Free Book Secrets

Amazon has announced that sometime in the near future, free e-books, be they public domain, promotional, or what have you, will no longer be included in their Kindle bestseller list.  Interesting.  Will the free stuff appear on their own list?

The rationale appears to be that excluding these books will give someone a more accurate picture of something.  I can't help wonder if this is obfuscation; if you really wanted to give an accurate picture of what people are downloading to their Kindles, I think you'd keep things as they are, or perhaps add a counter showing how many downloads/purchases are made for each title.

In other words, once this happens, the number one Kindle "bestseller" will likely not be the book that is most downloaded.  Perhaps this will make things more clear to someone but I'd rather see what people are downloading.  With two thirds of the top 100 list traditionally being free books, this is going to be a drastic change.  There's no doubt in my mind that when people see a book on the top of whatever list they're more likely to investigate what it is.  In other words, this move may help sales but I think it does so behind a bit of a veil.

I'm still waiting for the Kindle ad that says, "Pay your two fifty, read for free the rest of your life!"  Now that's a sales pitch.  We'll never hear it, but I've got to believe there are people out there doing it.