# no more free books?



## country2776 (Mar 1, 2013)

maybe I read it wrong but is amazon not letting people buy free books anymore? just curious


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## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

No, that is not what is going on.  It is just that affiliates are not going to get credit for purchases if they "sell" too many free ebooks.  Nothing to do with consumers.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

country2776 said:


> maybe I read it wrong but is amazon not letting people buy free books anymore? just curious


Yep, you read it wrong. 

What Amazon does seem to be doing is cracking down a bit on the sites that appear designed solely to showcase free content. There have been one or two discussions of the issue on various boards here.

It will only minimally affect this site, as our primary purpose is NOT showcasing free content, though Harvey does plan to make some changes to the promotional posts he does for the blog and facebook pages -- they'll be fewer, maybe NO, free promotions through those avenues. But the "Free Finds" thread here will remain and authors who have free books to promote will be permitted to in the Book Bazaar.


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## J. W. Rolfe (Oct 21, 2012)

There are anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 free books available on Kindle at any given time.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Yep, you read it wrong.
> 
> What Amazon does seem to be doing is cracking down a bit on the sites that appear designed solely to showcase free content.


It's not just sites designed solely to showcase free content. www.ereaderiq.com has always promoted *both *free and inexpensive deals - originally, you could view ALL freebies but it showcased sales and inexpensive deals just as much, if not more so. When Amazon pulled this latest stunt, I contacted the owner of ereaderIQ because I was shocked to see just how few free books he was suddenly displaying. He said he was actually STILL over Amazon's limit and was considering removing the freebie feature altogether. Fortunately, it looks like he hasn't had to do that but still, the point is it's not just to stop sites which display solely free content.


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

I guess Amazon is tired of people like me who read about 10 free books for every paid one...    But they won't deter me-- I'll still find the free ones! muahaha


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## Holly (Mar 8, 2011)

I liked the free books that have gotten me interested in picking up more from an author or from a series I enjoyed.  Now, I find mostly books that are barely worth downloading.  :-(.  Fortunately, I have enough reading material collected.  The real losers are the authors who will lose their indie name recognition among readers.


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## alicepattinson (Jan 27, 2013)

well me tooooooo. I just love those free books. yay!


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## chilady1 (Jun 9, 2009)

I guess what Amazon doesn't understand is that the freebies were to entice you to go back and purchase more from a particular author.  I can't tell you how many freebies I have gotten that were first in a series - once I read them I went back and in most cases, purchased the entire series of books.  It especially saddens me for Indie Authors.  I have found so many great indie authors that I probably never would have read if it had not been for the free books they offered.


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## christopherruz (May 5, 2012)

I think people have missed something quite fundamental here.

Amazon is not stopping freebies, and they're not stopping people from advertising freebies. They're stopping people from collecting affiliate revenue purely by advertising freebies. All these link aggregate sites have to do is link to freebies without including their affiliate information. That's all. No big deal.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

christopherruz said:


> I think people have missed something quite fundamental here.
> 
> Amazon is not stopping freebies, and they're not stopping people from advertising freebies. They're stopping people from collecting affiliate revenue purely by advertising freebies. All these link aggregate sites have to do is link to freebies without including their affiliate information. That's all. No big deal.


You won't find many people willing to go to the trouble to link to all the freebies out there if they're not getting anything out of it. No, Amazon are not stopping people from advertising freebies but they are restricting affiliate's ability to do so. Less promotion for freebies means harder to find freebies for readers and may also mean less indie authors willing to put on free offers - what's the point of a promo if it won't get much promotion? Yeah, affiliates could just not include their affiliate code for freebies but that kind of half defeats the purpose of being an affiliate. And like I already pointed out, it's not just affiliates who collect revenue _purely _by advertising freebies, this has effected sites which advertise both freebies and other deals too.

For anyone interested, this is a link to all Kindle freebies excluding public domain (okay, some of them squeak through somehow but it's mostly not public domain) - you can narrow them down by genre/category on the left as usual: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A%21133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cp_36%3A0-0&hidden-keywords=-domain+-breakthrough+English&ie=UTF8&qid=1363080386


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## luvshihtzu (Dec 19, 2008)

I have discovered two really great authors through their free books recently.  Jessica Speart and Julie Smith.  Love both of their series and their writing.  Was also happy to see one of my long time favorites, Margaret Maron, finally give away the first of a series (One Coffee With - Sigrid Harald Series)that was long out of print and finally up for sale in eBook format  in the Kindle Store. I do hope that there will still be good authors offering their books for free on occasion and hope that it isn't going to be too hard to find them.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm afraid I can't be upset that Amazon would prefer that external sites link to more than just the stuff on Amazon that customer's don't have to pay for. 

Yes, some sites may lose some income in the short term.  But, I suspect the site owners will adapt.  Those sites that really still want to point ONLY or MOSTLY to free books, will either find other sources of revenue, or stop doing so.

I really don't see what the big deal is.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I'm afraid I can't be upset that Amazon would prefer that external sites link to more than just the stuff on Amazon that customer's don't have to pay for.
> 
> Yes, some sites may lose some income in the short term. But, I suspect the site owners will adapt. Those sites that really still want to point ONLY or MOSTLY to free books, will either find other sources of revenue, or stop doing so.
> 
> I really don't see what the big deal is.


But that's my point, ereaderIQ did not point even to MOSTLY free books - it was either equally free/paid books or more paid than free. I don't know how many more times I can say it, lol.

