I planned a book give-away event and it happened to coincide with Britain being going into lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic. I have done this sort of thing several times before, usually with mixed results. This time I decided to put all of my six novels up for free download at the same time. I have to admit that my timing was unexpectedly well executed, as was demonstrated by the results; over the five days readers downloaded 174 copies of my books.

To be honest, previous campaigns had not encouraged me to expect very much; indeed, I would have been happy to get to double figures! I do not doubt that with so many people being stuck at home this had an influence on the uptake. I might actually have seen more downloads if I had invested in advertising. The biggest surprise was that ‘Eugenica’, a book that I have struggled to find a readership for, proved the most popular title with 68 downloads!

So, what is my expectation from this event? Well, some wit accused me on social media of trying to exploit the situation. I have to admit to being a bit confused by that one. I mean, if giving your work away for free was the most direct path to literary success and millions in royalties I would have been doing it a lot more consistently! The truth is, giving the books away was only ever intended to get my work known by a larger audience. In that it appears to have worked. It would be great if everyone wrote me an honest review as well, but I know from previous experience that that is not likely to happen. I have a pitiful number of reviews on Amazon despite having sold several thousand books over the years. A 10% return in reviews would be good though.

In conclusion, I am quite happy with the way this event went; especially in consideration of the numbers associated with ‘Eugenica’. It is my most personal book and I think it deserves to be more widely read, if everyone who downloaded it enjoys the story then that alone makes giving my work away for free worthwhile!