Free ebooks correlated with increased print-book sales
Cory Doctorow points to a BYU study that shows releasing a free ebook version may boost sales of the printed edition.
You’d love to see a bigger sample, and correlation does not imply causation. But to me, it suggests that increased sampling usually generates more sales than it costs.
Advance screenings of movies work the same way. When a studio expects good word of mouth, they are often willing to give up a day’s box office1 in order to get more people talking about their movie. They’ll also conduct word-of-mouth screenings tailored to specific audiences. “Free” and “exclusive” are big motivators.
(thanks Howard Rodman)
- When you buy a ticket for a sneak preview of The Proposal, it’s actually counted towards another film, generally one from the same studio currently playing at that theater. ↩
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March 5th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Makes perfect sense. I can tolerate an ebook just long enough to figure out whether I’d buy the book before I get headachy.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
How did you know that I bought a sneak preview ticket to see The Proposal?
March 5th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Car salesmen wouldn’t sell any cars without test drives. But that doesn’t mean they should leave the keys in the ignition…
March 6th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Why…? Why would sales from a preview be credited to another film? Why not just credit it to the movie being previewed?
March 6th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
@Cameron…
the answer to that question probably lies in the surprisingly complex business relationship between distributers and exhibiters, where “special engagement” movies are billed at one rate (i.e. the first two weekends of release), and older movies get billed at different rates. basically, the longer a movie plays, the larger the cut that the theatre gets to keep. and in the case of super-blockbusters, sometimes the studio keeps as much as 70-80% of opening weekend ticket sales.
suffice it to say, when a studio wants to “preview” a movie at, say, an 8pm showing on a Saturday two weeks before the movie actually opens, it’s a lot easier for the studio to just request that said preview movie simply take the slot already assigned to a movie of theirs playing at that same theatre (and billed a such).
in that scenario, the theatre is happy because they get a bunch of new people coming to see a new movie at an “older movie” rate (when they keep a larger share of the box office), and the studio is happy because at this point, they care more about generating word of mouth than they do bucks towards opening weekend.
(this is all very different from “midnight screenings” which occur only a few hours before opening day, and the money IS counted towards opening weekend totals…)
March 7th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
I like the way Amazon allows free download of the first section/chapter of a book. I’ve purchased some physical books being able to sample this way and am more likely to buy a book because I could sample it. I do think a factor is how much you like the book and how much you like or don’t like the digital reading process.
With the iPad and future devices the results may be different. Certainly I think most people would make up their mind fairly early in to the read and that’s why they’re buying the printed version, to continue reading wit ha better experience.
This is similar to the App Store. Some developers provide their app free for a short time to build a user base, reviews and word of mouth. Having an exact version of free and paid version of the app would of course not equate to increase sales of the paid version since they’re the same experience. That’s why I think there’s a discrepancy, it’s not the same experience with ebooks vs real books.