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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/44682
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I watched a presentation called _Your First 10k Readers_. It explains a marketing course that will build an audience for your book prior to release - even prior to completion. It sounds sensible and the idea of offering a small teaser or a such for free to build a mailing list of likely buyers makes sense.

It explains how he built his brand and created a presence, which greatly improved the sales of his books.

If I end up going the indie route with an ebook, this would certainly be valuable. It would create buzz and have a list of potential readers who actually like my genre and will have received some samples of my work. It should improve conversion and make the ‘I just published my book’ email a very useful one to write.

The reason I think it might work is, that to those on my list, I will not be an unknown quantity. I know that when I look at a book by an author with whom I am unfamiliar, I am skeptical. A free sample that proves this unknown is not untalented would make that leap from thinking of getting it to buying it easier.

Will I be shooting myself in the foot by doing this? Would it preclude the agent to publisher route for which we tend to hope?

Edit: It seems that the focus is on creating an email list of those interested in books of the type one writes, giving them some value and building trust and brand prior to _asking for the sale._ This might include a blog, but I don’t think it does.

Original score: 10