WHY I GIVE SO MANY STORIES AWAY FOR FREE
(& How You Can Grab Them If You Haven’t Already)
“Give it away now!”
- The Red Hot Chili Peppers
I give away a lot of stories for free, and you may wonder why. (And, hopefully, you're also wondering how you can get in on this!)
So let me be totally transparent, right at the beginning: I give so many stories away because I want you to enjoy them and learn to trust my storytelling enough that you’ll eventually buy my books and collections. There’s no subterfuge here. I simply want to give you the repeated opportunity to read and like my work.
I give a series of 18 of my short stories away free, each for five days at a time, on a rotational basis, over the course of every ninety days on Amazon.
I also give away a brand new, freshly written free stories to all members of my newsletter, The Friends of Bain and the members of The Bain Insiders Club get all sorts of crazy freebies and bonuses! Signing up for the newsletter is quick and easy - you type in your name and email address on the form at the bottom of the page and you're in! You can check out the Bain Insiders Club via the link up at the top of this page.
A few friends have seen what I’m doing and accused me of not valuing my work. They say: “So those stories you’re handing out, they’re just the throw-aways, right? They must be, if you’re giving them away free!”
First of all: Hell, no!
Secondly: Hell, no, again!
Yes, I give away a lot of my stories. But this is an important point: I’m not giving away the losers or dregs. Truth is, I don’t have any half-assed attempts out there to give away in the first place. Yes, I experiment and take chances. Yes, you’ll like some stories better than others. Give them however many stars you want on Amazon, just know I’ve never phoned it in. I’ve always punched it as hard as I could for each and every story, using everything I have in my writing arsenal.
Because I owe that to you.
And I owe it to myself.
That said, it’s true I don’t give my novellas, collections or novels away like I do my short stories - but it’s not that I value them more. I value every single word I write, whatever the final tally - and I want to prove that to you, 18 times over the course of 90 days, as you get to know me.
As for my business model, simply put … well, free is the way things work these days. Let me use a music analogy. I grew up on FM radio, but I love that the internet allows you to find awesome bands the radio won’t even touch. For example, back in 2005 or so, one of my now-favorite bands, The Hold Steady, allowed free downloads of their song “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”. I’d never heard of these guys but downloaded the song on a whim at the suggestion of a music blogger. I thought it was a killer rock tune, so I Youtubed a few more by THS, and then a lot more, and I soon discovered this band not only brings it - they bring it hard every single time, plus they show an almost ecstatic love for their audience. I bought their album Boys and Girls in America and that simply sealed the deal. I now own every album and pre-order the next, plus I have everything the band members have done solo or in former bands and side projects. I drive three hours or more to see their shows every year, buy their t-shirts and swag, and allow their official fan group, The Unified Scene, to automatically post band announcements directly on my Twitter account.
All because I once download a free song.
I would never have chanced upon The Hold Steady on the radio, at least not out here in the Indiana boondocks where Toby Keith is the radio’s poet laureate. (Don’t get me wrong. I can abide some country music - and I actually own every volume of Toby’s Greatest Hits - but for me a little country radio goes a long, long way.)
Similarly, while a few stories I’ve had published in anthologies and even a book or two of mine sit on the shelves of a used bookstore somewhere or a couple libraries here and there - good luck locating which ones, and if you do, you might have to drive a few times farther than even I would for a Hold Steady concert. I’ve also heard a report that someone once spotted an anthology I was in at an actual brick and mortar bookstore, but they didn’t take a picture, alas, so I still have no concrete proof.
It comes down to this - as a grassroots, by my own bootstraps indie writer, the free stories are my radio songs, my mp3s, my library reads, my used bookstore finds. I know there are people out there content to just listen to their favorite song when it pops up on the radio, people whose iPods are filled with pirated songs, people who don’t own a single book but raid the library like I raid the buffet at King Dragon. And, really, that’s fine. Because if you like my stories enough to sign up for The Friends of Bain, and you grab your 18 initial free ebooks, and then you just kick back and collect your free new stories and don’t ever buy a thing, well, at least maybe you’ll leave some reviews or tell a friend and they’ll buy something or tell another friend and - hey! We’re both still getting something out of this, right?
The truth is, whether or not you’re giving me money, I want you to enjoy the stories. I’ll keep cranking on them, hard as I can, for as long as I can.
But I couldn’t do this without you.
Thank you, sincerely, for being a part of it.
