This is a topic I cannot sugar-coat, because it is the one thing that grinds my gears about the community of self-published authors out there. I too am a self-published author, but I refuse to fall for the much too common and already expected trap called the freebie.

Many of you may have heard this before: "You get what you pay for." So, as an author now, have you ever stopped for just one moment to think about what exactly you are doing every time you offer your work for free? Did you write your book(s) to get reviews? Was that what you had in mind when you were writing? If that's the case, then, by all means, continue doing what you're doing. But, for those of us who expected readers to pay a reasonable price for the pleasure of enjoying the final product of our long hours, days, months, and probably years of work, reviews are definitely not the goal. They are great -don't get me wrong-, and they're helpful in the promotion of our books, but devaluing our work for them is not worth it.

There are specifically two things that really bother me when I see them. One of them is the "experts" who write down lists of things that new self-published authors can and should do to promote their books. In those lists, they always include the freebies. The rationale behind this goes something along the lines of: "By offering a number, or a day of free copies of your books to the readers, you can get a good number of reviews that other readers will look at when deciding whether or not to pick a copy. Plus, those who already read your books will begin the conversation and unintentionally promote them for you." Sounds great, right? But the truth is very far from this, as you'll see with point number two.

If you are a regular visitor of pages like this, then, you may have already noticed that there are now groups where the administrators blatantly post threads specifically for, you guessed it, Freebies. Now, if you still fail to see what's the "problem" with that, let me paste here a representative comment that I have seen in far too many groups, far too many times:
"Wow! That book sounds interesting. I'll put it in my TBR list and look it up in the freebies thread. I figure, why pay for books when you can just wait for them to be free?"

Sadly though, I'm not exaggerating (I wish I was). Because so many insecure, self-published authors have little faith in their work, they end up craving the readers' approval to the point where they are willing to offer it for free. In their ignorance and inexperience, they have completely devalued their books and, in the process, made it even harder for other authors to have decent sales.

There are now readers who feel emboldened enough by this to write directly to the authors, asking for copies of their books in exchange for a review (a review that most times is not even delivered). I don't blame the readers though, after all, it makes sense: Why should I pay for a book that so many others are getting for free?

Authors, when you give your books for free, you are determining their worth. My books are selling well, and they have very few reviews, but the few they have are genuine. A review that comes from someone who got your book for free (in exchange for that review) will usually be positive. It's hard to be completely honest in that situation.

Listen, the theory behind this craziness works, but only if you do it right. You should provide a free copy of your work to a reviewer, but do your homework. How much credibility does that reviewer have? Where will that review be posted? If it will go to a blog, how many active followers does it have? Are the followers of that blog or that reviewer your target audience? Have you read other reviews from that person or blog to determine how professional they are?

I understand that for new and inexperienced self-published authors is incredibly tempting to go with the flow and do what others are doing, but don't fall in the trap. You, and only you, have the power to decide the worth of your work, and worthless books are free.