Can Book Giveaways Hurt Sales?
As an author and publisher, I have attended a number of Internet chats in support of eBook and print book releases. Internet chats are largely informal, hosted either by the publisher or a third-party website (usually a site for book reviews), where authors and readers can interact, ask questions and have fun. Look around some of the popular book review websites, particularly those which focus on romance fiction, and you will find chats are scheduled almost daily. Some eBook publishers, for example, host regular monthly chats to keep readers up to date. Whether or not the chats do anything to stimulate sales is up for debate. At best, most freeware chat rooms used by such sites can host a maximum of twenty to thirty people, and publishers often have to be wary to see if the majority of chatters are the authors. Personal experience has seen scheduled chats comprised mainly of authors, chatting with each other! While it is beneficial to offer these promotional opportunities, it hardly do
