you to read other books.
> ...


I think Ann (or was it Betsy?) has the right of it. I follow enough authors that there is a fairly constant barrage of freebies, tweets and the like. It can be cumbersome because if I'm following an author, I've already read their books, but I'll still get the notices and any retweets that they are tweeting for other authors.

Mostly I pick up a free book if it is already on my wish list on Amazon. I go through that list almost daily and I've picked up probably 20 or so that eventually went free. Some of them have gone to 1.99 and I can pick those up then too. But these are books that have already been inspected for interest on my part so when I see a sale, I grab them. Some authors I follow run specials (99 cents or so) a few are on Amazon programs so they get discounted and every now and then I "watching/wishing" and it goes free.

Blogs don't list as many freebies as they used to and a lot of them are repeats or paid ads so some titles never make it on the list. So I just watch and wait for things on my wish list.


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## Mandy (Dec 27, 2009)

MariaESchneider said:


> Blogs don't list as many freebies as they used to and a lot of them are repeats or paid ads so some titles never make it on the list. So I just watch and wait for things on my wish list.


I, too, wishlist all the books I want to read that I don't want to purchase at the moment. It would be nice if Amazon had a system that would notify us when our wishlist items go down in price.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Yeah, it would be nice if Amazon had a notifier. 
But I use the ereaderiq system. I can put any book on a watchlist. And I can set how much lower I want the price to get. And then I get an email when it does. Love it.  
It can do the same for books that aren't out on kindle yet. 

I have put in authors names too, so any time an authors book gets lowered, including free, I get an email. That is handy for prolific authors, so I don't have to add each book separately. I use their chrome plug in which automates all of this, just one click to add a book from the kindle store to the watchlist. 

I have a large list off books and authors on those lists now, so its a nice surprise when I get an email about a book being either on sale, or free.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Mandy said:


> I, too, wishlist all the books I want to read that I don't want to purchase at the moment. It would be nice if Amazon had a system that would notify us when our wishlist items go down in price.


Amazon doesn't, but you can use ereaderiq. You can import your Amazon wishlist(s) and they'll watch them for you. You specify how big a price drop you want before notification. Mine's just set at a penny reduction and I still don't get all that many notifications. You can also set a specific price point rather than a price reduction amount. Works great. You just have to periodically re-populate it with any new books you've added to your wish list.


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## Mandy (Dec 27, 2009)

I'm on it right now; thank you, Atunah and Ann! Is there a way to be notified of free or heavily discounted books from major authors? Example...recently catching Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code for free and the Hunger Games trilogy for 99 cents.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

You can put any book on to be notified about. . .doesn't matter how it was published.  I actually just periodically re-import my wish list and periodically go through and purge anything that I've since purchased. It contains books of all sorts at various prices. But you can manually add titles too.

I have mine globally set to let me know when any book drops by a penny.  I get the email and then decide whether or not to act.  Usually a penny is not enough to act on, but it's often more than that.  And sometimes the reminder makes me completely re-think whether I want it on my wish list at all.  

I think you can also set specific price points for notification and even set specific notification points differently for different books.  I've not played with it that much but some people monitor it fairly religiously.


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My vetting process for indie authors includes reading author posts here; if an author is a good citizen here and creates interesting posts, and _isn't_ always just promoting their book, I'll put them on my list to try. Then I look at their books and consider cover, blurb, title, reviews and sometimes the sample if I'm still not sure.
> 
> Betsy


BTW, Betsy, thank you for the very nice review.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Relevent and timely example: I just got an ereaderiq alert on this book which has been on my wish list: 

Currently free. . . I snapped it right up.


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

Thanks. I did, too.


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

Authors should go out of their way not to constantly spam, with freebies or otherwise. Marketing is good, but spamming is bad. There's a fine line, but I've personally blocked several authors on G+ for direct messaging me with "Buy my book" or any such variant. The usual trick is that they circle me, I circle them back because, hey, writer, and then I'm getting that in my email box. At which point, I find the block button.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Kathleen Valentine said:


> BTW, Betsy, thank you for the very nice review.


