The trouble with free books is:

[LoneWolf1]

I love free ebooks. They give me the chance to get to know a new author without the danger of feeling like I was scammed out of money. Lots of times they are short fun reads.

[K_Robinson]

The trouble with free ebooks is that a lot of them are not edited well. I buy mostly free ebooks on Amazon and am not able to finish half of them. I'd say there's only about 10% that are really good. Those good ones are worth all the crap you have to wade through though.

These are my thoughts exactly! I like to download free ebooks on my kindle but have found that a vast majority of them are poorly written or it seems they haven't been proofread for even the most obvious mistakes. Sometimes the plot of the story is intriguing enough, but the greatness of a story can easily be lost in bad grammar and lack of flow. You can tell a majority of the books were written by the "average Joe".

[krismags]

I like getting the free ebooks since I don't have much money, but I am very picky about high quality books. I often feel that the quality for publishing an ebook versus a printed book is not as rigorous. However, I have library apps from a couple different cities that I live in that offer a good alternative, as well as sometimes allowing me to find the remaining books in a series I accidentally started as a result of a free book

[catolle]

I agree. Free books help you determine if you like a book series or even the author. I have read several free books I did not like at all but some I highly enjoyed.

[KC Osborne]

The trouble with free ebooks is that a lot of them are not edited well. I buy mostly free ebooks on Amazon and am not able to finish half of them. I'd say there's only about 10% that are really good. Those good ones are worth all the crap you have to wade through though.

This. Yes, I have an issue with books that lack editing. I am willing to pay to get more books, but I resent having my time wasted by 'authors' who never bothered to have anyone look over their work before they published it.

[KirstyJ1994]

The one thing I don't like about free ebooks is that the spelling and grammar is really bad! Some I have read have been awful.

[Inishowen_Cailin]

Free ebooks don't seem to be proof read as well as paid for books.

[readerromance2003]

Is there is not enough and once on book in a series is for free I have to read the others in that series and it always costs me $30-40 dollars depending on how many books is in the series.

[dina77]

Baen Books do a lot of free books that you can download by a variety of authors and I have found that all of them are very well written with few errors in the downloads, I think it is marvellous as I like sci-fi and this gives me a chance to check out new authors without paying for them first.

[KateyCake]

Never turn down free books!!

[fonki]

Yep but its free! Can't complain about that

[Keirakay]

I can't seem to find a simple way to filter free books - I'd like to know up front if its a novella, a sample, or a self-published book - and there just isn't any way I can find to do that.

I like them all, but sometimes I am looking specifically for one type or another, but I have to sift through them all and it's time consuming and aggravating.

Otherwise - free e-books are absolutely WoNDERFUL.

[readerromance2003]

After you read the free one you want to read the rest and that always costs me money

[casper]

You don't get much for free these days. I think it's a good idea for new authors to offer a book free of charge to get their name known, but it's not fair to expect them to never make any money out of their hard work. On the other hand, the books should be properly edited and proofread first. It would put me off buying any of their other books if the free one was full of errors.

[anomalocaris]

Normally I don't mind it. Nothing wrong with an author giving you a free sample to get you to buy the series, just like there's nothing wrong with getting a free sample of laundry detergent in the mail. Obviously the detergent company isn't sending that sample just because they like you. Why should an author (who is, after all marketing a product) be any different? I don't know why anyone would feel "tricked" by that.

However, Amazon offers something they call serials, which are novels broken into small sections. In the description of the first section, they clearly state that once you've purchased the first part, you will not have to pay to get the other parts. It's a single book that you'll just get in installments. Sounds fair enough, but after purchasing one, when I tried to get the rest of it, I learned that I was going to be charged for it. Went back and reread the info on the first one, just to make sure I hadn't misunderstood, but it was there in very clear and simple language, saying the other parts would be delivered automatically with no further charge. There's a difference between honestly offering a free sample, and outright lying about what's being purchased.