31 Days to Better Practicing: A New Location and Why It Will Always Be Free

In the summer of 2011, I published 31 Days to Better Practicing, a free ebook about how to practice. Since the ebook went live, I'm glad to say that it has received over 7600 downloads to date, has been read and shared by students and teachers alike, and has become standard reading for numerous piano pedagogy classes across North America.

Nevertheless, the internet is a changing place, and Posterous, the platform on which 31 Days was originally published, will be shutting down at the end of April. The move has been made and I'm now glad to announce its new location on the Scribd platform:

31 Days to Better Practicing by Dr. Chris Foley

Many of you have asked why I never opted to publish the book through a traditional publisher, or why I don't sell it on the Amazon store, even for a small amount. If you read closely, you'll see that the book is peppered with clever links both to the Collaborative Piano Blog and my home studio. Of the thousands of people who read the book, a certain percentage will be readers with access to my Oakville or Toronto studios. From that group, a certain percentage will opt to study with me.

Quite simply, I'm making more money by giving away the book for free and recruiting students than if I were to make money selling the book. I'm sure I could sell a couple of dozen copies a month in music stores or perhaps a couple hundred copies a month on Amazon. But the amount of income I can make by giving away the book to thousands of readers and recruiting students as a result of it is considerably greater.

Since the book's publication, my studio has ballooned to nearly 60 students from beginner to professional. I have a waiting list that extends into the summer.

In other words, I gave away something for free in order to generate income elsewhere.

Below is an embedded copy of the ebook in case you haven't read it yet. Enjoy!