As I said, if a member is a good citizen here and writes interesting posts, I'll check out their books.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

I don't seek out the free books and only subscribe to two book sites with short mail-out lists (they include no more than 5 books per daily message). I tend to shop in the $3.99 range and will often try new authors at bargain prices of 99c. The 99c books I've read have frequently lead to other reads by some of those authors.


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## RobinBreyer (May 12, 2013)

The whole purpose of setting something at free (not the KDP Select free days) is as an extended preview of an author's work, not a tool for spamming. I know several indie authors who have used it that way successfully. I don't know of anyone who has spammed potential readers who has done very well. I'm not bashful about letting people know one of my books is available for free, but I don't want to force it down people's throats. I want people to want to read by books from the covers, descriptions, and samples. Having a tile for free is just one little bit more. Spamming doesn't work and leads to negative reactions, which I see plenty of in this topic.


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> As I said, if a member is a good citizen here and writes interesting posts, I'll check out their books.


How are you enjoying "The Spy Lover"? (I designed the cover.)


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

All you get to do by spamming people is annoy them beyond measure. Has anybody ever heard of a bestselling author, Kindle or otherwise, who got to be that thing by spamming? I don't really think so.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Speaking of spamming....some of you authors are straying dangerously close to self-promo
which is not, as you know, allowed in the book Corner.  

Sent from my Fire HD via Tapatalk HD


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## gilli45 (Jun 22, 2013)

Oh yes, I do agree completely, and I am an author who hit the 
number 1 spot in 2 categories on an Amazon bestseller list 
on the first free run. But there is too much out there, and the
quality is mixed in with everything else.

Has anyone ideas or online resources to recommend?
Thanks in advance!


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## tahliaN (Nov 6, 2011)

Atunah said:


> But I use the ereaderiq system. I can put any book on a watchlist. And I can set how much lower I want the price to get. And then I get an email when it does. Love it.


Does this service cost? It sounds like a great idea?


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## tahliaN (Nov 6, 2011)

Ann in Arlington said:


> For anyone getting 'spammed', my suggestion would be: if you don't want to be notified about free books, don't subscribe to notification services or blogs by email, and don't 'friend' publishers and authors on FB, GoodReads, Shelfari, etc. It's really not hard to avoid the marketing, I find,...I get the ereaderiq email, it's a matter of a few seconds only to decide if the book has come down in price to my 'buy' point....For the record, I very much want there to continue to be free books offered. I think it's an excellent way to get people to dip a toe into water they might otherwise shy away from. ...
> I also think there are people who maybe could not afford to read as much as they like if they had to pay $4 or $5 or MORE for a book. I expect they really really appreciate the free offerings.


I just wrote a wonderful reply to this because it has a lot of points that other raised, but I timed out and lost the whole thing? Argh. BTW I'm not really p*ssed off about all this; it just hit me the other day that I was turning off a lot of notifications and leaving a lot of groups etc So yes, I know how to turn off the spam. I guess the issue is just how over the top it is that there is sooo much free, and personally, I'm not that interested in free books anymore. I'd rather be sure that something is good and pay 99c for it. It's the being sure its good that's hard, because price is no indicator of quality. The only way to be sure is to only buy from recommendations you trust, like a good review site.

I'm not against free books, either, not at all. I agree that some things need to be free, like short story samplers for dipping in your toes. I have some of them available myself. It's a necessity that all authors offer something for free, but it doesn't have to be whole novels, and I don't think it's healthy for the industry that readers expect to get whole novels free. Short stories are a different story. They're the free books I'm most likely to read because they're not a big time commitment. First novels in a series, yes, I can see why it's a good idea to make them free sometimes, but 99c isn't really a big ask either, especially considering that the author only gets $0.35 for each one. If the free books actually get read, and if they're good so the reader writes reviews and buys more from the author, then it's worthwhile for both the reader and the author, but it seems to me that many of them aren't read or reviewed; so why bother?

