Upcoming Free Download Days All Books

Since I've moved all my books off Smashwords and Nook and I haven't done any free days in a while, it's time to do some more free download days.  I tried to space everything out so that nothing is really running the same day but there ended up being two back-to-back (see below), which may or may not work to my advantage - lol.

Here is the lineup:

"Bride-and-Seek" - July 18-20 (3 days); September 24-25 (2 days)
"The Proposal" - July 23-25 (3 days), September 27-28 (2 days)
"The Tulip Kiss" - August 13-17 (5 days)
Finally Home - August 29-September 2 (5 days - this will run the Thursday before Labor Day through Labor Day)

Remember the free promotional days run midnight PST through midnight PST (3 AM to 3 AM EST).  If you are eastern time and look for the books at midnight the day it starts,  you won't see them listed as free. 

Also posted on the JGDS blog that "Train of Clues" would go free next week and then again in August.  The schedule will be July 11-12 and August 27-29 (which will overlap one day with Finally Home, but it will be okay since they are not related and shouldn't have any bearing on the other).  Check out my posting and let me know if you have any thoughts on gaining sponsors for the state series.  Thanks all - see you in the postings - Mrs. E :)

This and That

Weekly report time again. Sales/downloads were down this past week, but I did have a download on smashwords the last day of the month of "The Tulip Kiss". Of course, since it was a freebie, no royalties were made, but hopefully folks will start purchasing copies of my stories either on Kindle, nook or smashwords or in-person.

My Etsy store is up and no sales yet. I need to post my kindle/nook covers and the tablet covers and a few more bookworm colors that I've crocheted recently. I've got three more afghans to complete but with all the back and forth to doctors for my friend Andi, I don't see it as a problem completing everything in my bag. I have several big events coming up the end of the month, so stay tuned for more on those.

School starts back the 21st of August and I'll be away from my desk a good bit as I've volunteered to take Andi back and forth to school except when I have events planned. I'll still be able to post and be online while away so no worries there (hoping to really get back on track work-wise while at the school).

Not much else is going on right now so see you all in the postings - E :)

This and That

On the sales front for the week ending May 5, one copy of "The Proposal" sold and when I looked at my month-to-date report, I'm showing 2 copies have sold, so that means there was a purchase this morning sometime. This is in the US. No other sales are showing in the past six weeks.

I meant to do a quarterly update last month but forgot, so numbers for the first quarter of 2012 are as follows:

STATE STORIES:
State of Wilderness 1
State of Quarries 0
State of Rservations 0
State of Successes 10 - these were all at the SCASL event
State of Heights 0
State of Nature 0

Passport Across America 0 (I don't promote this since it's not really a book but a travel companion)


OTHER STORIES: PURCHASES FREE DOWNLOADS
"The Proposal" 5 476
"The Tulip Kiss" 3 378
"Bride-and-Seek" 11 366
Finally Home 2 N/A


From my numbers in April and May so far, it looks like "The Proposal" is my most popular ebook, but that can change at any time. For the first quarter, although I had more actual purchases of "Bride-and-Seek", "The Proposal" is still the most popular book. Those purchase and download numbers are total to include in the US, UK, DE, FR, ES, IT.

There isn't much else to report on the writing or sales front this week, other than "Train of Clues" is in the final revision so hopefully it will be available again all corrected and prettied up for you all. Hopefully, Heather is working on a cover for "Butterfly Halves" which tentatively will be available by the end of this month or first part of next month. I decided that the cover for "Bride-and-Seek" needed something to it or a total revamp and so Faye Tollison and I brainstormed a bit and came up with a great idea for the cover (well, Faye came up with the idea and I like it), so that is waiting for Heather's magic.

Tomorrow's posting is a reflection of last week's Sisters in Crime meeting with some information about domestic violence. There will be the WWYWWQ posting this Wednesday and Thursday, I'm still up in the air what the posting will be about. Next Saturday I'll be at the Fairplay SC Welcome Center for a couple of hours promoting my books and the authors of the SC Author Connection. I'm thinking I need to reprint some travel booklets to hand out again this year but I won't have any crayons to go along with it, maybe.

Until next week, see you all in the postings - E :)

Kindlegraph

A while back I stumbled upon Kindlegraph and felt it was really great. I'd kind of let that slide since there was so much on my plate. I can't tell you how exciting it is to get an email saying you have a kindlegraph request. Whodathunk it? Getting a kindlegraph request is almost as exciting as when a book comes out. I hope to be adding more titles to kindlegraph, so keep the requests coming. If you have purchased any book other than directly from me or even downloaded one of my short stories and would like an esignature, personalized or semi-personalized, come over to my kindlegraph page and click on the appropriate cover to request your free kindlegraph. See you all in the postings - E :)

This and That

Happy Earth Day. What are you doing to help save the earth? Part of my campaign is giving away "earth day" bookmarks (bookworms in earthy colors) which are reusable and should last a long time.

A few stats on my bookworm giveaway:

Since my original posting on April 12th through Friday, the 20th, I have given away 16 bookworms. Of those 16, all have been to women who have commented on both this blog and the Writers on the Move blog. One person has totally refused to accept her winning bookworm because she says she doesn't read books except on her Nook. Two have been sent to Australia, one to the UK, and one to Africa. The remaining bookworms have made their way across the United States (or will since there are at least 8 needing to be mailed tomorrow). One bookworm went to an AlienDog. Three of the winners are not a member of the WOTM group. One winner is an ex-member of the group. There were two postings, one on each blog, in that timeframe that had no comments so no winners for those two days. One winner one two different days from commenting on both blogs (which I didn't realize and I guess she will be surprised when she gets her second bookworm because I forgot to send her congratulatory email).

There are two more chances to try to win a bookworm - one from this posting (leave a comment, even if just to say hi or whatever; remember to leave an email in the comment so that I can contact you with your congratulatory email and get your mailing address) and/or to pop over to the Writers on the Move blog and leave a comment there from today's posting.

On the sales front, in the US, I sold 2 copies of "The Tulip Kiss" and 5 copies of "The Proposal" with no other sales.

I was in Walmart yesterday afternoon and was walking by the photography studio and the young lady tried to talk me into getting a free wall portrait done (not necessarily have it done yesterday but she tried) and we struck up a nice conversation. She is writing a murder mystery and I referred her to the Sisters in Crime group. She actually lives in the town where our meetings are held, and as soon as she emails me, I'll forward the meeting information to her and hopefully she will show up. You never know who you will run into or strike up a conversation with in Walmart.

Tomorrow's guest is Deanna Klingel, author of the historical middle grade novels Avery's Battlefield and Avery's Crossroads and others, and Wednesday's guest is Rena Jones, author of the Dilly series and the Critter series among others. Thursday I'll talk about school book fairs and school visits, comparing how the UK views author visits to schools versus how the US does. WWYWWQ will return on May 2. See you all in the postings - E :)

This and That

I wasn't planning on doing anything for Friday the 13th but at the last minute I decided to put all three stories up for free.

