My Next Book: "FREE"

So the word is out. I've sealed the deal on my next book, to be called "FREE". Here's how New York Magazine described it:

Long Tail Author Sells Next: Chris Anderson, author of much-cited paradigm-shifter The Long Tail, sells new book Free to Will Schwalbe at Hyperion. Agent is John Brockman. New title explores "the most radical price of all — zero — in the context of the economics of abundance." Times Magazine editors crack knuckles.

I actually have no idea what that last sentence means.

The book is due to be finished by mid-2008, for publication as soon after that as possible.

Here are some of the subtitles I've been kicking around:

1) FREE: The story of a radical price (zero)

2) FREE: How $0.00 changed the world

3) FREE: How companies get rich by charging nothing

4) FREE: The economics of abundance and the marketplace without money

5) FREE: The past and future of a radical price.

I kind of like #5. What do you think?

Comments

[al]

I like number 3.

[monchito]

I would go for #2
it seems this book will be about another paradigm shift: co-creation, user generated content or however you wanna call it. The book is probably going to say that that shift is nothing less than revolutionary, so it actually changed the world!

Also, i think it sells the best because it's catchy :)

[wow power leveling]

UPUPUPUPooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop,it's soooooooogreat
maple story powerleveling

[Bern Grush]

#4

[Stephen]

FREE: Building Value in the Reputation Economy

[Donald Rosenfeld]

2) FREE: How $0.00 changed the world

should be modified to:

2) FREE: How $0.00 will change the world!

or

6) The power of FREE!

Re # 5 - I don't believe the word "radical" will help you sell books.

[basho.]

how about:

"the economics of zero"

[basho.]

or,

The Zero Economy:

- i'm really bad at subtitles - but perhaps you should just wait till the book is written, and then your subtitle writes itself.

imagine the following conversation:

person 1: so i read this book this weekend, "the zero economy"
person 2: so whats it about?
person 1: well, its "subtitle"

:)

- its simply, the one thing you want a reader to remember from your book.

[Brandon]

You could use the $0.00 in place of nothing. The $0.00 does stand out.

3) FREE: How companies get rich by charging $0.00

[jonas]

How about: Free - You Get What You Don't Pay For

[Gary Ward]

Chris,

As a book publisher, I love naming things so I couldn't resist adding my zero cents (used to be 2 cents) even though I know I'm a little late to the party.

FREE! How Nothing Changes Everything

Short, sweet and enigmatic enough to make someone want to know more (i.e. pick up the book and read the back cover.) I like FREE! in all caps with an exclamation point as most free offers seem to shout at you (not that that's a good thing, just a marketplace reality.) Turns out that even free offers need to do something to get your attention (BTW - this need will only increase after your book is out as everyone will be offering free stuff.) Plus, your cover designer can have some fun with FREE! and make it pop off the page. Hmmm...a three dimensional book cover. Well, maybe next time.

Continued Success,

Gary Ward
Flap Jacket Press

[bitume2000]

just "$0.00" could be powerfull after all for the title !

[Robert]

#3. I look forward to reading it!

[Tom]

FREE: as in how beer changed the world

FREE: the rise of a radical price

FREE: how the new economy IS a zero sum game

[Jon Clyne]

I feel this is heading for the ultimate title, "Freeconomics"

Too bad it sounds like a Dr Evil moment.

[Dan Luke]

It's a great idea for a book. I think it'll be even more interesting than TLT.

[red1]

I read through the above and somewhat agree with Bryon Bennet's
"FREE: Giving it away to win it all"

Such a line doesn't insult more than the audacious but cliche FREE tries to. This gently put a thinking process to the suck***, i mean readers.

It is also more sincere in content than the much abused and some-catch-somewhere FREE! word and all its derivatives such as even #3 'How Companies Make Money...'. There are many commercial riders of free stuff that tun their backs on the community after that. For example, there are so called companies giving Open Source that arent really Open in the end, and try to yank the hook from the poor faithful fish gathered in the pond.

