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Up for discussion: Is there a ‘you get what you pay for’ attitude to free books?

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“You get what you pay for.” My mom used to say this all the time. Usually just before she chose to buy the more expensive brand of whatever she was shopping for. The phrase came back to me recently when thinking about book sales and reviews.

There are hundreds of free ebooks available on any day of the week. I know I peruse them all the time. Authors are regularly encouraged to give their book away in droves as a boost to sales. But I’ve starting wondering what the side effect of this might be. If someone gets a book for free is it actually worthless in their mind? And if considered worthless from the get-go are they more inclined to LEM it?

Personally, I think so. From my own experience I find myself willing to pick up a much wider array of books than I am willing to pay for. I’m willing to chance a lemon on a free book. But I’m also more willing to drop the book, which is always hard for me. I tend to feel haunted if I don’t finish a book.

But I had a new aspect to the question of the possible side effects of the ‘you get what you pay for’ mentality bite me in the ass recently — reviews. I only review books I’ve finished. I might leave a comment, but don’t feel right leaving a rating and review on the piece as a whole if I haven’t actually read it all. It’s an individual decision that not everyone shares and I respect that.

But, here is my hypothesis. Someone gets a book free, considers it of little value since they paid nothing for it, then aren’t willing to put much  time into it. If it doesn’t grab them immediately they don’t wait to see if it gets better.  This increases the likelihood that they will  review the book without finishing it. And you can assume that if they didn’t finish it they didn’t like it, which results in more bad reviews.

I’ll tell you what got me thinking this. Now, before I do, let me add that I’m not calling anyone out or accusing anyone of doing anything wrong. I’m not even talking to or about any individual person. I don’t expect everyone to do things my way and that’s ok. 

My book, The Weeping Empress has been on the market for a while now, has garnered 70ish reviews, and I’m thrilled to say has carried well over 4 stars. It hadn’t ever gotten a really bad review. That is until now. It got three within roughly 24 hours! (It was actually 28, but who’s really counting?) Again, I’m not having a go at the reviewers for leaving the reviews. It is the timing of them that I am considering. I doubt that there has been any collusion or conspiracy, but it is notable that so many appeared practically at once.

The last person read the book and genuinely seemed to just dislike it. Everyone likes different things, so fair enough. The other two, though, not only didn’t finish the book, but read very little of it. One wrote an absolutely scathing one star review based on the first two pages (or 1/127th) of the book. The other gave it two stars and stated that he had read the first chapter, didn’t like the word usage, and if he didn’t like it more by the end of the second chapter he was done. Ouch on both counts.

All three were posted on Smashwords and I can’t help be make the connection that last month was the big Smashwords  sale in which The Weeping Empress was available for free. I accept and take on myself that if people are reacting in such a way to the beginning of my book there may be something I need to address, but I also can’t help but wonder if its free status didn’t make it easier to discard and disparage.

I, of course, know that there are going to be people who dislike the book. I respect and appreciate that. But what do you think of three within a day of each-other, all within a week and a half of a large free giveaway? Am I making a spurious association? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Did you know that Networked Blogs has a follow limit?

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Oh, you did? Did you know that it is apparently 200 blogs? Oh, you knew that too did you? Well, aren’t you just the smarty pants of the family. I didn’t know. I’m sure the terms and conditions dutifully informed me of this fact, probably even required me to check a box stating that I had read and understand this and other important points. But I still didn’t know.

This is a problem for me. I’m fairly indiscriminate in who I follow. If a blog looks remotely interesting I quickly follow it. Otherwise I’m certain I’d never be able to find it again. So it isn’t surprising that I’ve just discovered Networked Blog’s follow limit by slamming head on into it.

There is a solution for me though. Many of the lovely blogs I frequent use both Networked Blog and Linky. So I’m making an effort to unfollow people on Networked Blog and follow them on Linky instead. So what, you ask. Well, if you find your N.B. number falling by one it may be that I’ve unfollowed you. This isn’t personal and I’ve almost certainly upped your Linky followers by one. But I’m letting everyone know all the same.

Surprised at my own nonchalance

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So, The Weeping Empress has been out for a few months now and it’s garnered 40 or so ratings/reviews in various places – Goodreads, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, B & N, Smashwords, Library Thing, Shelfari. Most of them have been really good.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I worked hard on it. I took my time. I hired professionals to do what I couldn’t and knew enough to not even try. I didn’t put it out in the wild until I was certain it was the best book I could make it at the time. I acknowledge that if I wanted to keep sifting and pruning and tweaking for a another few years it might be a better book, but I rather think there comes a point when you just have to call something finished. I did and people seem genuinely pleased with the results.

But, as is always the case, there have been people who don’t like it. I recently received my first poor review. Let me assure you in advance that this post will not be a pop at those who dislike The Weeping Empress. I appreciate every single review, even the bad ones. Granted I wish everyone loved it and I only ever had to encounter praise. I have a small mental cry every time I see a rating below 3 stars, but I then come back read it again and learn what I can from it. If it’s just a rating with no review I agonise over it for a bit longer wondering what the reader didn’t like. But that’s about it.

What surprises me is that I have never found myself angry at a review or rating. I’ve read a lot of forum posts about authors behaving badly to reviews and I always thought I understood why. I thought, “yea I get that I’d be mad too.” But I haven’t. The primary emotion I’ve found in myself when reading a bad review is embarrassment. No matter how many five star reviews I have, when reading a bad one I am forced to face the fact that I presented to a reader a book they thought was subpar. That’s a sucker punch to the pride. It really is. But to my own credit within minutes of closing the tab I move on and forget about it.

This is really the point I’m seeking to make here. I’ve been surprised at my own emotional distance from reviews. I suppose I’m proud of it too and maybe this post is just stroking my own ego a bit. The Weeping Empress is the first substantial piece of work I’ve offered up for open assessment. Even though I had faith in its quality, I spent the first few weeks in pessimistic suspense fearing that the first reviews would come back jagged, serrated blades of hatred. They didn’t and I was able to relax. I check for new reviews most days and when I see my numbers go up I have a cheeky grin and move on. When the numbers go down I frown and move on. I expected to take things a lot more personally and I’m really glad that I don’t.

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If, by chance, you are interested in giving The Weeping Empress a chance I notice that the Amazon.co.uk bots have the Kindle version discounted to a dramatic £0.49 and $0.75 in the USA. Nook hasn’t quite caught up, but at $0.99 it’s still not bad.