Free e-books can have serious rockstar status in the traffic and sales game

Right now, whilst you read this article and drink your coffee or listen to Engelbert Humperdinck on your  iPod, or sunscreen Roger your hairless cat, Amazon is selling more e-books than print books.

Back in May Amazon proudly declared that for every 100 print books (hardcover and print, without Kindle editions) sold on Amazon.com, 103 e-books were being downloaded.

And just in case you’re thinking Amazon is including freebies in that storyline, let me clarify that’s e-books being sold, not e-books with a zero price tag.

So if e-books with a price tag are outselling print books, can you imagine what’s going on with the free downloads now that the e-reader thing has gone mainstream?

It’s no longer that ‘quirky’ little fad thing that the get-rich-quick people do. Free e-books are purveyors of profits if you know how to use them for the greater good of the reading community.

Open source doesn’t mean closed to profits

Back in 2008, an IT journalist by the name of Kier Thomas had an idea for a book on Ubuntu (which is an open source operating system).

He shopped it around to a few publishers, but everybody turned him down. Too inexpensive… not enough profit margin… don’t let the door hit your Ubuntu on the way out.

It was then that Kier got the idea to write the book anyway and give away the PDF version. Three months later the Ubuntu Pocket and Reference Guide was born, and Kier set it free to the world from his website.

But there’s a twist.

He didn’t just give the PDF away. He also sold a print version of the exact same e-book for $12.99 on Amazon. In fact, he used the PDF as an advertising tool for the hard copy.

To sweeten his vantage point, the print version was actually print-on-demand, meaning he still didn’t have to handle any of the tedious rigmarole that self-publishers normally have to wrestle with. The book went straight from CreateSpace to Amazon, no in-between intervention from Kier was required.

In the end he would pocket $4.95 from each hard copy sold through Amazon and $2.35 from each copy sold to bookstores. Not gold bar riches, but hey, I’d put on my money goggles and have a good time with that payout.

According to Kier, he averaged around 400 people a day to the Ubuntu Pocket Guide website, with peaks of 40-50K at times. He estimates that for every 446 e-books given away, he has achieved 1 sale, which for him averaged out to approximately $3K a month in profits.

So let me clarify. He gave away an e-book for an operating system that people download for free. Then he sold the book version of the e-book that he gave away.

Do you see something incredibly smoking hot with this strategy, because I’m roasting a s’more over it right about now.

How to get a free e-book onto Amazon

First a little backstory: If you want to sell an e-book on Amazon, you can’t set the price below $.99. You also can’t sell your e-book for less money on another website than the price you’ve set on Amazon.

Amazon, on the other hand, can and will set the price below $.99 even though they don’t allow you to do it. So what would make them give your e-book away?

Well it’s usually because you’re giving away the same e-book on a site like Smashwords. (Smashwords is an e-bookstore.) If Amazon notices that you’re giving away the e-book on another website, there’s a good possibility they might slash the price to zero too.

And when Amazon gives you a big fat zero, guess what happens?

1. First it goes up on eReader IQ, a popular site where Kindle owners learn about the latest free e-books.
2. Next the bloggers who write about free kindle books list it on their sites. (Like mine.)
3. Momentum sets in and the e-book starts flying off the virtual shelf. Pretty soon it starts rising up the Amazon rank in your category. Amazon starts showing it in the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section. Download overdrive begins.

There are authors right now… RIGHT NOW… who are seeing 30K copies of their free Kindle book being downloaded A DAY.

Now pick your jaw up off the table and fathom this modest scenario. You’ve got 2-3 freebies up on Amazon. Over the course of a month those freebies generate 50K downloads.

In the back of those free e-books you make a modest reference to your blog.

I’m talking mild… like jalapenos without the seeds, Friday casual or Muzak. Something like: “Hey I run the blah-blah blog, come check me out.”

(It’s important that you approach this process in a seriously understated manner because Amazon will boot your e-book off the site if it’s too commercial/promotional in nature.)

Do you think you’re going to see a space boost in your visitor stats? Do you think you might get a few extra sales? I do.

When doesn’t this work?

If you think you’re going to be able to piece meal a private label rights (PLR) product together and get it past the Smashwords velvet rope, it ain’t gonna happen.

They’re pitbulls (hurray!) about not allowing PLR material into their bookstore, and even Amazon has ended the PLR parade.

Smashwords doesn’t accept public domain material either. They want 100% original material, which makes this technique even more worthy of your pursuit.

With Amazon being the 17^th most visited site on the Internet, that’s easy traffic if you just play your cards right.

Now imagine how megafied this technique could be if you’re selling an e-book on a similar topic as the one you’re giving away

Let’s say you give away your first title and follow up with 3 paid e-books on Amazon.

Not only are you ramping up the blog traffic… now you’re moving in to another tax bracket.

That’s a topic for a whole ‘nother discussion over HERE.

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