So I guess I'd just like to see a few less novels being offered for free. It seems to devalue all the hard work that goes into writing a book.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Mandy said:


> I'm on it right now; thank you, Atunah and Ann! Is there a way to be notified of free or heavily discounted books from major authors? Example...recently catching Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code for free and the Hunger Games trilogy for 99 cents.


It won't notify you when any book from a major publisher is free/heavily discounted but you can put any author or individual book on your watch list, whether it's from a major publisher or not. So you can't tell it "notify me when any book from Penguin is free" but you can tell it "notify me when any book from this author is on sale" and "notify me when this book goes below (x) price", regardless of who the publisher is.



tahliaN said:


> Does this service cost? It sounds like a great idea?


No, it's free. The site is an Amazon affiliate so the owner makes a commission off Kindle sales when you buy a book through ereaderiq.com.


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## LT Ville (Apr 17, 2011)

I’m cheap, so I love free books, but I usually screen them. If I don’t like what I read on the first page, I don’t get it. I very rarely buy books and when I do, they are usually in the 2.99 range. That said, I don’t get bombarded with information about free books.


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## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

This is a very timely post for me. I'm a new author, and there are a ridiculous number of us out there. We're all asking ourselves, "how do we get in front of as many people as possible?" The answer almost always comes back to KDP Select and those free days. Outside of spending major advertising dollars (and even a successful free day requires money spent), our options are virtually nil. So what do readers have to say on the subject? Obviously many of you avoid indie authors and/or freebies completely, but how do those of us with quality projects cut through the chaff? Word-of-mouth campaigns are essential, but those still require a lot of endorsers.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, following up on Ann's comment, this whole thread is starting to sound like a writers' cafe thread. Discussions from a reader's point of view are fine. Talking about promotion of one's own books, or mentioning the price of one's own books...that's not for this discussion, thanks.

Free, or $0.99, it's not that hard to check quality. If it's a concern, I use the Look Inside or sample. Though I don't do that very often, because I rarely buy books by complete unknowns. As I said, I buy from authors I've gotten to know through their posts here on KB, and I find that's been a pretty reliable indicator of quality.

By the way, we have a new feature that Harvey has been working on in cooperation with the KB authors in the Writers' Café--it's a tool that will let you browse bestselling KB authors--
http://www.kboards.com/authors

Pretty cool....


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Free, or $0.99, it's not that hard to check quality. If it's a concern, I use the Look Inside or sample.


They've disabled the ability to sample free books and not all books have a Look Inside feature. I know I could just "buy" the free book in order to sample it and delete it from my account if I don't like it but it feels like more of a commitment to me - I wish we could sample freebies.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

history_lover said:


> They've disabled the ability to sample free books and not all books have a Look Inside feature. I know I could just "buy" the free book in order to sample it and delete it from my account if I don't like it but it feels like more of a commitment to me - I wish we could sample freebies.


Thanks, since I rarely sample, I'd forgotten that one can't sample freebies...though with the gazillions of available books, and the number of books I have in my library, if I'm not sure about a book for any reason (quality, price, some other reason), I just move on. That goes for trad pub as well as self pub. So many books, so little time. 

Betsy


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Having had to walk as much as a mile to get to a library when I was younger, I don't think I'll ever reach a point where I'm sick of free Kindle books.  That said, the sheer number of free books on the market does indeed make it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Still, this is the lesser of two evils in my opinion, because I'd rather be cursed with too many free books than too few.


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

In the beginning, I went nuts downloading free books but I finished very, very few of them. They weren't that well done. Now I'm more judicious about what I download. However, when it comes to places like Facebook where people "friend" me and then spam my page with "buy my book, buy my book" and no attempt to actually inter-act, I just block those people.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

history_lover said:


> They've disabled the ability to sample free books and not all books have a Look Inside feature. I know I could just "buy" the free book in order to sample it and delete it from my account if I don't like it but it feels like more of a commitment to me - I wish we could sample freebies.


I'm confused. By 'sample', do you mean something other than the 'click to look inside' command that shows you the first 10 percent of the book? Because, that works just fine for me, on free books.