The big deal is that, like I said, we might start seeing fewer free promos because of this and that would be a shame.

I am also disappointed that I can no longer view a complete list of freebies within 2 or more genres at the same time or in order of most recent offers. Though I can view the complete list of freebies on Amazon and view by genre, I can only view one genre at a time and I can only sort by "new and popular", "average rating" or "publication date", not by what was most recently made free. It's not the end of the world but it's more inconvenient and so I'm disappointed.


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## mooshie78 (Jul 15, 2010)

Moot for me as I mostly only read stuff from major publishers and never spent much time browsing through freebies anyway.  Too much stuff to read from authors I know I like for me to take chances on people giving away their work--especially when I'm only reading a book or two a month the past couple years.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Like Ann, I can't work up a real heap of angry over this, Amazon is in business to make a profit. The difference between a free book and a ninety nine cent book is trivial for all but the poorest of us. For me the deterrent to trying an unknown is reading time, not laying down a buck. For most of us who work, and many of us with school or family obligations it is the same, I suspect. 

I concede this will make breaking out of the pack a little tougher for new authors. But I suspect getting noticed and chosen from the huge mass of freebies for a customer to actually read is a bigger problem for them than cost. 

I've got a lot of unopened free books in my archives, probably hundreds. For me to to pick up the free sample because there was no cost didn't really help the authors. I read comparatively few of these when I don't have an investment in them. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


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## backslidr (Nov 23, 2012)

I don't pick up very many free books, but the ones I get usually come from the Amazon Forums. They're direct links, so nobody benefits from them. I've tried some of the other sites, but I find that most of the best books are already listed on the forums, so for that reason I don't see this affecting me at all. I've never really understood why Amazon pays people to "sell" free books anyway.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Daily Cheap Reads has concluded that posting freebies without their affiliate information still puts them at risk of losing their revenue for the month. It does look as if finding masses of free books is going to get a lot harder. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I think the big reason Amazon changed their policy on affliates is because some people would hit say ereaderiq and get anywhere from 10-30 freebies a day and not buy anything.
And just for totally useless trivia when I clicked free over at amazon I got 55,000 hits yesterday.  So we can still get free books.
And to the one that said she didn't think there was much difference between 99 cents and free well I might argue there.  Yes 99 cents is not bad for those that read maybe 1 or 2 books a month.  But for those that read 1 to 4 books a day that 99 cents each would add up in a hurry.  I don't know about the rest of you but $100 a month for books would add up fast.


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

The Hooded Claw said:


> Like Ann, I can't work up a real heap of angry over this, Amazon is in business to make a profit. The difference between a free book and a ninety nine cent book is trivial for all but the poorest of us. For me the deterrent to trying an unknown is reading time, not laying down a buck. For most of us who work, and many of us with school or family obligations it is the same, I suspect.
> 
> I concede this will make breaking out of the pack a little tougher for new authors. But I suspect getting noticed and chosen from the huge mass of freebies for a customer to actually read is a bigger problem for them than cost.
> 
> ...


Well we aren't all like that.  I only get a free book if it sounds like something I want to read and has good reviews (or at least not mostly bad reviews). Then I actually do read them, though I do have a bit of a backlog. If a book is really bad I stop reading early on and feel glad I didn't waste money on it. But if it's good AND is not plagued with typos or other irritating errors, I read (meaning buy) other books by the same author.

So I think I'm using the promotions as intended, and I think this will likely turn out to be a not-so-good move for readers like me, for the authors, and even for Amazon. Maybe they will come up with a new way of promoting those books/authors after they see how this all pans out.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Dragle said:


> Well we aren't all like that.  I only get a free book if it sounds like something I want to read and has good reviews (or at least not mostly bad reviews). Then I actually do read them, though I do have a bit of a backlog. If a book is really bad I stop reading early on and feel glad I didn't waste money on it..


Congrats on being more disciplined than I am! Not that that's difficult.... 

As a reader, I need new authors to have a way to succeed if they are worthy, and I need Amazon to continue to make a profit so I will have fresh stuff to read. I hope an effective way for both of these to happen can be found.

The publishers probably are pleased with Amazon for once, since they are so conscious of anything that lowers the perceived worth of their products, and free books that sold a lot of copies surely did that. Or perhaps this is the beginning of their straw man scenario where Amazon, having gained market dominance, starts cranking up prices and crushing consumers! But with the low barriers to entry in self-publishing, I doubt it!


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

The Hooded Claw said:


> As a reader, I need new authors to have a way to succeed if they are worthy, and I need Amazon to continue to make a profit so I will have fresh stuff to read. I hope an effective way for both of these to happen can be found.


Me, too. If they can find a balance where the blogs can still highlight good free books, along with the other stuff, without being "punished" for the amount of freebies downloaded, it will be a win-win-win situation.

I've found some great indie authors, but also a lot of really really bad indie books as well. Before the indie ebooks took off, when you spent money on a book, there was a high chance it would be at least pretty good, having passed the criteria of the publisher; it would also be copy-edited!, so not full of glaring errors. Now, though it's great that independent publishing has made many more good books available, there is also a much higher chance you'll get a poor quality book, so there is more reluctance to risk money on them. The free book promotions help mitigate that situation and make it easier to find those good indie authors.


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## Holly (Mar 8, 2011)

Maybe readers would have been more discriminating about quality had the number of freebies downloaded that Amazon allowed been limited to one free book a day.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Note that the free books are still there, you just have to work a bit to find them....

Betsy


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