Calculate if making Book 1 permanently free is profitable for your series. Analyze downloads, conversions, and backend revenue.
Perma-free books get 10-50x more downloads than $0.99 books. Build audience quickly for series launches.
If series LTV is high, giving away Book 1 can be more profitable than selling it. Backend revenue matters most.
Free downloads boost also-bought visibility and category rankings, driving organic discovery for paid books.
Perma-free means making Book 1 of your series permanently free to maximize reader acquisition. It works when series LTV is high (70%+ read-through, 3+ books) and Book 1 alone generates minimal revenue.
Typical perma-free sees 5,000-30,000 downloads per month with 10-20% conversion to Book 2. If your series earns $10-15 per reader, the math works out favorably compared to selling Book 1 at $0.99 or $2.99.
Best for: Romance series, fantasy series, mystery series with strong read-through. Not for: Standalone books, series with poor read-through, literary fiction.
Price it free on other retailers (Apple, Kobo, Google Play), then request Amazon price-match it. Amazon eventually matches to free, usually within 1-3 weeks.
10-20% of free readers buy Book 2 is typical. Romance can hit 20-25%. Poor quality or wrong audience gets 5-10%. Track actual conversion via also-boughts and ranking patterns.
Yes, but it takes time. Change price on all retailers, then wait for Amazon to stop matching. Can take weeks. Some authors cycle between free and $0.99 strategically.
Calculate series value to determine if perma-free is profitable.
Compare free vs $0.99 vs $2.99 revenue for Book 1.
Plan release schedule to maximize perma-free momentum.