{"id":210,"date":"2009-10-01T20:08:10","date_gmt":"2009-10-02T01:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=210"},"modified":"2009-10-01T20:08:10","modified_gmt":"2009-10-02T01:08:10","slug":"social-networking-and-the-power-of-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2009\/10\/01\/social-networking-and-the-power-of-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Networking and the Power of Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Earlier this week, Jason Pinter<\/a> announced that he was giving his book, THE MARK<\/a>, away for free as an e-book. I\u2019ve been reading more books on my iTouch, using the Kindle app. I\u2019d planned to read THE MARK, so I downloaded the e-book and have it for when I\u2019m ready to read it.<\/p>\n

I stumbled upon Jason Pinter while doing a search for authors who looked interesting to follow on Twitter. While I typically don\u2019t read mysteries and thrillers, following Jason\u2019s tweets<\/a> and reading his blog<\/a> piqued my interest. I plan to read THE MARK after getting through some other books.<\/p>\n

One of those books is Chris Anderson\u2019s FREE<\/a>. (It was a free download when I got it.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m currently reading FREE. I\u2019ve always been fascinated with the concept of giving something away and seeing what comes back, or seeing how giving something away for free can create a loyal, paying following.<\/p>\n

When Cory Doctorow<\/a> released DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM<\/a> for free, I talked about it with friends and family. Some people thought it was a bad move, but I was fascinated to see what happened. And what happened? Well, people know Cory Doctorow\u2019s books, now, and from everything I’ve read, he\u2019s a very happy and successful writer. In large part, he made it by giving something away for free — a plan that many said wouldn\u2019t work!<\/p>\n

I use Facebook to stay in touch with friends I have sat down with and actually know. I also have a Twitter account<\/a>, but a lot of my friends don’t like Twitter. In fact, I have some friends who say they can\u2019t stand Twitter\u2026and for their uses, I can see why they prefer Facebook. When I chat with some of these friends, they say Twitter is just noise; that it serves no purpose.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing I would have eventually seen Jason Pinter’s books at some point, but I wouldn\u2019t have known his name right now without Twitter. And while I planned to buy THE MARK, it would have been lower on my reading list than it is now because it was accessible and free. I’ve peeked at it and it’s safe to say that I’ll be buying his other books.<\/p>\n

Generosity and social interaction of any sort go a long way with me. And it seems to be working for some people. Granted, the Amazon Kindle Bestseller List is not the New York Times<\/em> Bestseller List, but through word of mouth and the power of free, a book that\u2019s been around a while unseated Dan Brown\u2019s new book for the #1 spot…and has for days since Pinter announced on Twitter, Facebook, and other places that he was giving THE MARK away for free.<\/p>\n

If you doubt the power of social networking and free, consider this: it very well may have created a new Jason Pinter fan out of somebody who normally doesn\u2019t pick up the kinds of books he writes.<\/p>\n

I’m sure I’m not the only one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, Jason Pinter announced that he was giving his book, THE MARK, away for free as an e-book. I\u2019ve been reading more books on my iTouch, using the Kindle app. I\u2019d planned to read THE MARK, so I downloaded the e-book and have it for when I\u2019m ready to read it. I stumbled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[62,21,7],"tags":[8,63,55],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}