The other day, I was well on my way to boring myself into madness and wanted to cheer myself up. And who doesn’t like a good sale?
So, because I got bored, you now have the chance to get ALL my current titles for FREE or at a heavy discount! And guess what? The sale lasts 10 days, so there’s no excuse not to get over to Smashwords if you’re looking to freshen up your ebook collection!
Discounted titles
Resounding Echo
100% off! Get it for FREE!
Coupon code: UJ82P
Click here to download it from Smashwords
Silent Sound
75% off! Heavy discount!
Coupon code: HB69Y
Huntress
100% off! Get it for FREE!
Coupon code: ZW85W
Demon’s Dance
100% off! Get it for FREE!
Coupon code: JY77F
Well, speaking as an ebook consumer, there’s a lot of self published free stuff out there that simply isn’t very good. After a while, even those of us who are interested in new authors get a little punchy and mistrustful of anything that even hints of a book or the author being a stinker. I think the new author needs to be better than anyone else. Not only in writing, but in editing and marketing as well.
I would suggest that you take some time and review your marketing campaign. Is there ANYTHING in your promotions that leaves the impression that this book might be poorly written, or worse, poorly edited? Typos, misspelling, poor sentence and paragraph construction? Poor marketing material design?
I’m hardly an expert, but it seems to me, that building a brand is as important as getting someone to download your book. It makes downloading the second copy easier.
I fully agree with you, Glen. I’m not judging readers at all for being sceptic about free books as I feel the same way.
It’s very hypocritical of me, but I have started viewing free and especially full-length books priced at $0.99 as inferior quality. It’s just too easy to do when there’s so much sub-standard work you have to sort through to find the great books.
The saying goes that you can’t beat 100% off. But, so far, that hasn’t worked for me. My books have been free since I wrote them. So far, one reader.
So, there’s two problems in writing–the actual writing of the book, and getting people to read it. But we are not alone in that situation. I’m astonished that people don’t read Joseph Conrad’s work. Indeed, I didn’t realize just how consistently great he is as a writer until I began recording them as audio books. Not really getting any interest on that score either. One of his best works didn’t even find a publisher.
I guess about the best thing we can do is to keep going and hope for the best.
I really like the cover for “The Huntress.” Although Fantasy is not my cup of tea, I may give one of your books a try. I suppose the book I have on my blog is considered a Western, technically. But I didn’t really set out to write something in that genre, and I’m not certain that it actually is–although it does take place in the American West.
I agree, even giving work away for free is tough at the moment, since the market is oversaturated with free books. It worked well a year ago when Amazon’s KDP Select program was still newsworthy, but now it’s just a given for readers that they can get lots of self-published books for free.
About the cover for ‘Huntress’: I have gotten a lot of great response on that one and after the re-design it’s probably one of my own favorites as well. And even though it’s only a short story, it’s also the one that gets the most downloads!
Maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but people still do! 🙂