The case for "Free" (again)

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A few months ago, I wrote on the topic – “The Business Case for Giving Away Your Best Work For Free” at TomPeters.com.

My fascination with free started in early 2000s when I was leading an open source company. I continue to be amazed at the power of free.

I was checking the bestsellers on Kindle. Can you guess the price of each of the top ten books?

Zero. Zilch. Nothing.

kindle-bestsellers

The top selling book “The Crossroads Cafe” by Deborah Smith has been in the top 100 books for last 9 days. There are 40 customer reviews almost everyone of them have given a 5-Star rating for the book. Deborah has another book “Mossy Creek” on #3.

If that’s not enough, note that book #11 is Alex, I Cross by bestselling author James Patterson priced at $9.99.

Free an unfair competitive advantage on price. How can you compete with something that costs nothing?

By giving something even higher quality for nothing.

By giving your best work for free.

Think about how you can incorporate “Free” into your offerings.