Should The Book World Drop Its Spirit Airlines Approach?

  

Spirit Airlines, the big-discount air carrier that just went bankrupt, is a cautionary tale for authors and publishers. 

“Spirit was doomed to fail because of mismanagement, deep financial problems, and – crucially – its reputation for poor customer service,” said CNN.  

Spirit seemed to have a customer base straight out of the Jerry Springer guest pool — and it may have hired the people not skilled enough to work at a DMV. But it offered great prices.  

It wasn’t enough.  

And now with their demise, competitors can charge more — until a new discount competitor repeats the strategies employed by Spirit, and People Express and ValuJet Airlines.  

Authors and publishers are quick to give discounts and provide lower prices or even free books in order to generate sales and readership. But if you can’t be profitable, what good is all of that?  

The problem is the free/discount strategy may seemingly work for some authors individually who desperately seek to develop brand recognition, but overall, the toll of free and low-cost books on the industry seems to be too high of a price to pay.   

I wonder what percentage of a book’s distribution is free vs sale, and when sold, at a discount vs the full price. I don’t know if anyone is keeping statistics on such things, but I have been eyeballing lots of free books and discounted titles online, at conferences and book fairs, and in advertisements.  

GoodReads and many places do tons of giveaways. Some authors tell me they participate in something where a few giveaways are done but as many as 4,000 or more people would register for it. Those people did not seem to go back to buy the book — not even 1 percent — once they missed out on the free raffle opportunity.  

Amazon’s Prime Reading offers an enormous catalog of free ebooks. Further, it is estimated that 15 million books have a free rank, which are distinct from paid, on the Amazon KDP platform. That is just self-sabotage, a literary looting of horrendous proportions. 

What the industry needs to do is: 

·         Develop and grow more readers 

·         Show why books have value over other free content

·         Convince more people that reading a book is better than other forms of entertainment 

Spirit Airlines failed, in part, due to its pricing strategies. Authors and publishers should learn from that debacle.

Do You Need Book Marketing Help?

Brian Feinblum can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com  He is available to help authors like you to promote your story, sell your book, and grow your brand. He has over 30 years of experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your advocate, teacher, and motivator! 

 

About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 6,200,000 page views. With 5,600+ posts over the past 15 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2026.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully) and (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/10-things-my-dog-taught-me-about-marketing-books). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, three times at BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association, Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, five times at Morgan James Publishing Red Carpet, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum