heymon
New Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Mar 30, 2012 16:34:19 GMT -8
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Post by heymon on Mar 30, 2012 16:39:05 GMT -8
On the site for our book, I have a "free sample" page (located at (dot)webs(dot)com/freesample.htm) that allows the potential customer the opportunity to view a sampling of the book. While having some people review this page, I've gotten some feedback that I should modify it. It was suggested that: 1. I'm offering too much of the book for free, and 2. It would be better if I put the text in html on the page itself, instead of embedding a DocStoc frame in the page, as it is now. What is your opinion? Thanks in advance for your time.
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amostfairchild
New Member
Posts: 12
Joined: Mar 27, 2012 18:41:47 GMT -8
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Post by amostfairchild on Mar 30, 2012 20:20:36 GMT -8
If you are offering a work of fiction then I don't believe you can ever offer too much for free. I always offer 50% minimum on smashwords and I have bought books that had 90% free. My attitude is that I want people to be able to know whether they like the book or not before reading it. Indeed I quite often offer entire first books in a series for free. If I see a 10% sample I have to wonder what they are trying to hide. lol.
Now I don't have a separate page for the sample. I don't see the point. Smashwords already does that quite well for me.
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Post by Ted on Mar 31, 2012 7:14:00 GMT -8
I agree with amostfairchild; "Now I don't have a separate page for the sample. I don't see the point. Smashwords already does that quite well for me."
I don't have a page for free samples on my blog. I provide links to my works on Smashwords for viewers to read a sample or purchase my work if they like it. A viewer may visit Smashwords, read my sample and like it enough to purchase on Smashwords, or from Apple, B&N, Kobo, Sony or other retailer with whom they already have an account.
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catana
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Joined: Mar 28, 2024 23:32:09 GMT -8
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Post by catana on Mar 31, 2012 11:09:31 GMT -8
1. If you want people on the forum to use the link and look at your sample, then please provide a proper link, not a mashup up a url and a disguised email address. Creating a link from the menu isn't that difficult.
2. Obviously I have no idea how much of a sample you provided. On Smashwords, I always provide 25 or 30%. I've seen samples as high as 50%.
3. Unless the sample is on a site that has significant traffic, why would you even bother? Smashwords allows the customer to look at samples in a number of formats. If you're not doing that, then you may be wasting your time. I doubt that many people are going to care about HTML because they can do that on Smashwords, and if they don't want to read the sample in their browser, then HTML is useless.
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