Years ago, I remember giving out free books to people in the hopes of getting a review or the full promise of one. There were also times authors would swap books to give honest reviews of each other. Of course, many times I would give the free book to a reader and never hear from them again.
Aside from getting absolutely nothing from giving away free books, I also stopped because I saw stories of authors getting in trouble. Supposedly, people were reporting positive reviews to Amazon and saying the two authors were 5-star swapping. This resulted in giving away a free book and then losing a 5-star review if I got one. A few times I lost reviews from other authors without having given them a freebie. One person was even banned from reviewing my books and was listed as ‘friends/family’. So, giving away free books ended up being too risky even if I did get anything from it. Saw that many other authors were stopping the practice as well. That or they weren’t announcing freebies in public.
I still see some authors giving away free books at times. It’s typically the ones with a steady audience or enough influence to keep themselves safe. Don’t think the sabotaging and toxic competitiveness is as bad as it used to be, but only because the indie author pool is smaller and fractured. This also means there are fewer people to give free books to in the hopes of getting reviews.
Now that I think about it, were reviews the only thing one hoped to gain from this promo practice? Getting word of mouth would be another thing, but that seems harder to guarantee. I know many people who read my earlier books, enjoyed them, and knew nobody else who liked fantasy. Might just have been my bad luck. Still, giving away freebies to those who were curious about the genre was something I did at times until people stopped asking. Again, I don’t usually get a review from the action, which had me wondering if I should continue.
I haven’t done this in a long time, so I was wondering if anyone still does it. Do you give away free books? Do you get free books from authors? How well does it work these days as a promo/review netting practice?
Legends of Windemere 
I gave away free books years ago, hoping to gain some sales. But it didn’t work the way I had hoped.
I always wondered how the giveaways on Goodreads did to bolster sales. Recently, I saw a giveaway for the same book for which I entered a drawing years ago.
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I tried a bunch of those on Goodreads. Never saw a boost afterwards. Can’t remember getting a review from the winners either.
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I haven’t done free books for years. When I did them I couldn’t track results (Reviews or additional sales) to the free campaign, so I stopped.
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Makes sense. Unless you see a review show up with the same name as the winner, you’d never know if it helped.
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Agreed.
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Agreed
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I used to give away books, but the practice became too expensive for me since my books hardly make a profit. I do occasionally get a book to read from a fellow blogger, and I know I am getting a quality read.
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I can see how it isn’t worthwhile.
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I was giving away a novelette to people who subscribed to my newsletter, but it never seemed very effective and I no longer have that newsletter, so no freebies for me.
Many authors seem to have heard the same warnings as you have, about Amazon in particular banning suspicious reviews. I seldom get that offer. If I did exchange with another author, it would be an ebook, with less of a cost to me.
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Ebooks tended to be the way to go, but I always wondered if that made it easier to track. Though the reality is Amazon only did something if you were reported. So, I think most of the banning was caused by other authors seeing it as a way to hamper competition and angry readers who couldn’t believe someone would like a book.
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I did see something similar work once. I’ve been at it a while so that isn’t great results. It was the Fussy Librarian and honestly I don’t remember if they required a freebie or a heavy discount. It’s a pretty good service though and I would use them again if I had any money. Any Amazon free days never did me a bit of good. I even built my own tier system and personally did some promo with the Lanternfish Series and The Hat Series. First book free, yada yada, book two at a discount. It pulled a few but wasn’t a great promo.
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I remember that site. Used it a few times, but I couldn’t put my vampire books on there. They had some strict content restrictions. Did a lot of the Goodreads giveaways. Nothing came of them. Only freebie that had ever worked is my first book being perma-free.
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I usually make my books free for a few days after launch – it tends to generate a lot of downloads but very few reviews. Not sure if I’ll do it in future.
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I only have my first book as permafree. Used to work, but not anymore. You still need advertising.
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