I had to go and check, because with free books, I usually buy first and then try them. (I know, I'll be sorry one day when my Kindle fills up.)


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## L.E. Parin (Nov 30, 2012)

I completely went on a free book download craze when the first gen Fire came out.  I was too thrilled with my first kindle ever and wanted to have tons of books on it... and ended up with so many that it was hard to find ones that I actually enjoyed reading so I pretty much never even opened probably 99% of them.  I'm now a lot more careful picking out which freebies I download, but I still don't end up opening 25% of them since I keep adding more that I find interesting :/  I don't mind the Free promos though, because otherwise, I wouldn't have found the couple of authors that are on my auto-buy list


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

ElisaBlaisdell said:


> I'm confused. By 'sample', do you mean something other than the 'click to look inside' command that shows you the first 10 percent of the book? Because, that works just fine for me, on free books.


Every Kindle book has the ability to download a sample to your device. Under the "buy" box on the book page, it says "Try it for free" and you can click a button that says "Send Sample Now" with a drop down box that let's you choose which device to send it to. This is different from the "Look Inside" feature which only lets you read the sample on your computer and is only available on books which have enabled it (whereas the sample feature is available on every Kindle book, unless they're free).


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Funny isn't it? I used to review semi-professionally (in that I got paid by magazines) and I'm still on some of the big 6 mailing lists for review copies. I haven't reviewed other than casually for many, many years and yet I still get sent free books - but WHY are they never the books I'd actually choose to read?


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## RobinBreyer (May 12, 2013)

I just found that Baen has released some of their author's books as Free Kindle Editions. Not too many, but a nice sample of authors like David Drake, John Ringo, Andre Norton, and David Weber. They've had free books for quite a while, you could almost say they pioneered it. But they also never hit you over the head with it either.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

I'm still in the free book love zone. I've discovered a bunch of authors that I wouldn't have otherwise tried. Sure, there are some that I get into and realize that I don't want to finish, but they aren't nearly as common as the ones that get better as I sink into the meat of the story.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

DebBennett said:


> Funny isn't it? I used to review semi-professionally (in that I got paid by magazines) and I'm still on some of the big 6 mailing lists for review copies. I haven't reviewed other than casually for many, many years and yet I still get sent free books - but WHY are they never the books I'd actually choose to read?


That's why I like NetGalley, I can choose which books I want to receive for ARC.


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## tahliaN (Nov 6, 2011)

Daniel Harvell said:


> how do those of us with quality projects cut through the chaff?


This is a problem for readers and authors, because there are excellent books out there that no one has heard of. But sites are appearing now that evaluate books for writing craftsmanship and give them a stamp of approval - or not. Readers can associate themselves with such sites and know that they're avoiding the slush. personally, I only pick up free books that come via the Awesome Indies site. A BRAG medallion is also a good indicator of quality.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

tahliaN said:


> This is a problem for readers and authors, because there are excellent books out there that no one has heard of. But sites are appearing now that evaluate books for writing craftsmanship and give them a stamp of approval - or not. Readers can associate themselves with such sites and know that they're avoiding the slush. personally, I only pick up free books that come via the Awesome Indies site. A BRAG medallion is also a good indicator of quality.


I will give that there are excellent books out there but here is my question to you about these evaluations sites? What is the criteria and do they only do certain types of books? What might be quality to one person could be slush to another. Are they judging writing style or content? And what is a brag medallion?

More information please.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

tahliaN said:


> This is a problem for readers and authors, because there are excellent books out there that no one has heard of. But sites are appearing now that evaluate books for writing craftsmanship and give them a stamp of approval - or not. Readers can associate themselves with such sites and know that they're avoiding the slush. personally, I only pick up *free books that come via the Awesome Indies site.* A BRAG medallion is also a good indicator of quality.


You've mentioned that before, and I like a good free book  . . .so I checked it out. . .and it appears you're a reviewer for the site. 

Sorry, but that qualifies as self promotion.  Further mentions in the Corner will be edited or removed. (If you've not done so already, you could create a thread in the Bazaar to promote the site, however.)


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