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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/8094
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/8094
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

If you publish the initial chapter, there's one thing you should make damn sure: That the readers are _guaranteed to know up front_ that they are reading only a part of the story. Nothing puts you down more than if you expect to get the full story, and then detect that it's only a part, and you have to pay for the rest. This is true even if the author didn't intentionally hide the fact, but just made it not obvious enough for you to notice it. At least that's how I react as a reader. If I know up front that it's a sample, then I'll start reading under that premise, and then might buy it if I like it. If I expect to get the full story, and notice the incompleteness only after getting to the (non-)end, I definitely do _not_ feel like buying it.

I suggest to write _at the very beginning of the actual ebook containing the free chapter_ that it is not the complete story. That way, you also cover deep links directly to the text (which may fail to mention that it's not the complete story). Note that this might include people coming from search engines (and you certainly don't want to alienate people discovering your work through search engines).

Original score: 10