The Free mocel - is it viable

[MontiLee]

We're a society that's all about the Free Sample - a nibble here, a sip there. We love a test drive, a money back guarantee and a 30-day free trial.

That has moved into the world of pulishing, with authors releasing podcasts, stories published on blogs, and eTexts. The idea behind it is simple - give the masses a taste and if they like it, they'll pay for more.

(I have my own ideas about free webzines but I'll keep them to myself.)

There are pitfalls to the free model which we can discuss in another post.

Recently JC Hutchins was informed by his publisher, St Martins Griffin, that they would not be proceeding with print sequels to his wildly popular 7th Son series. JC had the idea that he could release the first book in print, as well as a free audio podcast simultaneously. The podcast was successful -- as successful as it can be as it's not a pay model -- and the book sold, just not as many copies as either JC or St Martins would have hoped.

Subsequently JC is taking a break from the free model of podcasting and focusing on recouping financially (it's not cheap to put out a good podcast). While he acknowledges that the free model works for some, for him it did not and wishes his peers success.

So I ask my fellow authors, scribes, writers - have you ever considered giving your unpublished work away for free (and here I mean on a blog or website, not a webzine) in the hopes that someone would want to see more? Do you see it as a viable marketing tool or set up for disaster down the line.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do have stories on my site - things that have already seen print and intro chapters of two works in progress. I have a digital Sampler of previously published stories based on the same idea - portable with no DRM that still sees about 100 downloads a month.

[micah]

Ah yes, everyone dreams of being able to walk into a publishing house and say "look at the following I already have--and they'll buy me!"

I think that there is probably some validity to this idea -- if I was the editor in charge of purchasing and had two unknowns and one of them had a huge web following I'd plunk down on the side of the guy with the following. That being said, not everyone can be Scott Sigler.

Part of the reason they can't be is that most people are not willing to put in the effort that Sigler or Hutchins did. If you watch the news you can quickly get the idea that all you have to do is throw up a podcast once a week and people will flock to you. They rarely focus on the years that go into building a successful following.

Nor do they point out the grind that is the creation of a weekly podcast.

That being said, I do have some free material on my website -- I mean other than the two blogs. Actually, I am pretty proud of some of the stuff in the blog too. I can actually be kind of insightful when I'm not being a dork.

As for the free stuff (yes, I did just have to go and see what I still have up), there are a few snippets of longer works posted when I was working on them. There is an article or two that I was particularly proud of. The most recent addition to the Free Stuff page is a short story that was written for a very specific market. It was so specific that when the piece was rejected I couldn't think of what to do with it. I figured, what the Hell, it's a pretty good yarn, even if it wasn't quite right for what that editor had in mind.

So yes, I do have little nibbles available. It would be great if people read them and decide they want more. The finished pieces are graveyarded, they're not going to be submitted anywhere else, so I don't see a problem there. Hopefully the snippets are small enough that I'm not shooting myself in the first rights foot.