I’m beginning to wonder if giving away books in all the contests and blog interviews has been a good idea, generally speaking. I think it can certainly win a new fan if a book winner reads and enjoys your book and then decides to purchase all the rest.
But the bigger picture is telling—most authors are struggling, even the big authors are seeing lackluster sales. Is it because the market is saturated with too many books? Or perhaps we have introduced the idea of free books and readers don’t want to pay for books when they can get them free by simply entering the plethora of free book drawings at innumerable blogs meant to promote authors.
Have we created a culture of readers who feel we should give our books away? Even if we have, there’s no turning back now. What’s done is done. But there a way to thank authors for their free books and perhaps turn the tide.
I’ve seen quite a few memes around social media that repeat the same message.
The best way to thank an author is to write a review. Whether you received the book as part of a giveaway or you purchased the book, authors need those reviews, and we need others to share with friends and families so that we can all be happy and well-fed and most importantly–we can afford to keep writing!
Blessings!
Elizabeth Goddard
Elizabeth Goddard is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than twenty-five romance novels and counting, including the romantic mystery, THE CAMERA NEVER LIES–a 2011 Carol Award winner. She loves writing romantic suspense stories filled with action and adventure! To receive news and updates about her latest releases, sign up for her Great Escapes newsletter!
Christians Read 
I recently read on another forum about someone who purchased some e-books, read them and then returned them because she thought .99-2.99 was too expensive and that they should have been free. This shocked me as I think that price is quite low for books that the person said she enjoyed. (personally I consider that theft) Even as a reasonably fast reader it takes me several hours to read a LIS book, and much longer for a trade or hardcover. Divide the price by the hours of enjoyment and I am more than willing to pay more for an e-book. Due to limited budget and space I rarely buy print books but borrow them from the library, but I buy the LIS e-books every month, as well as some others now and then.
I am a cross-stitcher and know about people complaining about the cost of charts, etc. Some believe it is ok to copy them and give away the copy, which is a flagrant copyright wrong. But the same applies to that, how many hours of enjoyment do you get from stitching that design? For me it is a lot more than it takes me to read a book, upwards of hundreds of hours for anything other than a really small design.
I have not been good about reviews; I give stars on Goodreads but rarely more; I will try harder.
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Beth, Thank you so much for stopping by. I’m so glad that you understand about the hours put into writing a book. Weeks and months, it takes, and we often pour blood, sweat and even tears into the process! Even the Bible says “The laborer is worthy of his hire. . .” I’m glad too this has caused you to think more about leaving reviews–if you can. They do help!
Many blessings to you!
Beth
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Reblogged this on ON WRITING and commented:
Writers are Readers, Too. We can all do our part…
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Great, thanks, Vicki!
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