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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44683
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You asked:

> 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?

There are a few salient points to consider here:

- **Publishers want an author to already have a market** / platform so this would only help if you have statistics that state that X people downloaded your sample. They are definitely not going to be upset that a great many people have read your sample. 
- **You will learn tons from marketing your book** / giving away a chapter. You will learn how distracted people actually are and how difficult it is to get their attention. Most people will only read a sentence or two, even if you are able to :

- The challenging thing that may occur however, is that you cannot get people to read your sample, even though it is short and free. This will send the opposite message to the Publisher, but you don't have to mention that you tried that if you are not successful.

Marketing your book is always a good idea. There are books that are written beautifully and tell fantastic stories but if they are not known then they are not read.

On the other hand, the world of published books is rife with poorly written books that are nothing more than marketing hype.

The point is that people have to know about your book and an amazing free sample can open the door to readers actually finding it.

Original score: 5