Until recently, I really didn’t care about sales; I just wanted physical books so my kids and grandkids would have something to remember me after I am gone, so I gave the ebook versions away for free because I was not interested in making money from my writing.

But I discovered (the hard way) that most people place more value on things they actually paid for. People generally perceive things they pay for as being more valuable, and more worthy of their time, than something they got for free. Yes, we all like getting free stuff, but how many free ebooks have you personally downloaded and never got around to reading yet? 

I’m guilty of that too. My Kindle has dozens of free ebooks on it that I downloaded years ago but never got around to reading yet, but the couple of dozen ebooks that I paid for just in the last year alone I have actually read.

If your primary goal really is to help people rather than making money, know that you’ll be able to help a lot more people by charging them for your ebook than you will by giving it away for free.

Why? Because when people pay something for your ebook, even if it is a modest 99 cents, there’s a much better chance that they’ll actually read it than if they downloaded it for free.

You can’t help people if they don’t read your book! If you really want to help people, make them pay for your book!