I just looked at my KDP reports and really don't think they are correct but here are my numbers downloads and sales:

"The Tulip Kiss" - US 160; UK 24; DE 2; FR 0; ES 0; IT 0.
"The Proposal" - US 172 (2 of those were actual sales for the week); UK 13; DE 0; FR 0; ES 0; IT 0.
"Bride-and-Seek" - US 318; UK 46; DE 4; FR 0; ES 1; IT 0.

It's funny that, according to J.A. Konrath, "Bride-and-Seek" is my worst cover (I do know it is in the process of being made better) but had the highest downloads. For a last minute decision, I'm pretty pleased. I did gain a reader in Spain, so that is a good thing. "The Tulip Kiss" and "The Proposal" were pretty close overall with 186 and 185 respectively and "The Proposal" had been free at the beginning of the month, so I think the numbers are pretty decent.

I posted an Earth Day posting here and on the Writers on the Move blog Thursday with drawings occurring on both blogs for comments left onall postings between the 12th and 22nd, so potentially 16 to 20 winners. Five postings so far and five winners (I had two postings go up on the same day); one more week of postings to go. So remember to stop by here often and comment on the posting of the day and stop over to the WOTM blog and leave comments there as well. You never know when your number will be picked.

This week coming up I've got more information on my Curl Up with a Good Book afghan campaign, the WWYWWQ and book fairs (something the SC Author Connection is trying to get involved in). Don't forget to comment on any of those blog postings as well as the ones over on the WOTM blog throughout the week. See you all in the postings - E :)

(sorry this was supposed to go up at 11:30 this morning but I just noticed it went to draft instead of publishing. I'll leave the drawing for the comments on this posting until Monday evening after 5 p.m. just to be fair to everyone.)

Friday the 13th free book promotions

I saw a posting on the Sisters in Crime yahoo forum digest yesterday which had been posted Tuesday actually for a Friday the 13th free promotion day. I figured it can't hurt. I know I wasn't going to use the other free days left on any of my books but I wanted to see some numbers again and since Friday the 13th is usually considered a bad luck day, I thought I'd turn it into a good luck day by making all three of my short stories - "The Tulip Kiss", "The Proposal" and "Bride-and-Seek" free for the day only.

If you would like to see a listing of authors who have joined the free promotion day, Friday the 13th, you can find all the books listed here. You will find mysteries, young adult, children's, romance, westerns, nonfiction, self-help books and everything in between. So let's see how it goes. Happy downloading Friday the 13th.

You can find all three books listed here. See you all in the postings - E :)

Followup on Joe Konrath's Cover Designer post

Last week I reposted Joe Konrath's posting regarding his cover artist's "fire sale", for only $150 you can have a premade cover. I also posted my covers along with that posting just to put them out there again.

What I wanted to share with you today is a couple of comments and followup comments on Joe's blog. I'm not being mean-spirited or anything, just felt I needed to justify some of what Joe said about my covers. (Warning this is a long post, so if you don't have time to read all the way through, please try to come back and finish reading and leave your comments. :) )

This first comment was posted three up from my original comment. There was another comment between Righter's block's comment and Joe's comment, but only these are pertinent for this posting. What it comes down to is this, a cover artist is offering "premade" covers at a discount. Why? Why would a professional even offer "premade" covers in the first place? The whole objective of finding a cover artist, regardless if you are just starting out or you've been publishing stories for ages, is to find someone who will meet the needs of your particular story, not the other way around. I never really said Carl's covers weren't good; I just stated they were generic and I can't see paying $150 for "premade" covers that wouldn't fit any story (even Joe posts in his original blog posting that if you want to change colors or what not that you probably could for an extra fee, even though this is a what you see is what you get sale - the covers are sold as is) I had written. I also stated I wouldn't pay $150 for something that was stock photos or "premade". Admittedly, I have changed one of my stories to fit the cover but only two lines in the story, not the whole story, because I felt the cover Heather did was perfect and that it really conveyed the message of what the story is about. More elaboration on this in Joe's second comment directed at me and trashing my covers and my illustrator/cover designer. This is not a professional way to handle the negative comments, and I never trashed Carl nor his covers. Just stated they were generic and I wouldn't pay the $150 price for stock photos.

Righter's Block said...
Are you serious? $150 for THOSE? Those are generic and awful. I'd much rather do one in MSPaint. This reeks of a scam. This is the first comment that led me to leave a comment on this particular posting (like I said, it was 3 up from my comment with 1 between this one and Joe's response).

Joe Konrath said...
@Righters - Please send me a cover you've done on MSPaint. I'll happily post it. Until then, I encourage you (and everyone) to back up their opinions with facts. It's very easy to confuse personal taste with quality. We all need to explain why we like or dislike something, and understand the difference between subjective and objective.

Carl has an incredibly acute eye for color, tone, lighting and shading, space, vector, and balance, among other things. He can evoke mood, genre, and setting with amazing skill. $150 is a steal. If you think otherwise, show us your stuff. Joe challenges Righter's block to show his stuff created in MSPaint (since Heather does all my covers and has her own programs, I can't comment on showing something I designed since I'm not the designer and have no art background).

This is the comment I left, agreeing with Righter's block about the covers being generic.

elysabeth said...
My thoughts were the same as Righters' - these are very generic and don't really evoke any reason for me to buy a book based on any of these covers. My illustrator, who also does all my covers to specs, only charges $75 for full covers for print books and the same for ebook covers. I have several of them that have evoked some very good responses from everyone - the covers are quality. I did a comparison of covers from a story that won first place and the publisher had done the original cover and having republished with my illustrator's cover and the response was overwhelming that the second cover was the preferred one. I posted this on my blog a while back (http://elyssabethsstories.blogspot.com) when the story was about to be published (so would have been late November/early December).

I haven't checked out Carl's normal prices but $150 for an ebook cover seems pretty pricey to me, but then again, I'm not earning $100,000 in three weeks like you did, Joe. I'll stick with my young, very talented, illustrator/cover designer, thank you very much. - E :) (No where in this comment do I trash Carl or the covers. Honestly, looking at these covers, I wouldn't have picked up the book because the covers didn't stand out, this is what I mean by generic. There isn't anything setting them off from several other books in any of the genres you could see them as. Doesn't mean that the covers aren't good, but jump off the shelf into your hands great they are not. I could see #11 as a possible fun, flirty YA or even a flirty romance but the colors alone and the generic look of the cover wouldn't cause me to take pause and read the back cover blurb or the description or even open the book to see what it was about, thus I probably would pass by this book and not purchase it.)

This is Joe's comment directed at me only where he trashes my covers and Heather. I've stated many times how my illustrator/cover designer is young (remember she just turned 18 not too long ago and she is going to school for the sole purpose of getting her graphic design degree and to learn about all the things a cover designer needs to learn) and very talented. So I'm going to break down Joe's comments and explain or justify things.

