Trying to offer the first portions of the Eshu International novels Running Black and Shift Tense for Free at Amazon. (The Shift Tense serialization doesn’t work as intended, so Red Flags, Soldier Dreams and Angels would be unpublished, then rolled into one complete volume.)
However, I can’t work around KDP’s minimum .99 pricing. It seems Amazon no longer lets you offer books at no cost. (why should they, I guess)
So should I…
1. Price them at .99, then use the Amazon Free Book Promotion as often as possible?
2. Leave everything as is.
3. Bin the Free Excerpt idea. Just release Shift Tense as a complete novel and move on.
Any thoughts or experiences on this? Thanks.
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By the way, Under Strange Stars is still on schedule for late March.
Hot Space Station Justice 
Reblogged this on STALKER7 and commented:
Question to all you sci fi readers. Any ideas? Thanks
I’m a bit confused by the question. Are you trying to offer portions of the books for free, or the entire books? Amazon has never allowed authors to put the price at $0. However, if you don’t want to enroll them in KDP Select, you can list them over at Smashwords or somewhere that does allow you to put the price at $0, then alert KDP Customer Service to the price difference. They will, eventually, price match.
Thanks for responding and sorry for the confusion.
I would like to offer the first sections of two novels at no cost. The rest of story, i.e. the complete novels, would be available at the regular price. Free ‘pilot episodes’, if you will.
Regarding free pricing, I do recall the option of $0.00 pricing at some point in the past. The strategy of listing for free/price match at B&N, Smashwords, etc is precarious, as the free books are excerpts from existing KDP material. According to several posts at the KDP Community Forum, Amazon takes a dim view of that practice.
Might be I scratch the idea altogether. Thanks for weighing in though.
best
I guess you could also expand the size of your sample, though I think the max on Amazon is 10%. Hmmm… Well, good luck!
Option number three seems like the sensible choice. Looking forward to the release of Under Strange Stars. Best of luck, Jeff Evans
Hey, good hearing from you. Hope you’re well and surviving this weather.
Yeah, I’m leaning that way at this point. I’ll ponder another day or two. Maybe I can offer them free here at HSSJ? In PDF, perhaps?
I’ll let you know when USS is out.
Thanks and take care.
– patrick t.