That depends on the cut the author would get from a publisher or leftover profit if they deal with the printing and distributing channels themselves. From the v

That depends on the cut the author would get from a publisher or leftover profit if they deal with the printing and distributing channels themselves. From the view of the buyer, it's really easy to rationalize the low cost of an ebook, and even if the first part is free, as long as it engages people enough most will come back for the latter parts. A regular physical book would need to engage people on the description to start with to convince people of the higher cost of it. Then there would be the people who sit down and read it through in the bookstore, they would need to be convinced enough of re-readability in order to buy it, or they become lost potential income, same as someone dropping a series after the first free ebook due to it not being interesting enough for them.