Shameless Self Promotion (but for a good cause)

[Alelou]

My novel The Awful Mess: A Love Story is FREE Sept. 4-5-6 (hopefully that has percolated out to the UK and other Amazon's -- it won't show me the pricing there this morning).

Even if you're not interested in reading this, downloads now will improve its visibility for the rest of the month, and all its earnings for September are going to Feeding America, which helps fund and distribute food to the food pantries and soup kitchens that help many of America's poor get through the month.

(It also has good reviews, at least in the US and UK Amazons, so you might want to take a peek.)

US link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DHX0GNS

UK link: http://www.amazon.uk/dp/B00DHX0GNS

[Transwarp]

Too late, I already bought it. (Haven't read it yet, but it's next up.)

Just remember all us little people when you hit the top of the best-seller lists!

[Alelou]

I seriously doubt I have to worry about that, but thank you so much for buying it! Hope you enjoy it.

(I am at the top of "Episcopal fiction for kindle" at Amazon. LOL. It's nice to be top of the heap at something, however tiny it may be.)

[panyasan]

One review made me really curious about this book, but I am deeply sorry, but I don't seem to manage to find the book itself.

According to the site I have to register and buy a Kindle (an E-reader?) to read the story and there I get stuck. I have no idea you to get this Kindle and how to get the text on my computer screen.

[Alelou]

You don't need a Kindle. You do need to have an account at Amazon and buy it somewhere. I'm not sure which Amazon works for you in the Netherlands. I know it's up in the Amazon stores for France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the UK. You might just try googling The Awful Mess: A Love Story and Netherlands after it and see if something pops up. (It doesn't for me, but Google knows where I live.)

Here are the other options for when you don't have a Kindle: 1) If you have a tablet or a smart phone you can bear to read novels on, go to the app store and search for "Kindle" -- the apps are all free.

Otherwise, you can download free software for your computer. I have the link here: http://sheerhubris.com/titles/what-if-i-dont-have-a-kindle/

If none of this works and you'd really like to read it, PM me and I'll find a way.

[panyasan]

Thanks Alelou! I had some experience that it's sometimes very difficult to get certain stuff from the internet (the famous warning "This .... you have requested is not available for your geographic region). I will certainly will give it a try.

Meanwhile, for all those folks who can easily read This Awefull Mess! Read it!

[Alelou]

Well, some word of some kind has clearly gotten out, because over 4800 copies have been downloaded from Amazon.com so far. One more day of free (Friday)!

Can't tell you how much satisfaction I find in (briefly) passing Nathaniel Hawthorne in the free literary fiction category! (The Awful Mess is a contemporary twist on The Scarlet Letter.)

Now I just need some of those folks to actually read it and like it and tell their friends...

[putaro]

"Episcopal fiction for kindle"? Well, now I have seen everything.

[Alelou]

LOL. Yep. It will be interesting to see how quickly I drop out of the top 100 after the free promotion ends tonight. Will it sink like a stone, or like a feather? I literally just hit the 6,000 mark in downloads. Hopefully I've built up enough inertia to help Feeding America earn some bucks from me for the rest of the month. (And I'll hope to get a few positive reviews from it and maybe some ongoing sales after that, though the lack of another book means I'll squander some of my good fortune here.)

[Alelou]

Just a little heads up that if you want to download my book free you've got today and tomorrow (Oct. 3-4). I'd had to postpone some advertising thanks to my run in with Amazon's rules, and this was the latest I could do it.

Apparently that advertising really works, though, because I was at 18,000 downloads the last time I looked. Yowza!

(It did sink pretty much like a stone last time, so I'm not expecting much of a sales bump this time either -- but I got 13 new reviews out of it last time and hopefully I'll get more this time.)

[Alelou]

So I had a great run with my free days (over 43,000 downloads!) and it was selling very well after that, until some person who I can only hope was a technical nitwit rather than a diabolical saboteur put up a review claiming the book is missing many pages. Which isn't true. But has stopped sales dead.

Sigh.

C'est la vie, as they say on Earth.

[Weeble]

you have to be kidding Alelou. Is there anyway to get the inaccurate review removed. there are economic damages.

[Cap'n Frances]

What a pain that it's affected sales like that!

I think I might see the problem. When I downloaded the book onto my iPad, I noticed that many page numbers are skipped. For example, it goes from page 5 to page 9. It also skips page 11, page 14, page 17, page 20 and so on. But if I ignore the page numbers and just pay attention to the text, I don't see any sign that anything is missing.

I've noticed formatting problems with other Kindle books across platforms but never one quite like this. I put a comment on the review that complained about the missing pages. Unfortunately, I don't think that will do much for the problem with sales. I hope Amazon can help you with that.

[Alelou]

Thanks, Frances. That review is pages back at this point, so it's not affecting sales any more, but thank you for responding with a helpful comment like that. I actually had a great month last month (sold over 500 units), but now that my promotion is over it's dropping into obscurity again. Can't really complain, though. This has been a very good first run for a debut indie novel.

That's an interesting problem with the page numbers. I don't have an iPad -- maybe I'll borrow one from the college so I can see what happens. Then again, I haven't got the current version of my own book in my own Kindle library. I still haven't figured out how to do that without discarding it and buying it again, which I really should have done when I had it on special! (What a dope.) When you got it, did it have the new cover (mostly green) or the one you see below with the rocks?

[Cap'n Frances]

I'm glad sales picked up. I have the new cover on my copy.