Readers are the essence, the fundamental piece for any writer. I don’t believe there is a single author who isn’t thinking about pleasing the readers when he/she is writing.

My process includes me as a reader. I, the author, need to please myself as a reader before I proceed to write the next chapters. And I’m extremely demanding of myself.

Fortunately, reading is a habit that my family has always encouraged, and I have been an avid reader since before I entered my teens. I was never satisfied with just the books we had to read at school, and I always bought and exchanged books with family and friends.

With the advent of e-books, it has become even easier to get good books to read. They cost little and are available on our devices within seconds of purchase. In addition, there is now an abundance of e-books offered for free. And that’s the focus of this article – free e-books.

I constantly see posts from readers on social media boasting about the total number of books they have. Some say they have more than 2000 books and that the number keeps increasing. This number is so excessive that even if they read 2 or 3 books a week, they might never be able to read them all in what remains of their lifetimes.

Ten years ago, when I released my debut book, it was already customary for authors to offer books for free, whether they be short stories or the first entry in a series, so that readers could get to know their work and then buy future books. I understood the reasoning behind it, especially for indie authors who were trying to get noticed.

But later, some issues with this practice became evident, and many authors began to wonder whether free books are in fact good for both authors and readers.

We authors want to show off our work and get more readers. But with so many free books on offer, how will these readers find our books? And the corollary for readers is, with so many books on their devices, how will they choose what and whom to read?

The dilemma is, even with access to so many free books, why don’t readers read the books they get? Or for those who do read some of them, why don’t they write reviews that would help draw attention to our work and gain new readers? Also of concern is the growing trend among such readers to never pay for books that are not free, since there are so many free ones out there. How are we to sell books and make money in that kind of environment? So the question is, isn’t it time to abolish this practice for the sake of both authors and readers? That way, our main concern might be to just write good books, and readers would only look for what they really want to read (since they would have to pay for the books). Marketing funnels could still feature freebies, but they should be short stories or samples, not full books. Then readers might actually read and review the books they acquire, rather than simply hoarding them.