Well, my free book give away on the Goodreads site just ended. A total of 669 people signed up for one of the five free copies of my novel, The Guilty. I'll send the five winners their copies and...then what? Even if they like it, will they write nice comments about it anywhere? Will they tell their friends about the book? And how about the 664 who didn't win (around 200 of whom marked the book as "to read" on the Goodreads site.) How many will actually buy a copy and read it? As a friend noted, maybe they meant "to read only if I win a free copy." Unfortunately, the only way to know is to wait and see. That's the trouble with a promo like this, or the free Kindle downloads on Amazon: you give away your book for free, and you hope that some of the people who get copies like it enough to tell their friends about it, or at least post a comment somewhere. And you hope that some of those who didn't win still want to read it. But, obviously, the number who actually do any of those things is usually small, and always unknown to the author. People are busy, and there are so many other books to read. Those who get a free copy may not get around to reading it until months from now; maybe even longer. Which means that if they actually make any positive comments, or recommend it to friends, that won't be for many months as well.
<br>Writing requires an inordinate amount of patience. So, it seems, does marketing.
<br>Writing requires an inordinate amount of patience. So, it seems, does marketing.