Joe Konrath said...
Elysabeth - Again, see my comment about the difference between personal taste and quality. (this is what he stated in his comment to Righter's block originally, and I know Heather does quality work because she doesn't sign off on a cover until the customer is 100% completely satisfied, even if after a few days or a month the customer decides that the cover needs changing)

I checked out your covers on Amazon, and though you may like them, they just aren't professional quality. And I'll go into some detail why:

Tulip Kiss, Bride and Seek, The Proposal, and Finally home appear to be nothing more than a single image with a name and title on them. A book cover is more than just a picture and some words. (the argument here is that these are definitely more than a picture and some words. I know, because it took me 8 tries to get "The Tulip Kiss" right, wording and depth of the color of the tulip, and I saw the many layers and depth of the cover as Heather developed it) If I took the Mona Lisa, and put "Masterpiece" by JA Konrath on it, it would not be a good book cover. Which is why The DaVinci Code cover was what it was.

The eye isn't drawn anywhere on your covers. No vectors. No shadowing or lighting. No blending of the font into the cover so it appears organic rather than slapped on. (again, I know with "The Tulip Kiss" that Heather did blend the font into the cover as I saw the many changes and layers it went through until it was exactly what was needed for the story) (as for the other covers, the fonts are the right fonts and I don't see that they look slapped on an image; again, I am not the artist, so most of this doesn't mean anything to me, but they all mean something to Heather and she works very hard to make sure the covers convey the story in a small amount of space and she is still learning a lot of what goes into the business, so for her young age, the covers have evolved into quality work and I've seen this since I've been working with Heather for 2 years now, well okay, almost 2 years) Much too much negative space. No pleasing composition. No color palates to speak of. The titles and author names are hard to read, especially at thumbnail (which is where most buyers see covers.) (I don't look at thumbnails and most of the time I have printed the covers for when I'm out doing a live event so that folks can see the covers)

None of your images convey the genre--in fact, I have no idea of their genre. Are these romance? Chick-lit? Lit-fic? One of them has a category listed as Humor (this is an amazon thing as I have it listed as romance and humor under that but amazon only lists it as humor. It is a humorous romance and the cover really does convey that - the setting of a romantic dinner with an engagement ring box and a frog in the box. This is an April Fools Day story and is riddled with practical jokes and the frog is very humorous and pertinent to the story. This is the only story I've ever changed anything in for my cover, because when I went back to read the story, I realized that I didn't have the frog in the ring box but the frog was background noise during dinner, so I rewrote the two lines about the actual time Henry proposed to fit the frog in the ring box. Normally, I want a cover that fits my story, not the other way around. I was very impressed with this cover and felt it totally conveyed the humor of the story that I couldn't not fix the story to fit the cover), and the cover doesn't show that at all. (I don't see how a frog in a ring box in a romantic setting can't be considered humorous, just goes to show that men and women will see something totally different. Joe sees this as not humorous and not romantic; all my readers and customers see the humor in this, being that it is a romance and all. This is also my second place winning story and if it didn't fit the contest I wouldn't have placed at all. Sorry, Joe, the cover is both romantic and humorous.)

(as far as the other covers conveying their genres, the only one I can say that isn't really up to standards is "Bride-and-Seek" and this is my fault as I was in a rush to get the story published so I could offer it as a freebie for Valentine's Day. Even before Joe's comment, Heather and I had already had a chat concerning the cover for "Bride-and-Seek". This is a paranormal romance (a ghostly romance story) based on a legend in the UK about a bridegroom who loses his wife to a game of hide-and-seek on their wedding night. I knew that the castle or the "haunted" manor needed to be on the cover. I've been through several changes with this cover but went ahead and published it without being 100% satisfied. Hopefully this will be fixed soon and I can show a new cover. I'm open to suggestions to pass along to Heather of what anyone, including Joe, feels should be on the cover, knowing the story of groom loses bride to a game of hide-and-seek (the attic thing that Joe references as being a coral in a goldfish tank is the trunk the bride got locked in and where she died, but how does one convey a man searching for his bride who was lost tragically in a silly game on their wedding night?). "The Tulip Kiss" is another paranormal romance story (again amazon only lists the story in ghosts & horror, which is not how I have it listed - romance first and then paranormal or ghost story). This is another tragic story of wife losing husband on a very frigid, cold winter day due to an accident on an icy road. The winter scene with the tulip in the background is exactly what the cover should be since it conveys a love for a person as well as a special flower. I don't think Heather could have done more to the cover, and if she felt she could do something differently, she would have voiced it which she never did. Finally Home is a YA paranormal mystery. The house that my protag is looking at from her bedroom window is where all the mystery lies. Finding the secrets of that house is what pulls my reader into the story. So, again, I do believe that the cover for Finally Home is exactly what is needed for the story. I had school librarians comment on the house on the cover saying that they knew that house (it was in one of the towns they were from) or they had seen that house before (either while driving from place to place or just happened on it), so the house was definitely the intriguing point of the cover, which is what I wanted. The house is actually what the story is about. The original cover for this story was the attic scene where Kelly and Emma find the secrets the house holds by way of a mirror (okay Kelly finds out things because Emma already knows but is only a device to help Kelly unveil the secrets the house holds); Heather had made the whole cover look like the attic boards and flooring with the mirror kind of propped up on the wall and Kelly looking at the mirror and the old woman looking back. I didn't really like that for a cover because I felt that it didn't highlight the house like it needed to, but I did love the mirror and felt it needed to stay, because the old woman in the mirror truly reflected who she is supposed to be. So, Heather came up with the now cover for Finally Home moving the mirror to the back cover and making the back look like the attic in a sense. The two main components - the house and the mirror - are exactly what the cover conveys and I think Heather did an excellent, professional job of getting those two things correct. Granted it, as Heather stated to me, she is young and is not going to be 100% perfect like others who have been in the industry for 20 or 50 years. She is still learning but she is also gaining on-the-job experience by having her own graphic design business going while trying to write her own stories, edit for several companies and go to school. She has a lot on her plate, but I know she will go make a name for herself eventually. I think my covers are professionally done and that Heather continues to rise to the occasion of creating, not "premaking" covers that do what they are supposed to do, sell books.)

And your State series--I'm not saying this to be mean, but they are among the most amateur covers I've ever seen. The drawing isn't professional, and the images look hastily done and cobbled together in a montage-type of way that is not at all flattering, eye catching, or professional. (oh boy, this one statement hit such a nerve with me and this is why I hadn't commented back on Joe's blog and decided to bring my comment dissection over here. First of all, Joe, these are children's books. The books are part fact and part fiction. They aren't supposed to be elaborate covers since there isn't really a plot to the stories. The characters are playing a game and trying to guess which state is being described based on clues the game is giving. The covers are supposed to be a montage of three of the clues inside the book and the titles tie the clues and state together in a different way. Since I don't want to give the state away immediately and want my readers to guess along with my characters, they have to come across the actual clues when they are reading the story and make their guess later. I do well with my state books at in-person events and hopefully will pick up online sales from other things - bookmarks, being connected with a small group who will be doing book fairs, freebies, banners, et cetera. My goal basically is to get the stories in the schools to be used as a supplement for a social studies curriculum geared for 3rd through about 6th grade. The covers are what the stories are about since they are about the individual states.)

If you paid $75 and you're happy with the results, that's fine. Were the people who liked your covers folks you know--friends, family, writing buddies, etc? If so, they aren't the best people to get advice from. Strangers are much more honest. (I've had three actual friends or family make comments on any or all of my covers that Heather has done for me. The rest have been from strangers and persons who have actually bought my books as well as folks from online.)

