The third option, which works very well, is just by people donating to writers they want to.
The maths works out pretty well if you look at it as a marketing funnel for the author.
In the "traditional" model the author/publisher has to persuade a potential reader to part with money before reading the book, which has huge friction and costs lots of marketing money to persuade people that the book is good enough to buy before they read it - no "one month free trials" here. Using standard marketing funnel maths, they have to get the title in front of 10,000 people to get one sale (assuming a 1% conversion rate for the 2-step funnel). The net profit of this model is lower (for the author) because so much money is spent on marketing.
In the donation model, the author gives the book for free, and then asks for a donation afterwards. They only need to get 100 people to read the book (assuming a 1% conversion rate of people who have read it and want to donate). The cool thing is that those 100 people have read the book, and know it, will talk about it, will recognise the author when their next book comes out, etc.
I think your maths is off. A literary novel is a success if it sells 10,000 copies in hardback. I'm pretty sure that doesn't entail getting the book in front of a hundred million people.
no, the conversion funnel is "people see ad -> people click on ad/notice book -> people buy book". Getting the advert in front of 100mm people to sell 10K copies seems reasonable.
The maths works out pretty well if you look at it as a marketing funnel for the author.
In the "traditional" model the author/publisher has to persuade a potential reader to part with money before reading the book, which has huge friction and costs lots of marketing money to persuade people that the book is good enough to buy before they read it - no "one month free trials" here. Using standard marketing funnel maths, they have to get the title in front of 10,000 people to get one sale (assuming a 1% conversion rate for the 2-step funnel). The net profit of this model is lower (for the author) because so much money is spent on marketing.
In the donation model, the author gives the book for free, and then asks for a donation afterwards. They only need to get 100 people to read the book (assuming a 1% conversion rate of people who have read it and want to donate). The cool thing is that those 100 people have read the book, and know it, will talk about it, will recognise the author when their next book comes out, etc.