The Kindle store has an ever-changing selection of free books, featuring more than 50,000 titles at any point in time. If you take a look through the Kindle store, you’ll notice that most of the free book selection includes recent novels by authors and publishers who also have a selection of books that are normally priced.

Have you ever wondered why authors set their book price to free? What could an author gain by simply giving their book away? It turns out that pricing your book for free is a solid marketing strategy that has six definite benefits, and one drawback.

Benefits of Pricing Your Book at Free

Many authors can be hesitant to give their books away for free, but it’s a strategy that thousands of authors and publishers use everyday. Let’s look at the reasons why.

Writers who price their book for free for a short time and promote their free book well can get the following benefits:

• Increased sales. Giving one book away can boost your sales of your other books. If you have published a 2 or more books in the same genre, listing one of them as free can encourage readers to check out your other books as well.
• More reviews. As most authors know, gaining reviews on your books can be a real challenge. However, readers who get to read your book for free are somewhat likely to write a review, especially if you leave a reminder in your book’s back matter. Most author’s see 2-3 reviews come in for each 1,000 books that they giveaway on Kindle.
• Gain Amazon followers. When readers download your book, Amazon will encourage them to follow you on your Amazon author page. As you probably know, your author profile features a “Follow” button for readers to get emails and notifications about your latest books, which can help build your fan base and drive your sales. Amazon even allows authors to send their followers a personal message once in a while. But, Amazon will never tell you how many followers you have, because…that’s just how Amazon is.
• Kindle Unlimited page reads. Even when your book is priced as free, many Kindle Unlimited members still click “Read Now” instead of clicking the “Buy Now if Now for Free” link. Therefore, if you have enrolled your book in KU, you can expect to see a major increase in your total page reads during the time that your book is free. Authors can see their page reads jumping from 2 to 20 times their typical rate.
• Expand your audience. If you list your book for free, you can attract thousands of bookworms looking for a great deal. Readers who enjoy the free download may go on to purchase your other novels, follow you on social media, post your book on Goodreads, signup for your newsletter, etc.
• Increased audiobook sales. Immediately after someone downloads your Kindle book on a mobile device, Amazon will ask them if they would like to add the Audible version. Thanks to this brief prompt, if you have an audio book version of your novel, then you can gain some audio sales.

Now, that you know the benefits of setting your book price to free, let’s look at the one major drawback. The drawback is that you make no royalties on your book during the time that you are giving it away. It’s up to you to weigh the benefits vs the drawbacks.

How to Price Your Book as Free with KDP Select

You have two different options when it comes to running your free Kindle book promotion. The first choice requires your book to be enrolled in KDP Select. It’s free to sign up, and Amazon will allow you to participate in Kindle Countdown Deals, enroll your book in Kindle Unlimited, and let you price your book at free book promotions for up to 5 days every quarter. You can run your promotion 5 days in a row, or you can spread out your free book days: it’s completely up to you.

The only drawback is that books enrolled in KDP Select must be exclusively sold through the Kindle store. If you happen to sell your book through Apple or Nook, your book will not be eligible for KDP Select until you remove it from sale on the other platforms. However, if your book is available for sale through Amazon alone, then you can start setting up your book promotion by following these simple steps:

• Enroll your book in KDP Select.
• Click on your Bookshelf.
• Next to your book, select “Promote and Advertise”.
• Click on “KDP Select Info”.
• Look for “Run a Price Promotion” and then click on “Free Book Promotion”.
• Hit “Create a New Free Book Promotion for This Book”.
• Choose your start and end dates, then click “Save”.

Make Your Book Free Through Price Matching

The KDP pricing policy states that Amazon will match prices with platforms that sell your book for less. So, if you change the price of your book to free on the other platforms you sell on, then the Kindle store will follow suit. Take note of these 3 easy steps to get your book price to free on Kindle:

• Double-check to make sure your book is sold through Amazon and that it is not enrolled in KDP Select.
• Log into all of the other platforms that sell your book and change the price to free.
• Sit back and wait for Amazon to automatically detect the lower price and apply the same price to your book in the Kindle store.

When you choose this option, you can leave your book priced at free for as long as you want. Depending on what type of book it is, you may want to consider making it permanently free, or “permafree.” If your book is the first in a series, a prequel to one of your novels, or some kind of supporting material for a book, making it permafree could be a great long-term marketing strategy.

Tips and Tricks for Promoting Your Free Book

Once your book is priced at free, you will want to spread the word to as many readers as possible. Here are some tips to make your free Kindle book fly off the digital shelves:

• Share content. Post short snippets from your book on your website, blog, and social media pages before you run your free book pricing. Share intriguing quotes, cliff-hangers, or other types of content that will leave your readers wanting to read it. Along with being active on social media, participate in forums such as KBoards and put a link to your free book in your author bio.
• Announce it in your newsletter. Send an email to your fanbase to alert them that one of your books will be available for free for a limited time. And don’t be afraid to get creative with your newsletter! Try writing it from the perspective of one of your beloved characters, or introducing a few new characters that will appear in the book.
• Agree to trade guest posts with another author. Ask another writer if they’d be willing to review your book and write a blog post about it if you do the same for them. Try to find an author who writes in a genre similar to your own so you can each be noticed by a wider audience.
• Update your back matter. Readers who love your free book will be likely to follow the suggestions you list after the story ends. You can ask readers to write a review, follow you on social media, sign up for your newsletter, etc.
• Do an author Q&A. You could ask your followers to comment questions they have for you, and then you could respond with a short video. Another technique could be creating a poll on social media or Goodreads, or by insightfully answering questions on Quora.
• Consider a paid promotion. Sites like JustKindleBooks help authors promote their books by reaching thousands of readers via their website, newletter, and social channels. JustKindleBooks offers a range of affordable promotions for authors on a budget and will promote books of any genre. Click here to learn more about how a paid promotion can boost the success of your free book giveaway!