Did you know that more than half of the “best-selling” e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-reader, are available at no charge? Read today's New York Times article: On Kindle's List, the Best Sellers Don't Necessarily Need to Sell.
I discovered that Amazon will sell you Free Kindle Books and How to Find Them (revised 11/09) (Kindle Edition) for $1.99. The product description promises to show you "where you can receive several hundred thousand (actually over a million) free books, blogs, short stories, and other content." The guide also explains how to download free books from the web and then transfer them to the Kindle. You can also click on Listmania and find some free books from readers' lists. However, these are books that I would never read. That may sound like an elitist librarian speaking, but would you read Serial by Jack Kilborn, "a terrifying tale of hitchhiking gone terribly wrong"? Maybe if you're a teen who's hijacked your mom's Kindle and you've already blown through your allowance and you have nothing to do but lay on the beach in the summer. Even then, probably not.
Giving away e-books by some publishers is a plan to attract paying customers. CEO of HarperCollins says that "free is not a business model". Oh yea? It certainly is a business model according to Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson. Anderson's argument is that the most effective price is zero. Although critics challenge his conclusions,I heartily recommend it because his examples are easy to understand, e.g. giving away cell phones to attract customers to a phone service contract for 2 years. Stop in at the Winnetka Library to pick it up!