I could take any of your covers, put them up against any of Carl's (and he's done hundreds) in a blind poll, and his would be picked 100% of the time. (any of his generic, premade covers? Since my covers are custom made to fit my particular stories, I don't think that would be as accurrate as you think, but if you feel that 100% of the persons polled would pick a premade, generic cover over a custom made cover, then run a poll - but it wouldn't be a fair polling since you are biased towards Carl and I'm biased toward Heather, and it isn't like I haven't had other illustrators/cover designers because I've been published with a midlist traditional publisher before going the self pubbed route. If you can get a neutral party to run a poll of several of the covers on your posting versus several of mine, then go ahead and do it. I think the results will be less than 100% for Carl's covers, not that I would ever think I would get 100% or even 99% of the votes, but I do know that my covers are quality and strangers like my covers and have been purchasing my ebooks and I believe that I'm getting my name out there and that sooner or later I'll be making enough with my writing to support me instead of me supporting my writing.)

I'm really not trying to hurt your feelings here, or come off as a jerk. (but that is exactly what you did, come off as a jerk because you totally trashed an 18-year-old's work without knowing anything about my stories or the reason for the particular covers I have; my feelings aren't hurt because everyone has an opinion and is entitled to voice it) I don't even know what the image on Bride and Seek is supposed to be. Is that coral in a goldfish tank? Only after staring at it for 30 seconds did I notice that weird ghost profile coming out of the bottom. (see my previous comments above concerning this cover and no that isn't coral in a goldfish tank but the trunk where the bride died. I'm open to any suggestions from anyone, including you, on what you think the cover should have on it based on the background of the story now.)

Again, not trying to be mean. I'm trying to be constructive. If Carl had ever done a cover for me like yours, I would have rejected it after a three second cursory glance. (that's pretty impressive that you would just glance at a cover and reject it rather than making sure it fit your needs and the story; again, all my covers are custom made and the covers featured on your blog are "premade" generic, and several can be used for many different genres, which isn't the purpose of a cover. The purpose of the cover is to convey the story in a single image, so no author should be purchasing premade covers and fit their story to them.)

A professional cover artist working for a Big 6 publisher gets upwards of $1500 for cover art. (we aren't talking about professional cover artists by being indie authors using indie cover designers and artists who freelance and there is a big difference in being published by the Big6 or any other traditional publisher out there. They use their own illustrators/cover designers and you are stuck with whatever they decide is best for your book, even if it is the most generic worst cover ever imagined. You have to keep that in mind, we are talking about small fish in the vast ocean of the publishing industry by using indie cover designers. I'm not even sure why you would liken someone like Carl or Heather to the big publishing houses because that isn't what the original comment was about at all.) There is a reason for this. Professionals do quality work, and they understand the nuances of art, especially cover art. I've seen Carl make a cover from scratch. It can take many hours, and he'll use a dozen or more layers for lighting, texture, shading, blending, etc. (again, my cover designer is young and is still learning but for not having been in the industry for 20 or 30 or 50 years, I think she does very professional work and she will get better as she gets older and has more knowledge under her belt.)

These covers he's selling look like pro covers because they are pro covers. (the covers he is selling are pro covers but they are "premade" and being sold as-is, again asking an author to fit a story to Carl's covers; they are not custom covers and are therefore generic, several can be used for several different genres, which is not what you want your cover to say; you want a cover that speaks specifically to your story alone, to stand out and be different.) Your cover artist isn't. And your covers aren't helping your book sales. I know this because I once too had unprofessional covers. (I'm starting to see a shift in my sales but it doesn't have anything to do with my covers, it has to do with my marketing strategies, which is a never ending process. I also have not been in the industry very long, just barely 5 years, maybe 6, and I'm still learning things every day. I know over time, my cover artist will grow and change with the industry and she will be considered a pro like Carl but for now, I'm willing to give a young girl a chance to do custom made covers that suit my stories and are up to my standards.)

This is not meant to trash Joe, Carl or anyone else. This is something I had to mull over several days after reading Joe's comment directed at me personally and my cover artist. I think as a professional that common courtesy goes a long way. When leaving comments or replying back to someone's comments on your blog, if you can only say negative things, then please do so privately. Bashing people because they are young, too new in the industry or don't know what you know or do things the same way you do or can't afford to pay a cover artist the same that you pay yours is not the way to handle things. Grant it, Joe bashes the publishing industry all the time, but to take personal hits on something like covers he feels are not professionally created or whatever just really got under my skin. If at any place in my comment on Joe's blog I came across as trashing or being negative about Carl or Joe, I apologize because that isn't what my intent in was when I posted my comment. I commented based on seeing the covers (which I felt weren't jump off the page saying you need me, buy me now covers) and reading other people's comments. I only agreed with Righter's block that the covers were generic looking, not that it smelled of a scam or anything else. Again, if that is how Joe or Carl read my comment, I apologize. I think I've explained everything that Joe felt was wrong with my covers, but if I haven't, I'm sure I'll hear about it later from someone. See you all in the postings - E :)

This and That

Today's report looks a little better than past weeks have. Sales are slowly creeping up.

I've not really been doing much promoting of late due to being involved in several other things and having a ton of work to get done. I've been off track the last week or so, but hopefully this afternoon or this week I can get back on track and stay on track.

I'm working on completing a lot of crochet projects - mostly bookworms - for upcoming events, working on a school listing for the SC Author Connection book fairs (more on that in a posting next week) and working on my "curl up with a good book afghan" campaign. I sold one afghan to my friend Faye Tollison at the Sisters in Crime meeting the other night, even though the afghan isn't completed yet. She will receive her afghan at the next meeting and she's okay with that. When that one is finished, I'll start on another for sale, but I've made samples of all the varigated colors I will be making. I will also do solid colors to the customers specifications (as close in color as I can). Pictures of the samples can be found here and here.

Let's look at sales/free downloads/borrows for this week: "The Proposal" was available last Sunday for free to everyone; so when I mention downloads, this would be from the free day. According to my KDP report, in the US, I had 170 downloads, 4 sales after the free downloads and 1 borrow. I sold 1 copy of "The Tulip Kiss" during the week. For the UK report, I had 48 free downloads. In Germany (DE), I had 2 downloads. In France (FR), Spain (ES) and Italy (IT), I had no downloads or sales during the week. Five sales and a good many downloads, I'm happy with that. Not that five sales will buy much, but it is better than previous reports.

I hope that the momentum will start growing and that folks will start buying my other stories as they go up as well. I also was featured on Priscilla the Great's blog for the A to Z challenge with a review of Finally Home and from that feature I discovered I had a few more reviews than I realized on Amazon for Finally Home. Thank you reviewers.

