To date, thousands have downloaded my stories where they are offered free of charge, but only a handful on Amazon where the cost is $0.99. Literally, I don’t have to take off my socks to count the Amazon downloads. Amazon is by far the largest ebook retailer, and though many people have read my free stories so far, that number would be triple or quadruple that if they were available on Amazon free. I feel Amazon’s policy is a little short sighted. Offering these six stories free now benefits both Amazon and me in the future.

But Kindle owners, don’t lament. There is a way to download these stories to your Kindle. They are available on Smashwords free. Later in this post, I will outline how to download from Smashwords to the traditional Kindle or Kindle Touch via your USB cable, or to your Kindle Fire via USB cable, or wirelessly, and I’ll include the Smashwords URLs for my free stories.

I would also ask a favor. If you check Amazon for any of the titles below, right at the bottom of the“Product Details” section is a link labeled “tell us about a lower price?” I would greatly appreciate it if you clicked that link and let Amazon know the story is available free of charge on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Diesel, and the Sony “Reader Store.” Other authors have been able to get Amazon to lower their price this way.

My free stories are:

The Comfort Shack

Cupid’s Maze

Second Honeymoon

The Diary of Horatio White

Murphy’s Law

Appliances Included

Kindle Fire owners can also download wirelessly by opening the web browser, going to Smashwords and click on the “download” button for the .MOBI file. The book will show up in your DOCUMENTS tab, not in the BOOKS tab.

Crumble denotes brittleness and disintegration by breaking into pieces – from a whole into fragments. Cookies crumble. Dirt clods crumble. Old mortar crumbles. People don’t physically crumble, unless doused with liquid nitrogen and struck with a hammer.  (It is fair to say someone’s mental state can crumble)

Crumple denotes a collapse or folding where the object remains intact – one piece. Paper crumples. Fenders crumple (at least mine did yesterday). And people can be described as crumpling when they are rendered unconscious or collapse.

So please, no more heroines crumbling to the ground unless they’ve been dipped in liquid nitrogen and whacked with a bat.

I love indie authors not only because I am one, but because I believe that the next Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, or Michael Connelly is currently slaving over a laptop trying to make a mark on their own. To be indie means supporting indie and I’m ready to put my wallet where my mouth is – again.

I am looking for my next read. Here’s a chance for an indie author to make one more sale and potentially garner a glowing review. Please leave a blurb about your book in the comments for this post. The one (or two) that I find most interesting I will buy and make my next read. Good luck authors.

Thanks to all who participated. It’s my opinion that an author who can craft a concise and compelling blurb can also write concise and compelling narrative. All the entries were strong which made the choice that much harder, but two stuck out for me.

Congratulations to Debra Brenegan, author of Shame the Devil, and Rob Walker, author of Titanic 2012. I downloaded your books last night. I plan to read Shame the Devil first.

Debra, non-fiction/biographical fiction is not a genre I normally read. However, your synopsis was so compelling, I had to know more. The quality of writing in the blurb assured me that you would hold my interest through the end of your book despite the fact that it isn’t one of my usual genres. Fantastic work.

Rob, the concept of a monster aboard the Titanic in 1914, and still in 2012 awaiting salvage crew was too much to resist. Two stories in one and such a novel concept I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it.

To those not selected, you caught my attention and I may still pay a visit to the world you created for my next set of reads.

-Mark

First let’s visit the grocery store to learn the mechanics of the sale. We’ve all seen the ladies in the aisles cooking samples in an electric skillet and passing them out to shoppers. Let’s look at what’s really happening and see how it applies to selling books. The first key is attracting attention. You have to grab the buyer’s interest to get them to pause from what they are doing long enough to at least consider your product. The skillet lady has two weapons in her arsenal; aroma and a spiel.

Next, is satisfying customer’s expectations. Vegans won’t want to try Jimmy Dean sausage, and those with shellfish allergies won’t want to sample shrimp crackers. This is usually much easier for skillet lady than a book cover. She can simply tell them what they’ll be sampling if they can’t gather that from the smell and appearance.You have only your book cover and it must speak for you.

Then skillet lady will try to get her potential customers to sample the product. And this is the key. If you have a good product, the sample should cement the deal. But there is a lot that goes on to get customers to that point.

In terms of book sales, the book cover is your skillet lady, your primary interface to customers. It’s out there working on your behalf selling your book even as you sleep. It must do all the things the skillet lady does. It must attract attention and get customers to pause and look closer. It must satisfy customer expectations. Something about it must tell the buyer what they are getting.  Romance enthusiasts who accidentally buy a horror novel aren’t going to be happy. In the brick and mortar world this is easily avoided because your book will be placed in the appropriate section of the store. But in the e-commerce world, your cover has to do most of this work on its own.

Let’s face it, even in a brick and mortar store the wrong cover can turn customers away. No one needs angry customers or one star reviews because of genre confusion. By the same token, an unprofessional looking cover leaves potential readers with the impression that what’s inside is just as poorly executed. Don’t scrimp. It’s too important.

