Obviously everyone does like free stuff, and loss leaders are common in the marketplace.
There's a store by the name of Stew Leonard's which is notorious for giving away samples of food. By the time you get to the check-out line, you don't need to eat lunch and your shopping cart is full.
So giving away books works. Provided it leads readers to your other books. The common wisdom is that you're better off putting Book 1 in your series as a giveaway and let readers be intrigued enough to keep going. This isn't set in stone. I have a friend who doesn't have a series, she gives away thousands of books through Select and Bookbub and I would say she's very successful.
Since ELFS that means a lot of people will download any free book and 1) not read it at all 2) read it and go meh 3) like it enough to seek out more books by the same author.
The author is the winner really because each time a freebie is downloaded, their readership is better defined. If you get a bad review "Boy, I got this for free and it was so bad they should have paid me to read it!" all that says is that's not your audience. Priced at free there will be unlimited opportunities for the right audience to coalesce around an author.
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