I only gave away 2 of the 8 bookworms on my previous posting for folks leaving comments, but I'm going to try it again. Starting Thursday, April 12, and running through Sunday, April 22, Earth Day, I'm going to do a drawing from the comments left on this blog and comments left on the Writers On the Move blog for the days that a new posting goes up (6 to 8 potential posts here and 11 scheduled posts on the WOTM blog, so between 17 and 20 drawings/giveaways). This will only be for the Earth-y bookworms in honor of earth day. So please leave your comments here and over on the WOTM blog for your chance to win a bookworm. That's all I have to offer this week, off to work on the SC Author Connection school listing before I start working (going to be a long day). See you all in the postings - E :)

The Proposal KDP report

So, I just checked my reports for the two days I offered "The Proposal" for free on the KDP program. Pleasantly surprised as to how many downloads I got over the weekend.

As compared to when I had "Bride-and-Seek" for free with 360 downloads and "The Tulip Kiss" for free with 380 downloads, "The Proposal" brought in 694 downloads (almost double either previous offer) from the US, UK, Germany (DE) and France (FR), actually only gaining one download from France. I did have one actual sale of "The Tulip Kiss" during this offer.

I totally hope there will be an upswing in my sales but that remains to be seen. I'll keep you posted more on my weekly posting (This and That) concerning actual sales and what not.

See you all in the postings - E :)

The Proposal - Free today

My second place winning story, "The Proposal" (an April Fools Day story), is free today and tomorrow for the kindle only. You can find the story here. Remember you don't need a kindle to download the stories - all you need is the free app available from Amazon and then you can download the stories.

Also, my stories "Bride-and-Seek" (selected anthology pick) and "The Tulip Kiss" (first place winning story) are available for only 99 cents. So if you haven't already picked up these stories you may enjoy reading a couple of short, paranormal (ghost) romance stories, these are for you.

Reminders

If you live in the Carolinas or possibly even Georgia (not sure how far the viewing area reaches really), tune in to Channel 7 (or CBC) tomorrow morning for Faye Tollison's, author of To Tell The Truth, TV Debut with Jack Roper on "Your Carolina". I'll be watching and hope you do as well.

Tomorrow, Susanne Drazic will be posting a review of "The Tulip Kiss" on her blog, Putting Words Down on Paper. I'm looking forward to a review on one of my stories. Thank you, Susanne, for posting a review.

Saturday and Sunday, March 31 and April 1, my short story, "The Proposal" will go up for free for kindle only. This will be the only time this story is offered for free and there will be no more free kindle offers for any of the stories unless, of coursee, Amazon does a price match (if I do a free offering elsewhere) in the future. I have decided not to sign back up for the KDP select program, so come May (at least by the middle of May), my stories will be available everywhere again.

See you all in the postings - E :)

This and That

I kind of did a this and that posting the other day when I talked about the KDP select program and my report for February. But, today's this and that is about sales and what's coming up.

Sales for the week ending 03/17/2012 - as far as downloads go for kindle, no one purchased anything - no sales across the board. In-person sales at the SCASL is a bit better. Being that this was the SC school librarians, I had anticipated a surge in one particular state book, and I was correct. State of Successes sold 10 copies. None of the other state books sold but I did sell 2 copies of Finally Home. So not a bad couple of days. I would have liked to seen about 10 or 15 more sales but there is always the SC Book Festival coming up. I didn't even sell any of the booklets of the three ebook stories that I had made up and printed just in case the librarians wanted a quick read. Such is life.

I don't have anything scheduled for Monday or Thursday but will have my WWYWWQ on Wednesday. I'll try to figure out something to post since I've not had much to post lately. I'm open to suggestions. If you would like me to talk about something in particular, please leave me a comment and I'll do my best to write a post about it.

I had promoted my interview on Darcia Helle's site a week and a half ago but only had one person come over and leave a comment. This tells me folks aren't really reading my blog too regularly and it is a bit disheartening. I do hope to see some traffic next week when my guest bloggers will be Elizabeth Spann Craig/Riley Adams and Shelley Stout. We will just have to see.

Until next week for my regular this and that column - E :)

Misled and disappointed

I'm talking about the KDP select program and my February report - after looking it over and seeing my royalties (not mind blowing and not enough to even buy a meal anywhere).

The KDP select program allows authors/publishers to reach the prime members (only in the US, those folks who pay the $79/year to get free shipping on all their amazon orders, free streaming videos and one free "borrow" a month (you guessed it - out of hundreds of thousands of ebooks available, they only can borrow one book a month).

This is the first paragraph of the terms and conditions for the KDP select program: KDP Select is an option for KDP publishers. Through KDP Select, for an initial period of 90 days your Digital Book is exclusive to Kindle and is included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program where it will earn a share of a monthly cash fund when readers borrow it. Also, you can promote your Digital Book as free for up to 5 days during these 90 days. Before including your book in KDP Select, please read these terms and conditions carefully.

Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence:

KDP Select is an option for KDP publishers. - yes it is an option and no one says we have to participate in the program.

Through KDP Select, for an initial period of 90 days your Digital Book is exclusive to Kindle and is included in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library Program where it will earn a share of a monthly cash fund when readers borrow it. The lending library is for those folks who pay their $79/year to get a few benefits from Amazon. So I ask you this, why would someone want to only borrow one book a month? Especially when there are hundreds of thousands of ebooks available. What is going to make all those prime members want to borrow a ghostly romance story over say a thriller or a different type of ghost story? After they borrow their one book (and just to let you know when they borrow a book it is for an indefinite amount of time - they don't have to return it like in a regular library where you borrow a book for 2 weeks or 3 weeks (depending on the library's lending time) and can either renew your borrow time or you have to return the book or if you return it late, you are charged a fee on a daily basis), then if they want ebooks do they have to pay for them just like everyone else does? And why is the prime membership only opened to the United States since Amazon has kindle and ebooks available in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK? Basically if readers don't borrow your book you make no money other than your regular sales royalties.

Also, you can promote your Digital Book as free for up to 5 days during these 90 days. So if we can promote our book as free for these 5 days and the book is available in the lending library, what happens if a prime member downloads the book during that free ptomotion? We have downloads but we are no longer earning money on those downloads, even if a prime member is the one downloading the book, because when it is offered for free, everyone who has a kindle or a free app that Amazon offers can now download the book. It is not considered a borrow even though those prime members are probably downloading the book. It becomes a sale now.

This to me is the misleading statement. If you are allowed to promote your book as free during this 90-day exclusivity term with Amazon in this particular program, why not pay out on those downloads too? Your book is still in the lending library; you are giving everyone a chance to get your book for free and allowing prime members to be able to download more than one book in a month.

The other part of the disappointment for me is that I've seen many authors who blog about their actual "sales" after their free promotion days and the numbers are running in the hundreds to thousands afterwards. Grant it I have only short stories to offer but even after reaching #7 on the Amazon best selling free list during my free promotion time, I saw maybe 2 or 3 sales. How does an author garner those hundreds of sales after running a story for free?

My stories aren't written poorly and aren't bad stories by any means. And I'm not just bragging on my stories but the merits of winning first, second, third place or runner up and being selected in a very exclusive anthology. If the stories weren't written well or up to the judging persons' or contest persons' standards and/or requirements, they wouldn't have placed anywhere. "The Tulip Kiss" is my first place story. "The Proposal" is a second place winning story. "Bride-and-Seek" was selected (this is a blind selection as the judges only get the stories; they don't know who writes the stories as the editor of the anthology has the cover sheets so it makes the playing field even. There is no chance a judge would select their friends' stories or only the people with whom they are familiar with their writing or their style of writing) and published in the SCWW anthology. By being selected for that anthology, we are paid a small amount for the story, plus 2 copies of the anthology.

