Give it Away: The New Master Book Marketing Plan

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Give it away? How can that be a marketing plan?

It’s not quite the Steal This Book philosophy by Abbie Hoffman but Seth Godin’s buy it or take it free philosophy made him rich. Unleashing The Ideavirus quickly became the most read full-length ebook of all time. Seth’s Paradox #1 is the more you give away, the more it’s worth.

Jonathan Harnum speaks about successfully following Seth’s advice in I Make Money By Giving Stuff Away, at The Writing Show. And of course there is the man who led us to wrap our heads around electronic publishing’s reader’s rights, science fiction writer Cory Doctorow. The wise and outspoken Mr. Doctorow makes an effort to give away as much content as possible.

Tim O’Reilly, the first to say the enemy of authors isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity, seems to have started this revolution of free books and IdeaVirus.Charles Sheehan-Miles, who wrote the best selling Republic: A Novel of America’s Future, explained at The Long Tail why he’s giving away his ebook.

“…the biggest challenge most authors face isn’t online piracy. It’s not people out there diabolically copying their works and distributing them for free. In fact most authors (including yours truly) suffer from a different problem entirely — no one has ever heard of them…So, by giving away the book, I hope more people actually read it.”

And then there’s lil ole me who followed my heart during these terrible economic times and followed suit. I mentioned this in The Truth About eBook Piracy: And the Truth Shall Set Them (Customers) Free and caused quite an uproar of comments.

What about YOU?

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What do you think?

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Will your master book marketing plan include giving it away?

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Interviews with ten authors who give away their books by admin at WideOpen.