Are free eBooks sending the wrong message?

I recently stumbled across an interesting article that talked about the dangers of free eBooks and it got me to wondering if free promotions might do more harm than good by training (for lack of a better word) readers to expect free reads.

Many indie authors have already noticed the discrepancy in pricing and how it has set the bar low for many people that regularly give their eReader a workout. My short story, Dead Man Walking, is priced at 99 cents, but it’s setting on the digital bookshelves right next to full-length novels that are also priced at 99 cents. Does this mean short stories should be priced for free? Should novels be priced higher than the rock-bottom price that’s available to use?

The great thing about being your own publisher is that those questions don’t have carved-in-stone rules and the author is free to do as he chooses. But should something be done just because it can be done? That’s a question that has to be answered by the author as an individual, and there really is no right or wrong answer at the moment.

Along the same lines, there are free promotions that are regularly done to boost interest in titles. Initially, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea, but I’m wondering if free promos will eventually do more harm than good for sales.

Imagine this scenario – you release Book 1 and eventually set the price for free, then you release Book 2 and eventually set the price for free, again. When Book 3 comes out, will readers that follow you scoop up your latest hit or will they wait for it to go free, because that’s what you’ve done with your previous titles.

We’ve all felt frustration after flipping open a store advertisement and seeing something priced at 50% off… after we spent full price on it last week. It’s the ugliest form of sticker shock; the birth of that little voice in your head that tells you to wait next time until the item is on sale.

I worry that regularly putting our work out there for free will condition people to wait for it to be free. On the other hand, my wife believes if the work is good enough, then readers will scoop up the latest titles, regardless of having to pay or not. It’s a great spotlight on the type of shoppers we are. I’m willing to wait for something until the price is right, and she’s more into immediate gratification by getting the item right now. Which type is the majority? I’m curious because if most readers are like me, then most indie authors are going to end up being starving artists. If they’re like my wife, then there are no worries.

What do you think? Are free promos a temporary fad, an excellent form of advertising, or a danger to how readers shop for eBooks?

Cover Reveal: Little Demons

February is knocking on our door and that means my new release, Little Demons, is almost upon us.

And that means it’s time to roll out the brand new cover so you’ll know what to look for

Think I’ll be stepping away from KDP Select with this one so watch for Little Demons to rise up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords in mid-February.

No zombies in this one but there will be plenty of things that go bump in the night as a con man named Frank looks to steal lottery winnings from a seemingly helpless old farmer and his sexy daughter. Unfortunately for Frank, he doesn’t realize things don’t always go as planned when you’re in the little town of Hale (pop. 666), where the Devil always gets his due.

Zombie Corpse Doll to keep you company after you go to sleep

This little angel came to my attention via LinkedIn and I couldn’t resist sharing.

Everyone sleeps a little better when they have a special friend watching their back and the Zombie Corpse Doll will always be there for you… watching you with its one unblinking eye.

If this sweet thing is calling out to you, it can be purchased by Living Dead Girl Nicole, but don’t drag your feet because there are only 10 available.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in anyway with Etsy or Living Dead Girl Nicole. I just thought this was cool and wanted to share.

Run for Your Lives 5K Obstacle Course: Stay fit and stay alive

Ever wanted to take part in a marathon or run an obstacle course but didn’t think you could stay motivated for the whole thing? Think a legion of the walking dead could keep you inspired to run?

Run For Your Lives is a 5K race, obstacle course, and zombie apocalypse all rolled into one. Curious to find out if you could survive an uprising of the undead? This is the best way to find out… and to prepare for the real zombie apocalypse.

The course includes 12 obstacles, with some being natural and others being man-made. As their site describes it, “there will be mud, water and maybe some blood.”

There are currently 11 locations hosting what looks to be a great zombie adventure, but more locations are expected to be added soon. You can sign up to be a zombie for the event if you prefer to be predator instead of prey or you can become a volunteer that helps to keep the event running smoothly. Of course, if you simply prefer to watch, you can purchase a ticket and just hang out with both the living and the dead.

After the race, regardless of whether you become zombie chow or not, there will be live entertainment and music, local celebrities, vendors, food, and beer.

You can find out when and where all the zombie apocalypses are happening by visiting Run for Your Lives.

Will you be running when the zombies come?

The Walking Dead has Growing Pains

What happens when Rick and the gang from AMC’s The Walking Dead gets mashed up with the 80′s sitcom, Growing Pains? A whole lot of laughing, if you’re like me.

