It never was. Sure, it is somewhat good, but that is about it. There are too many looking for free stuff. Moochers. So, much of your time is wasted. You show value on the actual sales page by giving free tips, samples, and whatnot. If they do not buy, the odds are that many of them will not buy anything anyway. Make sense? Yup. Giving stuff away, contests, mailing lists and squeeze pages are highly overrated. But like I said, just run tests. You will see for yourself. It's the only way you will know for sure.
Thanks Perry, I value your posts, they always have constructive comment. I think I've decided to sell, as you say if I give stuff away I'll only get moochers. I'm now posted in another thread for suggested prices, I reckon $15 is a good starting point, with perhaps $5 for me and $10 for the affiliate, then if it sells at that point, go to $17.95 As always, good advice on this forum from people who know what they're talking about.
Could you do a stripped down version or a 'first chapter' to build the list and then sell the ebook to some of them? Then you get a list and some sales soon after.
Ebooks on many subjects are available free on the net so I suggest you give away free. Place some links so that people could visit your site or some sales page.