There are four elements that comprise a book cover; the cover image, the title, the blurb/endorsement, and the author’s name. Not every cover will have all four and any one of these might be enough to garner a sale. For most authors, the most powerful thing working in their favor is the cover image. It can set the tone, and if intriguing enough, will make potential customers pause to look deeper

Let’s examine three covers and what about them works.

The Willows: Haven

The first is Hope Collier’s “the willows: haven.” The cover design is by Neil Noah. Hope’s book releases later this summer, but when I saw the cover on her website, it stopped me – job one accomplished. The black and white image, despite seeming peaceful, is stark and somewhat disturbing. Clearly something isn’t right and there are dark overtones. What is a woman clothed in a cocktail dress doing floating in deep water well away from shore? How did she get there and does she have a chance of surviving? Questions raised in the mind of the customer are good. They’ll want answers. There’s a good chance they’ll sample this book based on the cover alone, and if they like what they read, they’ll buy.

SEED

Next is Ania Ahlborn’s “Seed.” The cover design is by Jeroen Ten Berge. The art and title do heavy work. The image of a graveyard silhouetted in the eerie first light of morning, the birth of another day, a tree growing amid the headstones, it’s roots deep and a seemingly a transposed negative of what grows above sets an expectation of things dark and dire. The title adds to this disquieting imagery. Seed, the base unit of life, the beginning – and in this case, the beginning of something dark. It works. It definitely grabs attention and draws customers to look deeper. And it sets the appropriate expectation.

Rules for Renegades

Last is Christine Comaford-Lynch’s “Rules for Renegades.”© McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing. Cover reproduced with permission. The cover design is by Jan Marshall, @Jan_Marshall on Twitter. The image of a Japanese woman in full traditional dress and makeup racing on a motorcycle is striking. Again it’s a contradiction and something interesting is happening. She is obviously breaking with tradition and on the run. Is she racing from something, or toward something? Questions again. The title reinforces this; Rules for Renegades – really, what are those. This is another book I’m likely to pick up and read the first page of based solely on the cover.

Titles, Blurbs & Names

Now a little on the remaining elements of book covers; titles, blurbs, and the author’s name. We are visual creatures. Imagery trumps practically everything else, but that said, a good title can also build intrigue and draw attention. I’ll give a few examples of titles the caused me to pick up books and read the first page: Water for Elephants, The Book Thief, and The Art of Racing in the Rain. In each case, the title overcame rather mundane cover imagery and was enough to get me to pick up the book and sample the first page. In each case it resulted in a sale. In an ideal world, title and cover imagery should work together, but sometimes a good title alone can build enough intrigue and curiosity to draw readers closer. Choose wisely.

Blurbs and endorsements: blurbs should be as well written as anything inside the book and in the same tone and voice. They should hit only the highpoints. If you bore readers with the blurb, they won’t buy. Endorsements: wouldn’t we all want, “I absolutely loved this book” – Stephen King, on our cover. This alone can sell your book. But it isn’t vital. If it can be managed, a positive endorsement from a well known author in your genre can go far.

Lastly, the author’s name. For most people reading this, your name means little at the moment. You are struggling to build readership, sell your book, and get a modicum of name recognition. For the big kahunas of the writing world, their name alone on the cover is enough to sell books. People will line up to get the latest Rowling, King or Koontz novel. Not so much for me and you. However, the goal of every author should be to build that kind of name recognition and fan base. I can’t tell you how many book covers I’ve seen by new authors where their name is in tiny letters tucked away in a corner or lost amid the imagery. YOU ARE THE BRAND, not the book title. Your name should stand out and be as prominent as anything on the cover. If all goes as you hope, one day it will be your name readers are looking for, and it alone will be enough to sell your work.

In this age of self promotion, pay close attention to your book cover. It’s one of your best salesmen. It can work for you every hour of every day for decades. Get it right.

Be nice.

It’s a harsh world and you don’t need to add to the harshness. Do your best to reduce the suck factor. Be nice as much and as often as you can. No one is perfect, and no one can be pleasant all the time, but often it’s a choice, and when it is, choose to be nice.

Start with yourself.

Cut yourself some slack. Occasionally pamper yourself. Laugh at yourself. If you are nice to yourself, it’s much easier to be nice to others – and don’t feel guilty about it.

Help people reach their goals whenever you can.  

And don’t expect anything in return, though who knows. People tend to feel warmly about supportive people.

Make and carry your own happiness.  

There are a lot of unhappy people out there looking for happiness and not finding it. It’s a failing of our society that people think they can find happiness. It’s not at the mall or in a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. Happiness isn’t external; it’s something you have to make yourself. And once you have it, carry it with you and share freely.

Don’t give up on your dreams and goals.  

Even if you suck. I’ve said it a thousand times and will say it a thousand more, you can’t get better at something if you quit. Practice and Perseverance are great teachers, but they don’t offer a fast-track program. Stick with it.

You don’t have to be right (even if you are).  

Not everything in life is a contest. It’s valuable to recognize when being right isn’t important because being a friend always is.

Enough for now. I’ll add more later.