Why are some e-books free?

It’s important to note that it isn’t typically Amazon that makes a book free for the Kindle…it’s the rightsholder (except in the case of public domain books).

There are three main reasons why a book will be offered free:

1. Public domain

This is the most common reason e-books are free. Copyright law has specific limitations built into it, the most significant one is that there are typically time limits. It varies by jurisdiction (usually a country) and it’s changed over time (it’s been getting longer in the US). When a book is in the public domain, the public owns it. Anybody can do whatever they want with the material, including selling it.

They don’t need anybody’s permission. They don’t need to pay royalties.

That’s why there might be a hundred editions of Romeo and Juliet. This is true in paper, too, by the way, but it’s easier to publish an e-book than a p-book (paperbook).

Why do people go to the effort to put out a free e-book of public domain material?

Some of it is simply altruism. Michael Hart’s Project Gutenberg is an example of this. It’s the grandparent of all free e-book sites, and in fact, other sites use PG books as source material. It’s a volunteer effort with no advertisements on its website or in its books.

Other people may do it for the glory, to entice people to get non-free books, or to sell advertising (at the site that has the free books, or, hypothetically, in the book itself).

Books first published in the US before 1923 are in the public domain…in the US. Thousands of the free books in the Kindle store fall into this category.

Books (and other materials) published after 1922 in the US may fall into the public domain if the publisher didn’t do something it could have done: published it without proper notice (although that’s not longer necessary); or failed to renew an expiring copyright.

2. Promotional titles

As I write this, there are about two hundred free promotional titles in the Kindle store. A promotional title is offered by someone who could legally charge for it (and may have done so in the past and may do so in the future). There are a couple of main reasons for doing this.

The first is to promote the sale of other books. For example, a publisher might offer the first book of a series for free, hoping that someone will go on to buy the other books (which won’t be free). Many of the promotional titles fall into this category.

Similarly, a publisher may be hoping a reader of a free book may buy other books by that author or from that publisher.

The second reason is to raise the profile of that book when the publisher does start charging for it (again). “Word of mouth” has traditionally been an important way to promote books. Someone reads a book, and then tells other people about it. Publishers have given “galley” copies to bookstore employees before the release of a book, for example, so that those employees will recommend those books to their customers. While movie studios have been more likely to “give away” their product (through free screenings) to promote word of mouth, publishers have done that as well.

In the internet world, word of “mouth” (which I call “word of mouse”) includes customer rankings and reviews on websites (notably Amazon itself). I’ve personally positively reviewed a book that I would never have read if it wasn’t free…not because it was free, but because it was good. People seem to be influenced by ratings and reviews: not just the content, but the number of reviews.

If you want to support a title in the Kindle store, reviewing it is a great way to go. I always recommend you be honest and specific.

Another thing that happens when you download a free book is that it moves up in the “sales”. There are two bestseller lists, free and paid. A free book will “coast” when the publisher starts charging for it, and be high on the paid list for a short time.

3. Waived rights

Some authors simply choose to give specific books away for free. It may be more important to them to get the book out there than to make money for it. Faith-based organizations have famously given away paperbooks in the past…in hotels, at airports, and door to door. Amazon doesn’t allow Digital Text Publishing independent authors to set a price of zero, which makes some sense to me (since they have costs involved in processing sales, returns, and customer service).

You may hear the term Creative Commons in connection with books which are under copyright protection, but for which the author allows free distribution. This is a particular organization that helps people use licenses for some things (for example, requiring attribution) while waiving other rights.

This post by Bufo Calvin appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog site.