So by other people's decisions, I've been told my stories are good and written well. So why are my sales not reflecting the word of mouth advertisement or the places they have taken in various contests? Why did I not really see a difference in pre-free day offerings' sales and post-free day offerings' sales? Did I gain about 350 readers who are anxiously awaiting my next free promotion? Maybe, but if I truly gained those readers, they would have bought my other stories in addition to downloading the free offering at the time, or, on the other hand, they would have told their friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers that I had a short story being offered for free. They would have been my promotion, because we all know that word of mouth is what sells anything - books, movies, restaurants, and the list goes on and on. Person A likes such and such movie and tells Person B and Person C who then tell two people, et cetera. (That reminds me of the old Farrah Fawcett commercial for Breck Shampoo - I told two friends and they told two friends and the image keeps multiplying for the two friends each two friends tells. That is how word of mouth advertising works.)

So how am I to compete with all these people who are bragging about their actual sales after their free offerings? What do I have to do? I've added several titles and more are coming. I know I don't offer novels other than my YA paranormal mystery because I only write short stories. I do well writing short stories. Finally Home was a challenge because at that time I hadn't written anything over 10,000 words and probably nothing over about 8,000 words. I'd only known contests and most contests are looking for under 5,000 word stories, and many are a lot less than that.

I know reviews aren't super reliable but they are a way of expressing your thoughts and feelings about a book or story and they do help garner sales in the long run. The buying public looks to see how many reviews you have and then how the reviewers are ranking the stories. They tend to look at stories that have received 4 and 5 star reviews. My take on the rating system is this - no one in my opinion deserves a 5 star review because no one is perfect. Yes there are some excellent stories out there and yes I do think there are stories that are deserving of 5 star reviews; as a matter of fact, I know one I would definitely rate as a 5 star because it was THAT good. I would love if it the reviews reflected more options - because I've felt that many stories are 4-1/2 star worthy because they aren't quite at the 5 star place; but then again, this is my opinion. I would love to see some of those 350 people who downloaded my two stories ("Bride-and-Seek" and "The Tulip Kiss") post reviews. It may boost my sales or it may not but it's worth a try.

What does all this mean for my stories? Basically in a nutshell - I tried the select program; was disappointed and will move on. Come May when all my stories come out of the select program, they will once again go up all the other avenues available for ebook downloads. Does this mean I may never go back to the select program? Not really, but I'll consider it very carefully before doing it again.

There will be more stories coming out but they will not be exclusive to kindle from here on out. I also have removed the remaining free promotion days for "The Tulip Kiss" and "Bride-and-Seek" but am leaving the free promotion days for "The Proposal", although I'm only going to offer it for free for 2 days instead of the original 3 days mentioned in an earlier post. March 31 and April 1 is when I'll offer "The Proposal" for free. There won't be any more free offerings of the other stories. Until next time, see ya'll in the postings

This and That

Today starts "read an ebook week" - so go out and get a copy of your favorite author's books or download someone new and start reading those ebooks or dust off your "TBR" folders. Either way - read an ebook, support your favorite authors.


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Colds - you gotta love them, right? - Not really. They mess with your head, your breathing and your sleeping. Right now, I'm on the tail end of a cold to which I can say good riddance. I don't like being sick. This has been a rollercoaster week for me as far as being on game or accomplishing anything. One day I feel okay and can sit and concentrate for a few hours and the next I feel okay but can't concentrate on anything since I wasn't able to sleep the night before. The worst part of my cold is that I've never really felt bad enough to not do anything at all, just that in between stage. Last night was the first night in a week that I actually slept in the bed all night for what it's worth (not that it really was a restful sleep or cough-free one either, just that I wasn't pulling my computer chair over to the bed to use like a recliner to sleep sitting up and I didn't have to have a made up inclination of something to prop up on either).

Last night was the annual Anderson County Library's spelling bee and I participated again this year. We were a person down (someone was sicker than I am/was) but we did pretty good considering. We should have gone for a level 3 word right out the gate so we would have ended up in a tie-breaker situation and possibly could have taken the trophy. Our team got two words that I actually knew that the others didn't (thank you work) and one of them they wanted to mulligan (this is a lifeline to throw the word away and get a new one in the same level - the word being oligotrophic) and the other just happened to be something very common in the hand clinic fracture world so that one (comminution) came to me immediately. I've been asked to join the team again next year. So next March, I'll be spelling up a storm. The winning team had 24 points and we had 23 points - very close (if only we had started with a level 3 word, we would have ended with 24 - lol). The other teams weren't too close from there (three teams with 17 and then I don't remember from there on down).

So rollercoaster ride week, let's look at sales this week.

My friend, Faye (author of To Tell The Truth) emailed me Wednesday and said something to the effect that she wasn't doing as well this go round for her free download days. I had totally forgotten that she was offering her book for free the end of the month so didn't promote it as much as I did the first time. After receiving her email, I was curious as to how my sales were going. Imagine my surprise when I opened my reports page and saw that my month-to-date sales showed 78 sales for "The Tulip Kiss". Mind you this wasn't even early morning when I checked the report. I thought surely there was a mistake since I didn't remember scheduling a free day. So naturally, I had to go look at my bookshelf listing and check my scheduled days, and you guessed it, I had scheduled "The Tulip Kiss" for February 29 and March 1.

I did some quick advertising of the free listing and sent out an email but not very much promoting (nothing compared to what I did when "Bride-and-Seek" was first released and offered for free).

This morning, the results look like this:

Week ending 03/03/2012 (there are two sets of numbers for some because some of the downloads are counted on February and the rest on March for accounting purposes).

In the USA: downloads sales
"Bride-and-Seek" 0 1
"The Tulip Kiss" 220 (02/29) 0
89 (03/01)
in the UK:
"The Tulip Kiss" 56 (02/29)
12 (03/01)
In Germany (DE):
"The Tulip Kiss" 2 (02/29)
1

So my calculations show 380 downloads over 2 days of "The Tulip Kiss" and 1 sale of "Bride-and-Seek". This exceeded "Bride-and-Seek" by 20 when it was offered for free. Yay me! lol

My guests this week were Leslie Dubois and Sarah Renee. Leslie stopped by and offered a free ebook to the first ten commenters, of any of her books - what a generous offer. I think she only had five people comment not counting my one comment and hers. So if you visited her posting and missed the comment about a free ebook and haven't contacted Leslie (aka Sybil Nelson) for your free ebook, please do so. Sarah Renee had a few visitors but I didn't see any comments from Sarah herself, so maybe she'll poke in and leave a comment too.

I thought I'd offer free ebooks as well for those who left comments on either of their postings. So if you haven't already downloaded a copy of "The Tulip Kiss" or "The Proposal" and would like a copy, please email with your choice and whether you prefer a nook or kindle version or the PDF file.

