The latest craze: Free e-books offerings
NEW YORK -- James Patterson's latest best seller, The Angel Experiment, is a little different from his usual hits. The novel isn't new; it came out four years ago. Readers aren't picking it up at bookstores, but mostly on the Kindle site at Amazon.com.
And the price is low even for an old release: $0.00.
"I like the notion of introducing people to one book, while promoting the sales of another," says the prolific and mega-selling author (and co-author) of numerous thrillers." His Kindle download is the first book of Patterson's "Maximum Ride" young adult series.
"We've given away thousands of free e-copies," Patterson said. "Maximum Ride is big already and we think it could be a lot bigger. That requires getting people to read it."
Patterson is among the biggest brands added to the growing list of free e-book offerings. Over the past few months, top sellers on the Kindle — with downloads in the tens of thousands, authors and publishers say — have included such public domain titles as Pride and Prejudice and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and novels by Jennifer Stevenson and Greg Keyes.
In recent days, the top three Kindle sellers have been free books: Patterson's, Joseph Finder's Paranoia and Keyes' The Briar King.
"There's always going to be someone who wants free things. What we're trying to do is link free with paid," Maja Thomas, senior vice president of digital media at Patterson's publisher, the Hachette Book Group, said. "It's like priming the pump."
"What we like to do is make the first book in a series free, usually a series that has multiple books," said Scott Shannon, publisher of the Del Rey/Spectra imprint at Random House, Inc., which published Keyes' fantasy novel.
Shannon said Del Rey has had especially good luck with Naomi Novik's Temeraire fantasy series after offering the first book for free. He said sales for the other Temeraire novels increased by more than 1,000%. "It's been stunning," he said.
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