Bad For Business is Free

I've decided to write free ebooks.  The whole reason I got into epublishing was to let people read my work.  But it's not happening.  For a reason why, check the last post.  I was very upset yesterday.  I almost let this whole thing get me derailed.  That old thinking came back, "Why should I even do this?  I should give it up and take on some other hobby.  Surely there is some other, less destructive, thing I could do in my free time."

But I'm a writer.  I can't help it.  Back before publishing flashed me her goods from across the internet bar, I wrote tons of stuff that I knew would never get read.  The only difference is that now, maybe a couple bold independent thinkers will read it and like it.  I've made about four dollars on this venture in the last month or so and I've easily spent ten times that just in printing manuscripts for the Writer's Group.  The point is, I'm not making any money at this.  My publishers won't even send me the royalties I've earned until the balance is at least ten dollars.  I'm out of people I know to buy the book, and I would have made more money if I'd just asked them all for a dollar and skipped the middle man.  Would've been a lot less work too.

Regardless, someone out there must be bored enough to read this book.  As of today, fifty-one people have downloaded the sample from Smashwords.  There's a couple different ways I could interpret that: fifty-one chose not to spend ninety-nine cents and by it.  Or, the version I prefer, fifty-one people were interested enough to try it.  At the very least, I can reward those people who showed some passing interest in my work by making it free.

The following is the Smashwords link, most people prefer Kindle but they will not let me set the price to free.  However, they will do price matching.  If the book is listed at another retailer for free, they may match the price.  Here's hoping right?

Smashwords - Bad For Business