Scott Adams recounts on The Dilbert Blog: How to be a Marketing Genius how he offered a free downloadable version of his first book, “God’s Debris” to see if it would help in the sales of his second book, and then concludes from the pathetic version of free downloads (170,000 + who knows how many people they shared their downloads with) vs. sales of the sequel in hard copy (under 1000) that people are only interested in free stuff. Buncha takers only interested in freebies, that’s what WE are!

Odd that he doesn’t even consider any of the many possible problems with this analysis. I’m not even a sales analyst, but I can already list a number of flaws:
1) Right off the bat, he’s assuming we’re all fans who will love his book. They may have downloaded it and hated it. It is about religion, right? Maybe I won’t like what Scott Adams has to muse about religion. Perhaps I’ll download his free book just to skim it over, realize my guess was right and I have no interest in that book or the sequel.
2) Maybe they haven’t read it yet. A download isn’t a viewing. It’s not the same as opening it with the reading software that must be required. (Even if it’s Adobe Acrobat; some people don’t have that installed.)
3) Maybe they haven’t read all of it yet. Reading at the computer isn’t like curling up in an easy chair for a couple hours.

I’m sure you can think up many other problems with his analysis.