How well do free books work for promotion

I have several books published on Kindle, and use the free books avidly to promote them. I have had more success doing this than any other promotion strategy I've found. As an unknown author it is an uphill battle to get people to buy your book. So I had an idea this week to promote myself as an author by having a book that was always free. I tried to put this book on Amazon but found that the only option was to charge at least 99 cents for it. But I was able to put it on goodreads for free, so I did that. I wouldn't have been able to put it on goodreads were it not published, so I had to charge for it on amazon, and in order to give it away free on goodreads I had to give up the free kindle promotions. So I am not sure how all this is going to work, it is in an experiment. One thing I will say, this free book on goodreads is my favorite cover yet. house under water by Anthea Carson
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Published on August 30, 2012 07:19 Tags: free, kindle, promotions-short-story
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message 1: by Tim (new)

Tim Brennan So amazon won't let an author have more than one free book at a time? Or so many free books within a certain amount of time?


message 2: by Anthea (new)

Anthea Carson No it's not that Amazon won't let you do more than one free book at a time, it's that I can't figure out how to offer it free permanently. I haven't figured out a way. It's weird, because there are books on there that are free all the time, I just haven't figured out how to do that, and am not sure if I can.


message 3: by Carl (new)

Carl R. Can't see how to get it for free in either place. I'd like to know, since I just got a book released and would like to use this technique. Of course, I can always just pay $2.99, which I will. But I'd like to know.
Carl


message 4: by Anthea (new)

Anthea Carson Carl wrote: "Can't see how to get it for free in either place. I'd like to know, since I just got a book released and would like to use this technique. Of course, I can always just pay $2.99, which I will. But ..."

I'm not sure what you mean Carl, did you mean my book? You can only get it free here on goodreads. Here it is.house under water

So, the only way I've found to do this is to put it out on Amazon without exclusivity, give up the kindle free days, then offer it free here on goodreads by simply adding it as an ebook. That's the only way I've figured out so far. Sorry I didn't answer this sooner, I just saw it now.

Anthea


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