The Writing Life: The Unexpected Value of Free

It's one of our favorite words: free. When you write any advertising copy for an email or a social media post or an article, I encourage you to use this word because it will attract readers and keep people reading your material. Copywriters use the word free and sprinkle it into their work.

I've used this word frequently in my lead magnets which can be an audio file or a PDF document or a teleseminar. For the reader to get the free resource, I ask them to give me their first name and email address in exchange for access. These types of resources are called lead magnets because they drive people to subscribe to your email list—which is one of the most important tools for a writer to create and control. I've written about lead magnets in the past and encourage you to follow this link to see a variety of images and lead magnets which I am using in this area.

Besides lead magnets, writers need to develop and grow their email lists. Recently I spoke with an author who told me that she had 250 subscribers to her email list and that she was working to grow it. I also spoke with another author who had an email list of 60,000 subscribers. It's easy to see which one of these two authors would be more attractive to a publisher. I encourage you to be working to grow your email list through events, promotion on business cards, pop-ups on your website and any number of other methods. If you need more help in this area, I have an inexpensive resource called List Tycoon and hope you will check it out.

In other articles about the Writing Life, I've told you about the importance of a book proposal—even if you are going to self-publish. Your proposal is your business plan for your book. I've launched a free page for you to get the Ebook version of Book Proposals That Sell. Here's where you can get this free ebook in whatever version you need (Kindle, iPad, Nook, etc). In the process of getting this free ebook, you will give me your email address. Why would I give away a book which came out last October?

If you download the free ebook and begin to read it, statistically there is a high probability that you will buy the print version of the book at wherever you purchase print books. We've learned about this principle from the actions of other authors like Morgan James author Russell Brunson. All over Facebook (and on his own website—just follow the link), Brunson has ads for Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets. The ads say if you send me the postage of $9.95 then you receive a free copy of the physical book. Every year, Brunson gives away 100,000 copies of each title. Not everyone buys his book from those Facebook ads. Some people watch the ad and decide to buy the book in their local bookstore. Year after year, Brunson sells a six-figure volume of books in the bookstore and makes royalties on those sales. I tell this story to show you lose nothing when you give away the ebook version. Instead, you build your email list and potentially drive more people to purchase your print book.

Are you giving away your book for free? Do you have other ideas about the value of free? Let me know in the comments below.

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The word free has unexpected value. Get the details from this prolific editor and author. (ClickToTweet)