The Proposal Review

My second review on this short story. The first was posted on smashwords when it first came out. Check out Kristi's site and you never know what you mind find interesting over there - E :)

This and That - end of week

So, I've a campaign to give away all my titles as PDF files for free in exchange for reviews. To date, I've had one actual request (have sent three files to the one person) and two who said they were interested in reviewing the books but haven't made the request yet. I've been posting on my plurk which goes to my FB page and twitter page and the one person who has requested my books actually retweeted a post last week. He lives in England so the state books wouldn't do him much good, but if he wanted them, I would've been happy to send to him.

Sales this week have been very minimal - Finally Home - ebook = 0, print = 0; "The Proposal" (an April Fools Day story) = 1 on smashwords; "The Tulip Kiss" = 1 on kindle. No sales on Nook this week. I hope those folks who purchased the copies will write reviews for the stories. I'm getting views on smashwords; unfortunately, I can't gage how many people view my books on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Smashwords is the only one that shows how many views and so far "The Proposal" has had 46 views; Finally Home 25 views and "The Tulip Kiss" 15 views. I can only hope I'm getting similar views on the other two places or more but that isn't showing up as sales, so need to do something to help generate sales.

I decided to do something with "Bride-and-Seek" when it is published (hoping within the next couple of days or at least by the end of week next week). I'm going to list it exclusively on kindle for the quarter and put out my five free ads during that time and see if that will boost sales. I've been following the Sisters in Crime yahoo forum and there is one lady there who has been reporting her progress throughout her time with one of her books listed this way (what this exclusive listing does is alows prime members to get the ebook version for free (borrow) and the author has to not put that title up for sale on any other ebook sales place (no Nook, no smashwords, no fictionwise (if they are still in existence), no sales on your website in ebook format) but you can keep the title in print format everywhere, if it is available in print). Anyway, we are pretty close to having a completed cover for "Bride-and-Seek" and once that is approved, I will be putting the story up on Kindle only. The ads hopefully will lead to folks checking out my other titles and hopefully purchasing them.

The other thing I'm considering is FB ads. Another author friend of mine has just started using the FB ads (middle of December) and saw a dramatic increase in her sales - something like 48 books over a 2-week time period - now that's the kind of sales I'd love to have since my goal is only 15 to 25 a month of each title this would be great to see sales like this.

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr., Day and my posting will be a short one about the holiday. Wednesday's posting will be a question from a 3rd grader Lunchtime Writer's Club member in Indiana. Thursday will be about book festivals and other things, and look for a review on Shelley Stout's book Radium Halos on book review Friday.

So signing off on another dismal sales week - until next week, - E :)

UPDATE: 01/16/2012 - I haven't really been checking my sales on createspace, so I've kind of neglected my state stories a bit but I just checked it today and apparently I had an order for State of Wilderness last Friday through the expanded distribution (could have been to a bookstore, a library or school or through createspace directly). - So sorry for neglecting my state stories - lol.

January giveaways in exchange for reviews

I was going to post this on LibraryThing but it wouldn't let me post, so I'm going to post as a blog on both my blogs. I will start taking requests January 2. I hope that all the librarians and teachers out there will take advantage of this. This is the same message on both blogs, sorry but the message needs to be out there so that I can hopefully get some reviews and some sales.


JANUARY GIVEAWAY POST
I have six titles in my state series available for review as well as three other titles available. I will offer 100 copies of each title in exchange for reviews.

The state series is geared for 3rd through 5th grade level, would make a great supplement to a US History social studies curriculum or an individual state social studies. Each book comes with its own study guide which supplements the book and should not be used without first reading the book or it makes no sense. The books are written like a handheld game that gives the kids clues (facts and trivia) about a state and the readers and characters have to guess the state being described. Each book is one state and all the clues will pertain to that specific state. There are bonus clues highlighting one of five US territories (Washington DC, US Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and US Samoan Islands) as well as discussion questions. The study guide takes some of the clues in the book and turns them into deeper discussion questions or research projects, either a science project or map/math skills project or social studies project or ELA project, and then there are bonus things like secret message puzzles (state motto is the secret message), a craft idea (based on clues but not in every study guide - only as the clues are fitting), and a trivia game that is designed to show that the students or child read the book.

Titles available are State of Wilderness (ID), State of Quarries (AR), State of Reservations (OK), State of Successes (SC), State of Heights (CO), and State of Nature (WY). I will send a PDF file to the 100 persons requesting any of the titles available. You can request more than one.

My other titles include Finally Home (a YA paranormal mystery), The Proposal (an April Fools Day Story, a humorous romance ebook), and The Tulip Kiss (a paranormal romance). Available in January will be Bride-and-Seek (a paranormal romance ebook) and Butterfly Halves (a YA fantasy ebook). Again, I will take 100 requests for the three titles available in exchange for reviews.

Please email me at eeldering (at) gmail (dot) com and put "free books in exchange for review" in the subject line. In the body of the email please list the titles you would like to review or if you want all of them, just say All books.

This promotion will be valid for the month of January only. Once the 100 requests per title have been met, no other requests will be taken. I may offer this later in the year, but it will depend on the success of the first "free books in exchange for reviews" campaign. - E :)

Elysabeth Eldering
Author of Finally Home, a YA paranormal mystery
"The Proposal" (an April Fools Day story), a humorous romance ebook
"The Tulip Kiss", a paranormal mystery ebook
"Bride-and-Seek", a paranormal mystery ebook (coming in Janaury)
"Butterfly Halves", a YA fantasy ebook (coming in January)
Elysabeth's other blog
Elysabeth's non-JGDS writing website

Ma America, The Travelin' Maven
Author of the JGDS, 50-state, mystery, trivia series and "Train of Clues" (a mystery destination story and predecessor to the JGDS, state series)
Where will the adventure take you next?
JGDS blog
JGDS website

What are you reading?

I'm doing something I don't usually do and have had a hard time comprehending how people do. I'm reading two stories at the same time. Don't ask how, but I'm doing it.

I'm awaiting on my book that I had won from Steve's NO BULL blog back last month and had run out of things to read. I had just finished reading Sylvia Dickey Smith's Deadly Sins Deadly Secrets (which I owe her a book review on) and so had cleared out my TBR pile.

I had inquired to Steve when he thought my book would arrive since I was out of things to read and usually like to get some reading in before turning off the light. So he offered me his manuscript to read. So far, I've been intrigued. Dream War is an espionage/spy thriller novel that started with a great first chapter. I printed it off and started reading (have read 3 chapters and the prologue so far, just printed out chapters 4 through 6).

Now if that isn't enough - lol - I printed off Lea Shizas's Rock of Realm to read since I was supposed to read it and review it for Lea's blog book tour. I tried to print like book format (front and back pages) but my printer kept screwing up. I gave up after having half the book printed (odd pages printed) but then I went back and just tried printing in smaller batches of the even pages and I think I finally got the whole thing printed out. So I started reading it the same night or the next night after starting Steve's.

So needless to say, I'm reading two books at the same time and enjoying both of them equally. Whoda thunk? I could multitask in my reading, especially since I really like to savor a book before moving on. Review of Sylvia's book to follow as well as a review of Lea's hopefully before too long. See you all in the postings - E :)