Dave Bain
http://DavidBainBooks.com
(& How You Can Grab Them If You Haven’t Already)
“Give it away now!”
- The Red Hot Chili Peppers
I give away a lot of stories for free, and you may wonder why. (And, hopefully, you're also wondering how you can get in on this!)
So let me be totally transparent, right at the beginning: I give so many stories away because I want you to enjoy them and learn to trust my storytelling enough that you’ll eventually buy my books and collections. There’s no subterfuge here. I simply want to give you the repeated opportunity to read and like my work.
I give a series of 18 of my short stories away free, each for five days at a time, on a rotational basis, over the course of every ninety days on Amazon.
I also give away a brand new, freshly written free stories to all members of my newsletter, The Friends of Bain and the members of The Bain Insiders Club get all sorts of crazy freebies and bonuses! Signing up for the newsletter is quick and easy - you type in your name and email address on the form at the bottom of the page and you're in! You can check out the Bain Insiders Club via the link up at the top of this page.
A few friends have seen what I’m doing and accused me of not valuing my work. They say: “So those stories you’re handing out, they’re just the throw-aways, right? They must be, if you’re giving them away free!”
First of all: Hell, no!
Secondly: Hell, no, again!
Yes, I give away a lot of my stories. But this is an important point: I’m not giving away the losers or dregs. Truth is, I don’t have any half-assed attempts out there to give away in the first place. Yes, I experiment and take chances. Yes, you’ll like some stories better than others. Give them however many stars you want on Amazon, just know I’ve never phoned it in. I’ve always punched it as hard as I could for each and every story, using everything I have in my writing arsenal.
Because I owe that to you.
And I owe it to myself.
That said, it’s true I don’t give my novellas, collections or novels away like I do my short stories - but it’s not that I value them more. I value every single word I write, whatever the final tally - and I want to prove that to you, 18 times over the course of 90 days, as you get to know me.
As for my business model, simply put … well, free is the way things work these days. Let me use a music analogy. I grew up on FM radio, but I love that the internet allows you to find awesome bands the radio won’t even touch. For example, back in 2005 or so, one of my now-favorite bands, The Hold Steady, allowed free downloads of their song “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”. I’d never heard of these guys but downloaded the song on a whim at the suggestion of a music blogger. I thought it was a killer rock tune, so I Youtubed a few more by THS, and then a lot more, and I soon discovered this band not only brings it - they bring it hard every single time, plus they show an almost ecstatic love for their audience. I bought their album Boys and Girls in America and that simply sealed the deal. I now own every album and pre-order the next, plus I have everything the band members have done solo or in former bands and side projects. I drive three hours or more to see their shows every year, buy their t-shirts and swag, and allow their official fan group, The Unified Scene, to automatically post band announcements directly on my Twitter account.
All because I once download a free song.
I would never have chanced upon The Hold Steady on the radio, at least not out here in the Indiana boondocks where Toby Keith is the radio’s poet laureate. (Don’t get me wrong. I can abide some country music - and I actually own every volume of Toby’s Greatest Hits - but for me a little country radio goes a long, long way.)
Similarly, while a few stories I’ve had published in anthologies and even a book or two of mine sit on the shelves of a used bookstore somewhere or a couple libraries here and there - good luck locating which ones, and if you do, you might have to drive a few times farther than even I would for a Hold Steady concert. I’ve also heard a report that someone once spotted an anthology I was in at an actual brick and mortar bookstore, but they didn’t take a picture, alas, so I still have no concrete proof.
It comes down to this - as a grassroots, by my own bootstraps indie writer, the free stories are my radio songs, my mp3s, my library reads, my used bookstore finds. I know there are people out there content to just listen to their favorite song when it pops up on the radio, people whose iPods are filled with pirated songs, people who don’t own a single book but raid the library like I raid the buffet at King Dragon. And, really, that’s fine. Because if you like my stories enough to sign up for The Friends of Bain, and you grab your 18 initial free ebooks, and then you just kick back and collect your free new stories and don’t ever buy a thing, well, at least maybe you’ll leave some reviews or tell a friend and they’ll buy something or tell another friend and - hey! We’re both still getting something out of this, right?
The truth is, whether or not you’re giving me money, I want you to enjoy the stories. I’ll keep cranking on them, hard as I can, for as long as I can.
But I couldn’t do this without you.
Thank you, sincerely, for being a part of it.
Dave Bain
http://DavidBainBooks.com