BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow says, “The single most frequently asked question I get is, “Does giving away ebooks of your novels sell books, or does it hurt your sales?”
In this post Best-ever case-study on free book downloads’ impact on sales, Tim O’Reilly, publisher and founder of tech-book giant O’Reilly Media sums up, “The quick answer from this experiment is that we saw no definitive correlation, but there is little sign that the free downloads hurt sales.”
It’s an interesting question to me too and I had wondered, as I have a book - already written and NOTHING whatsoever to do with internet marketing, only have to type it up - that I am indeed intending to give away (or maybe make “donation ware”) as a PDF, but sell dead tree copies via print on demand.
Whilst I will admit that I have not yet, it might be a good idea to pick up one of Cory’s PDFs to see what they include in the way of marketing to convert free ebook readers into purchasers of “real” books.
Another example I can think of is Seth Godin’s “Unleashing the Idea Virus“. If you sign up for our blog updates (over there in the sidebar, hint :), you’ll get the ebook version of this, which Godin gives away to read and share. In the past, I’ve actually placed links, right beside the download link to the free version, to the dead tree and audio versions and, people have still purchased them.
It’s simply down to choice and preference. People like to choose.
That said, this not something I would even consider in the internet marketing area. Too many sharks and bottom feeders who would steal your work and be reselling it as their own before the end of the same day, but it also saves you from having to protect your PDF from pilferers if it’s free. 
Best-ever case-study on free book downloads’ impact on sales
If you found something you like here, why not subscribe?
Sponzurz
