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with their print publication. If I had a time machine, I could re-
release them without the free downloads and compare the royalty
statements. Lacking such a device, I’m forced to draw conclusions
from qualitative, anecdotal evidence, and I’ve collected plenty of
that:
>
Many writers have tried free ebook releases to tie in with
the print release of their works. To the best of my knowl-
edge, every writer who’s tried this has repeated the experi-
ment with future works, suggesting a high degree of satis-
faction with the outcomes.
>
A writer friend of mine had his first novel come out at the
same time as mine. We write similar material and are often
compared to one another by critics and reviewers. My first
novel had a free download, his didn’t. We compared sales
figures and I was doing substantially better than he was —
he subsequently convinced his publisher to let him follow
suit.
>
Baen Books has a pretty good handle on expected sales for
new volumes in long-running series; having sold many such
series, they have lots of data to use in sales estimates. If
Volume N sells X copies, we expect Volume N+1 to sell Y
copies. They report that they have seen a measurable uptick
in sales following from free ebook releases of previous and
current volumes.
>
David Blackburn, a Harvard PhD candidate in economics,
published a paper in 2004 in which he calculated that, for
music, “piracy” results in a net increase in sales for all titles
in the 75th percentile and lower; negligible change in sales
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