Interview with Simon Haynes

British born/Australian national Simon Haynes is the author behind the Hal Spacejock series. Last year his publisher caused a stir by giving away the first book as a free download, and now they've followed up by releasing ebooks for the rest of the series: Hal Spacejock Second Course (Book 2), Hal Spacejock Just Desserts (Book 3) and Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch (Book 4)

Why are you charging for Hal 2, 3 and 4 instead of giving them away free?

The first novel was offered as a freebie so readers could take a look and decide whether the series would suit their taste or not. We could have been stingy and offered a few chapters, but a cut-down sample has little perceived value and hardly anyone would have bothered to share their discovery. Offering the complete ebook as a freebie has resulted in 40,000 downloads, most of them referred via blog posts, chat forum messages and science fiction news sites. (You can still grab a copy here.)

The same reasoning wouldn't apply to the rest of the series. If someone didn't like the first Hal book there would be no point offering them the others, and if they DID like the first we'd really like to sell them the rest. There's a reason book four is called 'No Free Lunch'!

The Hal Spacejock ebooks can be ordered online. Please visit this page on the Hal Spacejock site for details.

Tags: interview,ebooks

Posted 09 March, 2009 . . .
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