I’d love to see AMC shock everyone by using this opening scene just once when The Walking Dead returns on February 12th, and they could even spice things up by having Kirk Cameron’s Mike make a guest appearance as a zombie.

Yeah, that will probably never happen, but it’s still fun to picture it.

Source: Bloody Disgusting

Zombie Lover meets Zombie Lover when I guest post with Jesse Petersen

Today is a special day for me because, for the first time, I brushed off the dirt and shambled over to another site to do a guest post; my very first one as an author It also happens to be the first time she’s had a guest blogger on her site, so it’s a big occasion for both of us.

I hope you stop by her website and say hi as I talk about why I put my zombies behind bars with Jesse Petersen, the author of Married with Zombies, Flip this Zombie, and Eat Slay Love.

You can hop over to Fictitious Musings to check out my review of Married with Zombies.

Want to read something really scary? Writers are being ripped off

Pirates! Ugh! They’re everywhere. It really sucks when pirates hand out the work of hard-working authors for free, but it bites really hard when they set up a subscription service and make money off all that hard work, without sending a penny to the people that created those books.

The site is eBookr. Add a .com to the name to get there but I don’t want to link to the site because it just makes me feel dirty. This group of losers seems to think they can sell books with no problem until the holder of the copyright contacts them and tells them to stop.

I’ve warned a few friends on Twitter but their catalog is so extensive that I’d be on Twitter for at least a week if I told everyone that way so I’m posting the info here. If you’re an author, it’s probably in your best interest to visit the site, search for your work, and then contact them to tell them to remove it. Better yet, report their sorry butts to GoDaddy because they don’t play with pirates.

I think the idea of a digital library is great. It would be even better if they compensated the authors that allow their stupid site to exist.

Deal with the Devil?

So, after touting my strategy with the Triumvirate of Power, I tossed all that aside and committed an act that many would view as a deal with the Devil. I unpublished at all other locations and hopped on-board the Amazon KDP Select bandwagon. Why? Because I’m an indie author and can do as I please, which is one of the perks of fanning that entrepreneurial flame, rather than being told by others how I should do things. I spent enough time living life as a cubicle rat to see how that goes. Hint: It always benefits the person holding the cheese; never the rat.

Many might say, “But Marty, now the evil Amazon can tell you what to do. You’ve sold your soul to a beast that desires total control of the world.”

My answer – the beast might be poised to take over the world, but that’s because the beast knows what it’s doing, and many people go to the beast for their daily bread.

I’ve been toying with the KDP Select option for a while, even before bringing Dead Man Walking out to the masses. My gut instinct was to be available in as many markets and formats as possible. That instinct has since been squashed by the desire to be read, to have my little figments of nightmare and imagination in front of as many eyes as possible. Would I write if nobody read my work? Yes, I would… but it’s still nice to see others being entertained by something I created. After all, if I didn’t want others to read my books then I’d just leave them tucked safely inside my hard drive instead of sending them alone and unarmed into the big bad world.

There have been authors I’ve heard from that would prefer to cut off their right foot before yanking their work off Barnes & Noble because that’s their primary source of readers. Unfortunately, that ol’ B&N magic wasn’t working for me.

I wanted to test the ultimate power of Amazon and I did this with two simple actions. I put Dead Man Walking on KDP Select and set today as a free promotion day. That’s it. I clicked a couple of buttons and went to bed. No Twitter, no Google +, no Facebook, no nothing. I checked my stats bright and early this morning and saw that I had 75 downloads for Amazon US and 35 for Amazon UK. Shortly after that, I sent out a tweet, posted on Facebook, as well as on Google +. At this time, I’ve had 146 downloads on Amazon US and 59 on Amazon UK. I’m also listed #1,663 Free in Kindle Store and #78 in the horror genre.

Sure, those numbers aren’t staggering. I know a few people that put those numbers to shame, but I’m still thrilled to death. I’m a first time indie author with one short story on the market and I’m in the top 100 for horror in the Kindle Store.

Barnes and Noble doesn’t offer the option of going free (something they really should change or KDP Select will kill them) and Smashwords doesn’t really draw in the readers. I put Dead Man Walking for free on Smashwords and shouted it from the rooftops (okay, used many social media sites) and barely had a response. That versus 75 downloads while snuggling under the blankets and dreaming weird dreams. I’ll take the 75, thank you very much.

