To sell more print books, give away the e-book

Bringam Young University has found that giving away an e-book title tends to boost sales of the same title in print. University researchers tracked the success of 41 print books before and after the release of the title as a free e-book. While the sales bump was not huge, the study stated there is a “moderate correlation between free digital books being made permanently available and short-term print sale increases.” However, the effect is not an automatic correlation; free e-books don’t always equal better print sales. “Although the authors believe that free digital book distribution tends to increase print sales, this is not a universal law. The results we found cannot necessarily be generalized to other books, nor be construed to suggest causation. The timing of a free e-book’s release, the promotion it received and other factors cannot be fully accounted for. Nevertheless, we believe that this data indicates that when free e-books are offered for a relatively long period of time without requiring registration, print sales will increase.”

The ambiguous results are consistent with opinions expressed in a copyright article in the February/March issue of Backbone: some authors seem to benefit by giving away books but others, after engaging in free-book experiments, see no sales bump.

Bringam Young study