🎯 Price Wars and Freebies: My New Plan to Win the Review Game

Published on 26 November 2025 at 07:00

I've decided to aggressively reduce the price of my ebook and give away free copies because, right now, I am after reviews more than profit. You learn quickly that people reading your book is more important than making money, especially on your first book. If these readers review, and they are good reviews, that alone will help drive sales.

I know I've set the price on most sites to £1.99/$1.99, which I hope people will take a chance on, but I will continue to give the ebook for free to people who want to read it.

💸 Discounts and Deals You Can't Miss

I've decided to aggressively reduce the price and offer free copies because, in reality, you often only get a handful of reviews, and I need to boost the volume of readers.

Global Discount: Amazon will let me reduce the book on the UK website to £1.99. The aggregator site I use, D2D, has let me reduce it to $1.99 globally. If you are in America or Canada, you can now get An Irish Mystery for this price at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Fable, Apple, and Smashwords.
The Big Freebie: I received a notification from D2D that I can join the Smashwords End of Year Sale! This means from December 8th, 2025, to January 1st, 2026, you can get Book 1 of the Newman Adventure series for FREE on Smashwords. If you want to help an author like me out, please grab a copy and, if you enjoy it, please leave a review!

🎯 My New Review Strategy

I need a way to vet people when offering free copies, especially since Amazon is still holding reviews. I'm thinking of asking people to leave reviews on platforms where they show immediately, like Goodreads or Fable.

If you are reading this and would like a free ebook copy of An Irish Mystery, send me an email with who you are and your Goodreads handle. Even better, follow me on Goodreads! Here you will see what I read and my reviews.

The Booksprout Experiment

You can still get my book at the moment on Booksprout here: [Link to Booksprout]. I've tried to use this platform to generate reviews, but I've learned that reviews from Booksprout can be slow (23 days and counting) or rejected by Amazon. It seems reviews on later sites are the way to go.

📓 The Always FREE Prequel (The Reader Magnet)

I still haven't finished what I am calling my "Always FREE" book—a prequel about the seven years Hans was in prison, giving the backstory for An Irish Mystery.

What is a Reader Magnet? It's an enticing tool authors offer—a free story—to engage readers, let them sample the writing, and encourage reviews.

Why haven't I finished it? Because I think I need more readers and more books out in the series before it's worth offering. Since it's a backstory, I worry it might not be a great reader magnet if it's the first book people read. The idea is to give background to the main characters and explain why and how things ended up the way they did in the first book. I just managed to write another chapter the other day, so the progress continues!

🎁 Local Promotion: Peterborough Book Drop

Next Wednesday is when I drop off the paperbacks I bought for the Book and Pudding Club here in Peterborough. I'm due another delivery on Friday, which will give me a few copies to sell and the rest will be given out free to the club.

A massive thank you to Leanne, the organizer, who emailed me this past Friday with a vital correction:

"Just to confirm our venue is Amore Dolci in Stanground not The Coffee Hive as on the website, this is still wrong 🙈."

Thank God she emailed me! That would have been an embarrassing moment. Note to self: next time you organize something like this, ask to confirm where you are going.

The Signing Dilemma: What Would You Do?

I also have these stickers that say "Signed Copy." I'm unsure about the best approach:

Do I sign the books now before handing them out?
Or do I hand them out unsigned and sign them in person when I go back in the New Year for the Q&A?
Do you think sticking the signed sticker on the back cover is viable with the new design?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

📚 What Am I Reading? (A New Action Hero)

I am still reading Any Means Necessary by Jack Mars (from the Luke Stone Thriller series). Honestly, hockey, work, and the dreaded Christmas forthcoming have taken over, and I haven't read any of it this week. The book, however, is fast-paced and typical Jack Mars from what I've read already. I will keep you posted about my thoughts as I progress through the book.

Want to see all my latest reviews and reading progress for series like this? You can find me here:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/dcsalmonbooks
Fable: https://fable.co/daniel-salmon-267793179821

About Me:

Hello and welcome to Swmming Upstream the home of my blogs. I am D.C. Salmon and I write pulse-pounding adventure thrillers that blend real-life unsolved mysteries with modern-day action.