Readers would really like to see YOU 'giving it away' first and last. They dont mind u making money somewhere else, but did you REALLY gave anything away. Just food for tot.

red1

[ABC Communication thiet ke web, dich thuat, thiet ke poster]

thiet ke web, thiet ke logo, thiet ke brochure, thiet ke website, thiet ke in an, web, website, lap trinh web, cho thue may chu, cung cap email, mail server, dich thuat, thiet ke website, quang cao in an, xay dung thuong hieu

481/581/9 Le Quang Dinh street,wart 11, Dist : Binh thanh ,Ho Chi Minh city
Unit: 603 - Fl 6, 87 Tran Thien Chanh Str, Dist 10, Ho Chi Minh city
Tel: 848 5158499
848 2978144
848 5158500
fax: 8482978143

[Miikka Leinonen]

I just uploaded a slideshow to slideshare about Strategy of Giving. It's not the same thing as FREE, but close.

[Tim Garret]

#3 is the subhead I'd choose.
#6?:
How Companies That Charge Nothing May Change Everything.
I scanned through these comments quickly, hopefully didn't repeat what someone else already contributed.

[Michelle]

Oh! Definitively #3! by a mile.... It says it all!

[Carlos Taran]

Dear Chris. My name is Carlos Taran and i'm from Uruguay (but i work in Uruguay, Argentina and Spain and living at Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)). i would like to send you one sample of my magazine Freeway (its correct to send you at Wired Office's???), wich is free and this years its completing 5 years of live. its a pocket free magazine, wich periodistic contents. its montly and distributed only ar universities. we also have a webpage (www.freeway.com.uy).
Freeway Mag its a strange case of marketing in a little country of south america as Uruguay is. today Freeway is one of the most profitable magazine in the country. Unbeliable but true.

Saludos y gracias, Carlos.

[joe]

not #3- do you really want a book with the words "GET RICH" anywhere on the cover. Yet it seems so popular...uncanny.

[Steve]

I vote for "FREE : Recreating the Economics of Abundance with a Radical Price" - Just to stir things up a bit.

[Patrix]

Mixing #2 & #3

FREE: Earn a profit by charging $0.00

[Leon from Sydney]

how about ...

"FREE: The Value of Nothing"

[Pius Uzamere]

The third title would almost certainly guarantee that someone like me would buy the book.

[kevin]

a href="http://www.gingko-soft.com">Web Development Outsourcing to China - To become a strategic partner with our clients, to develop and maintain long term and mutually beneficial working relations.

[Mikko Alasaarela]

Chris: If the name of the book is Free, you should definitely offer the book out for Free, to make your point. Otherwise it may have a smack of cheating... And if you still make money through other means and deals, you just changed the world!

[derrick sorles-web 2.0 consultant]

I can't wait for this book. Long Tail is one of my favorite books ever - and I am sure this will be great as well. We live in an amzing time! The world is getting flatter, the tail longer, and everything is FREE!

[Greg Richardson]

Chris. Your Nokia presentation was amazing.

How about Free: The Dawn of a $0 Billion Marketplace, or some variation. The Economics of a $0 Billion Market, etc. The irony of the theory presented seems to come through best when you refer to something that people (particularly business people) find commonplace (this business plan is targeted at the $50 billion market for.., our share of the $70 billion widgets market is..) but then you twist it and turn it upside down with $0. Quite catchy I think.

Also, it would be cool to somehow tie together the themes from the Long Tail and Free in some way. Not so much to the extent of Christensen's work on Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution, etc., but there does seem to be a thread between the books on the "abundance" angle, in the sense that you taught us in the Long Tail how much abundance (or maybe it was more variety than abundance) existed in the tail vs. the head. Anyway.

Now, before someone gets cute and runs with my idea above.. No, I'm not suggesting Free Tail! This should be a family-friendly book! :-)

I really dislike #3, despite a lot of support in this thread. It makes the book sound like one of those "get rich quick" how-to guides. Just my $0.02. Sorry, I meant $0.00.

P.S. Chris, congrats, and we can't wait. I wouldn't camp out for an iPhone, Harry Potter book, or a Kindle, but I will for this book. The Kindle, there's an idea. Amazon already pays Sprint for the 3G wireless access, which from the consumer's perspective "comes for free." You do a deal with Amazon to provide a Kindle eInk version of the book for free, and given the book's blockbuster appeal, they sell more Kindles.

[Chris Cerrudo]

I like Tim's #6:How Companies That Charge Nothing May Change Everything. with a slight twist: How Companies that charge nothing will change everything. It's already happening now, and forcing us to really rethink our definition of how and what we look for in products and markets. #5 does sound rather cryptic, causing you to actually stop and think about the sentence...

