Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Me Versus the Bat

I came home from work today to find a bat nestled into a small nook near the floor in my garage. I couldn't just leave him there. Every time we went out to the car we'd be ducking and weaving at every shadow. It was up to me to flush the little guy out. It looked a little something like this.



Now I have a full fledged case of the willies. What's weird is all of a sudden I have a craving for rare meat. And why does that garlic smell so bad?

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A Special Day

See the lady in the picture?

She's my best friend, my Ideal Reader, my biggest fan, and also my wife.

Today is her Birthday.  I just wanted to tell the world.

Happy Birthday, Brandy!

Monday, January 09, 2012

Results

My first day of free promotions on Amazon's KDP Select has ended.  It is way too early to determine the long term effects, but here are the results.

Contemplations of Dinner: 252 downloads, topped out around 1,100 in the free ranking.
Guarding the Healer: 794 downloads, topped out around 450 in the free ranking.

I ran a month long free promotion on Smashwords for Guarding the Healer a while back and only managed around 140 downloads.  All month long!  I had over five times the downloads on Amazon in just one day.

I really wish those would have been paid downloads, but if nothing else, there are nearly 800 people reading my work that weren't before.  It makes me nervous to think of so many eyes pouring over my work.  I know not everyone will like what they read.  I'm just hoping the majority does.

With a little luck this will spur some reviews and word of mouth and others will search me out and actually PAY to read my brain-goop.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Free Books

After a good bit of research I have decided to take yet another plunge and try an experiment.  I have signed both of my books into KDP Select which, if you didn't know, grants Amazon the exclusive right to sell my books for 90 days.  I have pulled both books from Barnes & Noble and Smashwords for the trial period.

It seems like a long time, but when weighed against the infinite life of an ebook, three months really isn't that long.  I've spoken to several authors participating and many have reported an increase in sales.  That's what I'm shooting for.

Part of the Select program is five days of promotions where you can list your books for free.  I will be using one of those days.  *From now until the end of the day Guarding the Healer and Contemplations of Dinner will both be free from Amazon.

I hope you will all take advantage of this and please pass it along.


*This runs from midnight to 11:59 pm PST.