In the case of my tweet, there was no funnel. Amazon is in control of all contacts for that distribution. I was relying on the freebie to spread the word past the freebie day and to additional people. It didn't. Site traffic soared the day of, heaps of freebies were snatched up, and that was the end. It was tough, for sure.
Would I have done a thousand things differently, had I known more? Yep.
Was the book's failure mine? Yep.
My note re: MMM folks generally not loving paying for books is based on a couple of things:
1. The sheer number of times people on this forum have said so, have opted for library copies, have urged others to stop paying for books, etc.
2. Comments on the forum and responses to the MMM Tweet that the book "should be free."
We don't say that as much for food, bicycles, hammers, etc.
I'm grateful that you might buy that author's book! Thank you for supporting folks who work hard at writing (and marketing)!
I don't "blame" people for catching freebies where they can, or for receiving a gift (!)...but I also don't "blame" myself for not having known more about marketing before I launched. No one did anything wrong :) I did a lot right by working wildly hard to develop an excellent product, a forum member and Pete did a huge kindness by getting that tweet to happen, and I 100% flubbed the marketing. It's okay for me to acknowledge, too, that a lot of folks are loathe to pay for books.
It's smart when people like the fellow you pointed to acknowledge that and learn the marketing curve too. If I get more resourced one day (time, energy), I'll definitely do that too.