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Chris, I believe your matrix of the scarcities of the online economy is somewhat flawed. After seeing your Nokia World presentation and thinking about it for the last few weeks, I believe neither attention or reputation are real scarcities, independently of the technological architectures which shape them.

http://www.kaplak.com/?blog,10

[Francesco]

I might be late in title poll, but I definitely like #5.

(Seeing the Nokia World presentation the choice might be done already)

Two hints on marginally free stuff.

1) Oil pumps in Saudi Arabia in the pre-oil-crisis period would have their meter hidden or disabled: you would just fill up the tank and leave a tip to the guy.

2) Rome has a large number of aqueducts, and generally an abundance of water. In the first half of 20th century in Rome, in some cases there was no meter for water, as meters were more expensive than water itself.

Instead of meters, they installed across the pipes small devices with diaphragms, thus limiting the peaks of consumption but not the total consumption.

both points need sources, and some research done but I have always found them interesting.

[gary mackey]

Major Advertisers Want to Advertise on Your Website(s)

Get Paid Every Time Your Websit(s) Is Seen...

Works on a bid management system similar to Google AdWords and will compensate publishers
just like Google AdSense but with one critical difference…
Publishers (website owners) will earn revenue on 100% of their traffic... no clicks
necessary!

Yes you get Paid per visitor you get to your website wether it is 1 or 1 million
visitors or more...

100% FREE Oppertunity.

For a limited time you or your company have the opportunity to capitalize by introducing
to the market while earning advertising revenue for your website(s) at the same
time.

Earn by referring others.

Breakthrough technology.

Massive Residual Income.

We are currently running these ads on 550,000 web pages

We have consistently outperformed, radio, television and paper ads.

We have over 66,000 advertisers (Like Harley Davidson, Taco Bell, HBO , BIG 8 in
advertising) want more. This partnership with a major search engine brand will extend
the network exponentially.

We already have the advertisers, now all they need are the publishers (website owners)
to extend their reach.

We only deliver ads that are directly related to the contextual nature of your site.

We advertise No hate, pornographic, or subversive ads .

Yes ads can be distributed in free websites or blogs.

Yes you can place ads hosted on free hosting servers.

Does Not Take Visitors Away From Your Website(s).

No Banner ads or Links no pop-up or pop-under ads to put on your website(s) for
you to get paid.

No graphic or text ads to put
on your website(s) for you to get paid.

No Action Required From the Visitor for you to get paid.

No Clicks required for you to get paid.
As a website owner you have the opportunity to earn 25% of the revenue spent by
the advertisers that advertise on your website.

To learn more on how to get paid for every visitor goto - 14L.info
thanks for your time and hope to see you there.

goto top of your webpage and enter in 14L.info in your internet explorer
or e-mail me we_pay_u@peoplepc.com

[Joakim]

how about taking your own advice and calling it "0"?

[Evan Prodromou]

FREE: cheap at half the price

[Christian Costa]

#5 for my or Think´s in the universal lenguage name, like name of cities.

[D Champlin]

Great stuff, please send your offer of a "Free" for free tomy email.

Thanks

D

[Sean Ellis]

Free seems to be the topic of the year. A few days ago I blogged about my experience building a startup with a free-to-premium model. It was a necessary strategic decision to counter a well entrenched competitor that basically already owned the prosumer remote desktop access space. We effectively re-segmented the category and later took a strong position in the overall category. A key benefit of a free-to-premium model is that you build a startup to compete in the toughest market conditions. You become your own biggest competitor.

Here's the relevant part from my post:

If you discover that the existing competitors are executing well, you’ll have to differentiate your offer with a better value proposition for at least a segment of the existing prospects. This was the situation in my last company. We faced a well entrenched competitor who was harvesting the majority of existing demand and spending millions every month creating new demand. Rather than simply trying to out-execute them (they were extremely efficient), we decided to counter with a free-to-premium offer.

This gave us a high response rate among existing main category searchers but also played into a new trend that had been developing over the last few years. In discovering a new expensive software solution, many prospective customers now check for free alternatives. For this new segment of demand, we quickly became the dominant market player. Once we had these users engaged on the free product, we could patiently upsell various complementary premium services.

Here's a link to the full post:

http://startup-marketing.com/2008/02/25/demand-harvesting.aspx