There is a lot going on in the next couple of weeks, so I'll try to have my postings up and ready to go. Tomorrow I'll be talking about the Paypal censorship thing going (this will probably be a 2-parter because it is a pretty lengthy discussion); Wednesday will be another set of similar or maybe just one question from Mrs. Jurkowski's class and I'm going to work hard on gettting my Friday book reviews back on track (have a lot of them scheduled already but just haven't written them). Next week will be a whirlwind week as I will be in and out of the office (home), but more on that next Sunday.

See you all in the postings - E :)

Read an E-book Week

Have you read a good ebook lately?

Sunday, March 4, begins read an ebook week. This is the first year I've actually promoted it and participated. I'm offering Finally Home at a 25% discount on smashwords for the week. This promotion will be only available through smashwords, even though the book is available on kindle and nook. If you are taking advantage of the 25% off for Finally Home, you will need to enter REW25 on checking out. Here is the direct link to the page for Finally Home.

So, I'll offer a copy of either "The Proposal" or "The Tulip Kiss" for nook or kindle if you purchase a copy at the regular price for either the nook or kindle. All you have to do is email me (eeldering (at) gmail (dot) com) your receipt as proof of purchase at the $2.99 price and I'll email you your choice. Please make sure you indicate which title you would like to receive when you forward your proof of purchase (only if you purchase from B&N or Amazon).

Happy reading - E :)

Another freebie offering

I totally forgot that I had a free offering of one my stories for Wednesday the 29th and Thursday the 1st of March. So you have until midnight PST March 1st to get your free download of "The Tulip Kiss". This is my first place winning story from the Fast and Frigid contest a few years ago - same title, same story, new cover and only available on kindle.

If you don't have a kindle, it's okay - you can download the free app to your computer or phone or tablet and still download the free stories.

"The Tulip Kiss" is another ghostly romance story, like "Bride-and-Seek" except it's a modern setting and shows what happens a young love is turned upside down.

If you like romantic suspense and didn't get your free copy the first go round, my friend, Faye Tollison, is offering her book To Tell The Truth until midnight PST March 1st as well. Stop over on amazon and download both stories.

(a few stats from today - just checked the reports a little before 1 AM EST and in the USA I've had 251 downloads, in the UK 53 and in Germany (that is DE on our listing and I thought that was Denmark - lol) I've had 2. The UK and DE downloads haven't changed over the course the day (probably since about noon or before), but that's okay. My goal is to get close to our exceed what I did with "Bride-and-Seek" which was 360 downloads over a 2-day period. As you can see from the numbers, I'm pretty close - at 306 right now.

I do ask all of you who have downloaded the story to please post a review somewhere - your blog, amazon, goodreads, anywhere else you can and let me know so I can lead folks to your reviews. Thank you in advance for that - E :)

This and That

It's Saturday night again and I'm making my reports. Figured I needed to get this posting up before we lose power as my internet is flaking in and out.

You saw my 1st day KDP select posting - by the end of the 48 hours, I had a total of 361 downloads, which included 52 from the UK and 1 from Denmark as well as 1 sale of "The Proposal" in the USA.

Since the freebies have gone back to regular price, I have picked up 2 or 3 sales of "Bride-and-Seek" and no other sales.

I think I had 2 sales already of "Bride-and-Seek" so I had been subtracting those from the total numbers. I'll know for sure next week when i can check the prior 6-weeks sales.

Last night I posted on when my other stories will go up for free. The only story I'm not putting in the KDP program, but it is still available on kindle, is Finally Home. If sales pick up throughout the year on the kindle for that story, I may consider putting it in the program when I'm about to release my next novel, Imogene: Innocense Lost.

I've also been thinking about the titles of my stories and wondering if the titles have anything to do with the lack of sales. I can't really say it is the covers because I really do think my covers are pretty awesome and that Heather does a great job. So I'll put it out there to my readers, and please leave a comment here so I know you are actually reading my blog, do you think my titles are appropriate to the story? If not, what would you title "The Proposal", "The Tulip Kiss" and "Bride-and-Seek" or even Finally Home?

I try to find appropriate titles for all my stories and usually don't even write my stories to titles. Case in point, Imogene's story is taking shape and the title keeps tumbling around like it's not the right one and who knows, when I'm through writing it and start the editing process, the title may change. I'll leave that up to my editor to decide whether or not it should be left as is or changed, although at this point, I'm not really sure what new title I could give it. I'm not even sure I can give a brief description of the story yet. This will all take place as the story develops.

I think that is everything I have to report - internet is flakng due to weather so I'll sign off for now and see you all lin the postings - E :)

Ebook descriptions and freebies calendar

I've decided to take all my short stories and put them in the KDP select program to see if I can generate some sales for all my stories. I will leave Finally Home available for Nook and through smashwords (available for all ereaders and PCs) but have just put "The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss" in the KDP select program. What this means is that I'm going to run some freebie days for each of the stories and see what I can generate interest wise. All these stories have placed in various contests or been selected for anthology inclusion, so I don't understand why the stories really aren't selling at 99 cents.

Remember that when these stories are offered for free on amazon, you don't need an actual kindle to download them; you can download the free kindle app for your phone, tablet, computer, et cetera. This will allow you to download the stories for free during the time they are offered for free or purchase them when they are regular price.

Here's the setup on the stories:

"Bride-and-Seek" was a selected piece in the SC Writers Workshop anthology, the Petigru Review, which was published for the annual conference in 2008. The selection process is blind and not everyone who submitted a piece gets selected. This story was written as a challenge back a few years ago when my friend sent me a "Haunted Realms" Calendar and Covington Manor was one of the featured places (all the haunted places are based in the UK and overseas). The story goes that the Lord of Covington Manor and his new bride had come back to the manor (they got married around Christmastime or on Christmas) and the bride had the wedding party engage in a game of hide-and-seek. She went off to hide and they all looked for her but no one found her. Rumors were said that she ran away. The groom continued his search for her but to no avail and finally gave into his broken heart, dying some months or years later, still searching for her. It is said that some years after his death a servant was cleaning the manor either to put it for sale or spring cleaning or whatever and stumbled upon a locked trunk in the attic. When he opened the trunk, he found the remains of a woman in a wedding dress. This is presumed to be the bride who went missing all those years ago. I've taken that description of what supposedly happened and rewrote the story with the same ending. I'm listing this story as a paranormal romance (love story with a ghostly twist to it) "Bride-and-Seek" is currently 99 cents and is available for kindle download only. It was just offered as a Valentine's Day freebie with a resultant 360 (maybe 361) downloads over the 48-hour period. It will be "free" again in March and April.

"The Tulip Kiss" is a first place winner in Echelon Press's fast and frigid themed contest (January 2007). We were given the theme frigid for January and had to write a short story based on the theme. My award was ebook publication for six months as the first place winner. The cover depicts a winter scene on an icy, back road where tragedy has just struck a young couple. The tulips come in from my husband's family being dutch and at one point, the Elderings were known for their tulips. This is a love story with a ghostly twist. "The Tulip Kiss" is currently 99 cents and will be offered for free the end of February, a couple of days in March and again in May.

