Several years ago I found myself nutsack deep in flaming e-mails for my prediction that illegal downloads of music would lead to lower sales of CDs. It seemed obvious to me, but scores of illegal music downloaders and self-proclaimed marketing geniuses argued vehemently that these “free samples” would lead to increased sales of CDs. That didn’t happen, of course, because it turns out that people prefer “free and instant” over “overpriced and later.” This experience reinforced my belief that my MBA gave me a better understanding of markets than my verbal sparring partners got from doing bongs and thinking as hard as they could.
Recently I offered my book, God’s Debris, for free on the Internet, under the theory that the people who like it might be inspired to buy the sequel in hard copy. 170,000 people downloaded it in two weeks. Many of them presumably e-mailed it to other people who e-mailed it to yet other people. I’m guessing half a million people read it in the past month. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of book, so let’s say 250,000 people loved it. That seems about right based on the reviews on Amazon.
Now for a test of your marketing savvy: How many of the people who loved the free sample went ahead and purchased the sequel? The answer is in the next paragraph, so make your guess before reading further.
Okay…
I don’t know the exact number, but it appears to be less than a thousand. An alarming number of readers were confused about this whole process and wrote to ask if they could also have the sequel for free.
I don’t regret making God’s Debris available for free. I had nothing to lose, since the hardcopy of God’s Debris was published in 2001 and had run its course. I was happy just to know that I had one of the most read books on earth for a month. It was worth a shot. But I think I demonstrated one marketing truth: When something is free, that’s what people expect to pay for the next one.
In case you didn’t get your free one already, here’s that website again, you cheap lemon-eater:
http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/ [no longer available]