Gearing up for Release Day!

Tomorrow is the big day!  The Rose Hunter will be available for purchase through Champagne Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and All Romance Ebooks.

I'm so excited about this story and being able to share it with readers. I love taking characters from another story who might have been a wee bit hard to love and giving them their own story. It's fun finding ways to redeem them. For this story, it was Lyerra from The Keeper of Moon Haven. It wasn't that she was horrible or anything, but she was a bit loose with her affections. That's because she was an elfin witch and commitment wasn't in her vocabulary.

In The Rose Hunter, things change. She's struck with what other elves in her coven term as "the change". No longer is she content to live life one day at a time. Instead, the change is interfering with her emotions and stripping her of her powers. One day she's able to heal with just her touch and the next she's lost this ability. Finding a cure involves hunting the elusive Rose, an item of great worth that was stolen from Alfheim Haven years ago by her own mother. Unfortunately, her search will take her out of the safety of Alfheim Haven and into the human realm. Her story if one of sacrifice, of trials contrary to who and what she is, but the end result will have her finding true love. Yep, I'm a sucker for the HEA (happy ever after) endings.

So - in preparation for the release of The Rose Hunter, I've scheduled a few ads here and there and a few blog spots. I would love for you to check out the guest blogs.

Sept 9 - I had a wonderful interview on Katrina Marie's blog. You can read it here.
Nov 2 - There will be a Release Day Announcement on Books Glorious Books, Sue Horsnell's blog.
Nov 8 - I have a wonderful interview/announcement on Romance Lives Forever blog.
Dec 2 - Another lovely blog post on  Romance Lives Forever blog.
Dec 11 - I have a featured author spot on Susan Noble's blog.

Would love for you all to pop in and visit some of these great places.

More Info on Amazon's Fr33bies

And yes, I'm still listing a free book at the end. LOL

So, I did a little more researching and basically, Amazon was losing money with the model the way they had it. The larger websites that offered a listing of free books earned money when folks also bought items within 24 hours of customers downloading a free book. They got a percentage of the profit made.

Amazon has this on their website:

“Associates who we determine are promoting primarily free Kindle eBooks and meet both conditions below for a given month will not be eligible for any advertising fees for that month within the Amazon Associates Program. This change will not affect advertising fees earned prior to March 1, 2013.
1. At least 80% of all Kindle eBooks ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links are free Kindle eBooks
2. 20,000 or more free Kindle eBooks are ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links.”

It will definitely affect the larger websites who list freebies. I loved browsing through EreaderIQ.

However, I did find a new-to-me site that lists free books in a way that's even easier to navigate than EreaderIQ. The only problem is it's not as well known. I'm sure there are others as well. All I do know is that trying to do a direct search on Amazon yields a list that's not user friendly.

And yes, I do expect that this new change will make it harder for folks to find the Indies. I'm fortunate that I began my publishing career in 2006 with a small press out of Canada. All but my historical western romances are published through Champagne Books. And while it's been tough to find creative ways to get the word out about my books, I've managed to build a small fan base. I can't even imagine beginning a career today. With so many writers wanting to make their mark, you have to shout pretty loud to be heard.

So - here's a new place to try for finding your free ebooks and discovering new authors. Free Amazon Kindle Books

And yep, Eliza's Copper Penny is still free today and tomorrow.

Amazon's new policy likely to affect sales for Indies

Please note, I'm offering a FREE book at the end of this article.

Amazon has a program that most Indies take advantage of to help boost sales. If an author enrolls their book in the kdp select program, the book becomes available to prime members to borrow for free. In turn, the author will make a small amount from money Amazon has set aside. Alas, the author splits this money with all the other authors signed up and it all depends on how many books are borrowed.

But - by doing this, the author has 5 days they can use to offer their book free to the rest of the reading public. Before March 1, there were websites that listed these free books and made it easy for readers to find these new authors. I believe websites that offered this service made money when readers also bought products using product links on their sites. Offering the book for free and having it listed for folks to find really helped readers connect with an Indie or self-pubbed author. It helped get Texas Forged out there for folks to find.

However, as of March 1, Amazon no longer allows these websites to list the free books. If you do a search for "free" books through Amazon's search engine, you get the books that have never been offered at a price other than free. And there is no way to search for books by the date they were offered for free. You have to click through each page until you get to the end of 68+ pages worth of free and not all of these are free.

Granted, an author who wants to make writing a career should find creative ways to promote in order to let the reading public know the book is out there. But let's get real, there are way too many self-published authors to count. And then there are the smaller publishing houses. Most of those have been able to make their "mark" on the reading public and are in a better position to compete with what used to be known as the Big Six (though it's now twindled down to the Big Five).

So - there are two rules of thumb. Either give away work in hopes of snagging a new fan or never give away your work as it has the potential to diminish its worth. Me, I write because I have to and I publish because I might as well. I want folks to get the same enjoyment out of reading my stories as I get from writing them. With that in mind, I want my work to matter. I want it in the hands of as many readers as possible.

That said, today, tomorrow and Friday, I'm offering Eliza's Copper Penny for free through Amazon. I'm hopeful folks will be able to find it as Amazon isn't making it easy to find.

And because they have made it hard for folks to find my books, once my term is up with the select program, I won't be participating any longer in the program. On a brighter note, I'll be able to place my five self pubbed westerns at other places and that's a good thing.

Experimenting hopefully leads to sales

Experimentation is good and keeps me on my toes. So - here's what I've been up to. I decided to try self publishing. My reasons are selfish in some ways and not so selfish in other ways. I needed a way to find new readers for one and this seemed like a simple solution. I stressed over how to do this and worried over the right path. Well, there  is not right way to do anything new or experiment except to just dive in and hope for the best. That said, I asked for the rights back on 4 of my historical westerns.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not egotistical enough to think I don't need my publisher. I do. In fact, I probably need them more now than before. But I wanted this to be a win/win for both of us and I think it will be.

The reason I wanted the rights back on those 4 is pretty simple. I needed books that were already written to assist in my self publishing endeavors. I'd written a new story, Texas Forged. It had been a year since I'd had anything new released. The wheels of publishing move slowly and if I'd submitted this one, it would have probably been another year to year and a half before it would release. An author knows that he/she must keep producing to stay alive in this business. So, with that in mind, self publishing seemed the best route for this book. However, without a publisher, this book has little hope of being discovered. With so many books offered on Amazon daily, the only way to make its presence known is to offer it for free on occasion. And this is where the other books come into play. Texas Forged is my loss leader. I'm hopeful that if others read this one and like it, they will purchase Sarah's Brass Token, which will then lead to sales for my other three westerns.

Is it working? I think so. When I put Sarah's Brass Token up, she ranked around 500,000. Today, she's ranked at 53, 960 and she's showing up on pages for other westerns. That's the real goal.

How will this help my publisher? Well, if they like these books and my writing style, I'm hopeful they will try the books I've written in other genres. Do I have plans to ask for the rights back on my other books? No. Having a publisher opens doors I wouldn't have otherwise.

Now, off to finish getting Julia's Golden Eagle ready for Amazon. I've already got the rough draft of a cover done. Just need to take a better photo of the painting I did. I have about 50 more pages to edit and I'm there.