"The Proposal" is the second place winner in Armchair Interviews April Fools Day contest. The basis for this story was that we were given a list of eight words and to incorporate several of them into the story and had to write a humorous romance short story. To date, other than the current free downloads on "Bride-and-Seek", "The Proposal" has been one of my bestselling stories. Even during my freebie days for "Bride-and-Seek", I gained 1 or 2 downloads of this story. I also had it on Smashwords and Nook but took it off both those sites and listed exclusively on kindle this week. "The Proposal" is currently 99 cents and will be run for free the end of March/first part of April as I want to see how well a "holiday" themed story does when it is offered for free during said "holiday" (yes, I know that April Fools Day is not a holiday but it's a fun-filled, practical joke day and that's exactly what you will find in "The Proposal").

"Butterfly Halves" (coming soon) will be added to the calendar once it is published. This story is a runner up in Echelon Press's fast and fanciful themed contest (March 2007) and is about two sisters who both want a butterfly necklace but when they fight over the necklace and it breaks, they find themselves in a different dimension in the future in their lives as they have dreamed of them being. This was a bit whimsical and fun to write. Once it is published, it will be listed for 99 cents and I'll determine free days at a later time.

I have two more stories, "Zombies Amuck" (a second place winning story for a local writing group) and "La Cave" (or "The Cellar" - still am undecided whether to list it in the French title or the English title - but will have to decide when Heather tells me yes she will do a cover for it and whichever she chooses for the cover will be what I go with). More on these two stories when it gets closer time to publishing them (if I get them published - lol). They will both sell for 99 cents when they are published.

Here is the calendar of upcoming free days for the stories:

February 29/March 1 - "The Tulip Kiss"
March 21 - "Bride-and-Seek"
March 21/March 22 - "The Tulip Kiss"
March 31/April 2 - "The Proposal"
April 25/April 26 - "Bride-and-Seek"
May 16 - "The Tulip Kiss"


I've only scheduled 3 days for "The Proposal" for now but will play that by ear as to when the next two free days will be scheduled.

I hope you all enjoy my stories and will tell all your friends and promote the free days as much as you can. I appreciate your support and following. Still looking for followers to receive a free ebook version of my YA paranormal mystery, Finally Home. When I reach 150 followers on this blog, you will be contacted with a coupon code for you to download the story. Please pass the word.

Also, the red/white/blue afghan drawing is still opened. The chances are only $1.50 per one chance or you can purchase 10 for $12 (that's a $3 savings over the individual chance). The drawing will be December 1 with the afghan being mailed out around the 7th of December. For more details on the drawing and purchase links, visit either The JGDS website or my main website and check the events pages.

My work in progress, Imogene: Innocense Lost is still that - a work in progress but there are some things in my head about the story. I hope to publish this story sometime at the beginning of 2013. It will be available in print as an ebook (all places - kindle, smashwords and nook). I need to really sit down and work on it so that I will be ready to publish next year. See you all in the postings - E :)

Day 1 of "Bride-and-Seek" freebie download

Here are the results of day 1, February 14, for my story "Bride-and-Seek" being free to all kindle users (this includes those who don't have a kindle but do have a kindle app either on an ipad, iphone, or even your computer).

Yesterday was my first freebie day for "Bride-and-Seek". When I got to checking at about 8:15 AM yesterday morning, I had 30 something downloads and was ranked at the bestsellers ranking of #41 in the ghost stories category. Throughout the day, the rankings dropped (good thing) and by 3 PM, I had made it to the #9 bestselling spot in ghost stories. This is really amazing considering I had only had about 135 downloads (USA) since the book went up for free. I hovered at the #9 spot in freebie ghost stories throughout the rest of the evening/night - jumping up to #10 one time and then back to #9 the rest of the time I checked my stats and downloads. At the end of the day, when last checked for me at 11 PM, I was still at #9 bestselling freebie ghost stories but had 237 downloads and picked up 22 from the UK which I didn't really gain those UK downloads until late in the day. So from 3 PM to 11 PM, I picked up roughly 100 downloads but remained at the same spot on the bestsellers top 100 freebie ghost stories list.

This morning, the second day of my freebie promotion, when checked at roughly 8 AM, I had only gained about 30 downloads in the US from the night before up to 272 US downloads, and only 6 UK downloads up to 28, but I also picked up one download from Denmark. This put "Bride-and-Seek" at the #7 bestsellers freebie ghost stories list. And the last check at about 11:15 AM was 277 USA downloads, 37 UK downloads and 1 Denmark downloads, which put back to the #9 spot on the bestsellers list. (the final results will be posted tomorrow night but there will be a short posting at the end of my day tonight to show where I ended up, at least on the east coast time zone when I get to posting it; and my sales and downloads will also be posted in Saturday's posting, This and That).

I'm pleased and disappointed but also have realised that when looking at other's who have reported their kindle downloads during free promotions really have no comparison. One person I know who ran her free days the middle of January posted something like 5,000 downloads but then again, her book is a suspense or mystery or thriller where as mine is a ghostly romance story - way different stories. My other friend who did three days of freebie downloads last week, Faye Tollison, had over 1700 downloads over the course of three days but then again, her book, To Tell The Truth, is a romantic suspense and mine is a ghostly romance story - big difference in genres. I think I'm a little disappointed in the just barely over 300 downloads on my story more than anything but I'm also happy that I'm still in the top 10 (that was my original goal to be there at the end of the two days, not expecting to be there at the end of the first day).

So here is what I'm thinking of doing, even though my story "The Proposal" is doing well on smashwords or has done well on smashwords, I'm thinking of unpublishing it from Nook and smashwords and listing it in the KDP program and run it for free the day before and after and including April 1 - forthree days basically - since it is an April Fools Day story and see how a humorous romance does compared to a ghostly romance.

Do I think the promotion is working? In a way yes, because I did pick up a sale on another story, "The Proposal" in addition to the downloads. Do I think I could have done better, at this point I wish I had done better with the number of downloads, but overall I can't complain as there are folks looking at my books and I'm in the top 10 bestsellers free downloads (at the moment) and that was my ultimate goal. Do I think this program is for everyone? Hard to say right now as I don't have enough experience with the program and I've only seen stats on other stories that aren't even similar to mine, and we all know comparing apples and oranges just doesn't work; other than the similarity that they are both fruits - lol.

If you are thnking of self-pubbing and using the KDP select program to promote your books, I would suggest do it on a trial basis - nothing says you have to sign back up for another 90 days after the original; but if you are doing well enough to take away a good portion of the downloads and the money that is available, then definitely continue in the program. Each author's results will depend on a lot of variances - the type of story they have, the promotion they do, and of course name recognition (I'm still building mine). I think it is helpful being on the top 10 list, if even for a day or two because in the end, it is exposure that we are looking for.

If you have downloaded any of my stories and haven't done so yet, I'd really appreciate it if you did a short review for them. This helps folks in deciding whether or not to spend any money on a story and helps the rankings. I know I won't be in the #1 spot but I can get closer by having reviews. This is very much appreciated by every author. - E :)