Many are scared of the beast and it’s potential domination of the world, but the beast does know what it’s doing, and that’s enough for me at the moment. After all, I write horror so it’s only right that I walk on the dark side. Besides, it’s only a 90 day commitment if I don’t like how things work out. It’s not like I sold my soul to the devil. I only loaned it to him.

The Poe Toaster Visits Nevermore?

Today marks the 202nd birthday of Edgar Allen Poe, but it also apparently marks the end of a decades-old tradition as the legendary Poe Toaster failed to make an appearance for the third year in a row, forcing Jeff Jerome, the curator of Poe House and Museum, to declare the tradition dead.

“I more or less resigned myself that it was over with before tonight,” Jerome told the Baltimore Sun. “What I’ll miss most is the excitement of waiting to see if he’s going to show up.”

Ever since the 1940′s, a mysterious stranger cloaked in black would leave three red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on Poe’s grave every January 19th. His identity has never been revealed, nor is there a reason known for the annual vigil or the symbolism of the roses and cognac.

The Poe Toaster has also occasionally left notes at Poe’s grave, with Jerome indicating that one of the notes suggested a passing of the torch to a new Toaster a few years ago.

Of course, the master of the macabre has legions of fans so there have been many imitators Jereme has been a witness to the Toaster’s visits long enough to know they weren’t the “official” Poe Toaster.

“I give them an ‘A’ for effort,” says Jerome. “I was referring to them as fake Poe Toasters, but that sounds kind of harsh. But it was obvious, when we saw them, that they weren’t the original.”

With the tradition seeming to have come to an abrupt end, it appears that yet another mystery will forever be associated with Edgar Allen Poe.

Review: The Light (Morpheus Road #1) by D.J. MacHale

The Light (Morpheus Road) by D.J. MacHale
Hardcover: 341 pages
Publisher: Aladdin (April 20, 2010)

D.J. MacHale, author of the popular Pendragon series, shows us with The Light that he’s still a master of horror. The book is classified as Young Adult, but don’t let that stop you from picking it up because it has plenty of chills for adults too.

Before this book, I thought ghost stories were a thing of the past. After all, the world of fantasy and urban fiction has found plenty more to scare us with, but this isn’t the tired old ghost story formula. Mr. MacHale proves that he’s a master storyteller by telling the story from the point-of-view of the main character, Marsh. When’s he’s on edge, prowling around his own home with any weapon he can find, unnerved by phantom faces and things that literally go bump in the night; you’re right there on the edge with him. I wasn’t to the point of turning all the lights on, but if a mysterious breeze had happened to rustle some papers or a sink had suddenly started dripping…well, all the lights would have probably been turned on then.

Marsh is a realistic and believable character. He’s a regular teen who just wants to have a great start to his summer vacation. It might not start off great, but it’s definitely going to be memorable. His best friend, Coop, has gotten into some trouble. When his parents take him to their summer retreat to let things cool down, things go from bad to worse, when Coop winds up missing. Marsh is worried about his friend, but he’s got a few more pressing things on his mind…like trying to figure out how Gravedigger, a character he created, has suddenly come to life, and why the all-to-real figment of his imagination is trying to kill him.

Coop’s sister, Sydney, is drawn into the adventure with Marsh. She appears to be an ice-queen and a snob, but things aren’t always what they seem, and I found myself liking her as the story progressed…although first impressions will have you wondering how that’s possible. Trust me on this – it’s possible.

If you’ve avoided stories about ghosts, feeling that they’re a little old-fashioned, I’d recommend that you give The Light (Morpheus Road) a chance. The story will suck you in and make you believe again that it’s not just a branch scratching against the window outside, and that thump in the other room? It wasn’t your imagination.

Walk the Morpheus Road…because, in time, everyone does.

Summary

Marshall “Marsh” Seaver is being haunted.

It begins with mysterious sounds, a fleeting face outside a window, a rogue breeze – all things that can be explained away. That is, until he comes face-to-face with a character who only exists on the pages of a sketchbook – a character Marshall himself created.

Marshall has no idea why he is being tormented by this forbidding creature, but he is quickly convinced it has something to do his best friend, Cooper, who has gone missing. Together with Cooper’s beautiful but aloof sister, Sydney, Marshall searches for the truth about his friend while ultimately uncovering a nightmare that is bigger and more frightening than he could ever have imagined.