There's been a thread on one of my lists lately about the pros and cons of giving away books. Some authors seem to think giving away books is a good idea and others say it keeps people from buying your books if they think they are going to get one for free. Personally I can see both sides of the coin. I can see that giving away too many copies particulalry e-book copies which are easy to save to your harddrive or a disk and then attach to e-mails and send to others. Even though legally readers aren't supposed to without the permission of the author and or the publisher. as a writer I know it happens.

One way to avoid this I think and I agree with the person who suggested it, is to have a free book available somehow, either by using an autoresponder that you post a chapter a week to or in some other fashion such as in the files in your yahoo group. The yahoo group idea is a good one I think because you give something to new readers and you get new subscribers. I believe that this is what I'll be doing.