Why you shouldn’t read free ebooks
It’s obvious really, The reason you shouldn’t read free e-book’s, is because they are mostly rubbish. If you think about it , how can anybody afford to write a book and give it away for free? There has to be a reason. Either they are complete junk or they are trying to sell you something.
Many free e-book’s that you see are really only a few pages encouraging you to download the rest of the book, possibly leaving you open to viruses. Otherwise they are sponsored by corporations or countries you may not wish to be influenced by.
Many of the free e-book’s I’ve looked at are Chinese Communist Party propaganda, aimed at bringing up children in a “certain way”. These are usually translated into English by German companies and have Canadian/Chinese voice-overs that are hysterically bland and are not aware of western intonations, so you can get some very strange double entendres.
The big problem with the books at the moment is that anyone who can get hold of the rights to “content” is piling into the market, trying to get a foothold while the gold rush is on. Anyone can make an e-book and, it seems, just about everybody is! Some of the free e-books I’ve looked at can only be described as execrable!
In life you get what you pay for, and that goes for e-book’s as well as everything else. And if you don’t want to pay, don’t be surprised if all you get is rubbish, because the people you rely on to produce quality “content” still need to eat at the end of the day.
So you’re probably wondering what would be a good e-book to download? Well, I’m biased but I would recommend the Ginger Ninja on the iBooks store. (I’d put a link, but they don’t really work!)
Oh dear! Does it looks like I’m trying to sell you something :-)
Filed in: Work
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Fair comment, Shoo. However I did download a ‘short’ by Julia Golding and that was very good.
I think some reliable authors do offer occasional ‘bonus content’ – but you do need to be careful, as you say.
Ah, but then you had the guarantee of a great writer’s name:)
Agree up to a point but there is good work out there and some of it is FREE but only for a limited period (24hrs, or just a day or too) before returning to being priced – it’s a legitimate marketing ploy to attract readers and (hopefully) gain reviews – I’m using it myself for ACHUKAbooks – and here’s an account of a US author’s first year’s experience with online selling, in which he talks about giving content away free in just this manner
http://arthurslade.blogspot.com/2012/02/glorious-year-of-ebooking.html
day or _two_ !
Even worse are the books for 99c. Most of the ads say, what have you got to lose? Er, like, my time?
lol – good point :)
That was very interesting , Thanks – gonna have to do better than that to make a living :)
I have to say I’ve read a few wonderful free ebooks Shoo….but yes, they are doing it as a marketing ploy…They give the first book for free to hopefully get you hooked on the the series…then as you go on each additional book in the series has a higher price tag usually goes 1st one is free 2nd book is 99 cents and the third book will get you for $2.99 to $4.95. I think it’s a good way to sell a series but if you only have one book I don’t see why it would make it worth your while to let it go for free.
Just wanted to add that after I get the free book I (not always but most of the time) do end up buying the other books in the series I actually follow several ongoing series of books on Kindle that got me started with the free book.
Maybe I have to start thinking more like a marketer than an author :)