From now until Saturday, March 9th, all of my books are 50% off on Smashwords for the annual Read an Ebook Week sale! Simply head over to my Smashwords author page, select the books you want, and apply the coupon code at checkout!
If you like to buy your books on Smashwords, good news! All of my books that are usually 2.99 or higher are 50% off until the end of the year. Enjoy!
For a long time, I’ve said that if I didn’t have to make a living at this writing thing, I would love to give all my books away for free. Well, for the month of January at least, I’ve decided to do just that.
Smashwords has a special pricing option that allows readers to set the price for your ebooks that they’re willing to pay. There is no minimum price, so you can set the price to $0 and download it for free. You can also come back and pay for the book after you’ve read it. Smashwords breaks down where the money goes, so you can see how much of it goes to the author. Smashwords pays authors better than any other site I’ve worked with, and also gives you the widest variety of ebook formats to choose from.
I started this experiment two weeks ago and didn’t say much about it, just because I wanted to see what would happen first. The response so far has been quite surprising. A lot of people have downloaded the books for free, but the people who are opting to pay have more than made up the difference. If things continue like this, I may just keep all my Smashwords books at Reader Sets the Price indefinitely.
So if you’ve got an account at Smashwords and you’d like to pick up some of my books, feel free to check them out! You can pay whatever you want for them, or download them for free and tip me later.
More than money, though, what I really need for my Smashwords books are reviews. It’s an unfortunate fact that people who download ebooks for free are more likely to leave negative reviews (and then download the rest of the books in the series they supposedly hate, leaving negative reviews on each one). If you have a Smashwords account and you’ve enjoyed any of my books, I would really appreciate it if you’d take a couple minutes to go over there and leave an honest review. I would actually appreciate reviews more than payment, so if you want to pick up one of my books that you haven’t read yet, leave a review on one that you have and we’ll call it even.
That just about does it. When January is over, I’ll write another blog post where I’ll detail my results.
Thanks for reading!
Hey guys, just a heads up that tomorrow and Wednesday are the last days to get all my books 50% off on Smashwords for the annual summer sale. Everything is under $2.50 USD, and the $.99 stuff is free! That might seem like a pretty steep discount, but I actually earn as much from each sale as I would for a trade paperback sale if my books were traditionally published, and I don’t mind passing on the savings to you.
Also, my friend and fellow writer Ben Keeley did a blog post about our low-key backpacking trip up Rock Canyon, so if that interests you, you can check it out on his blog. That rattlesnake was pretty freaky! Good thing he was about as eager to get away from us as we were to get away from him. We didn’t climb any mountains on this one, but we did find a gorgeous campsite on the side of a steep ravine. I definitely want to go camp there again sometime.
I’m taking it easy as far as the writing goes, but making some progress on The Sword Keeper. A lot of it right now is gathering ideas and reviewing what I’ve written so far (eleven chapters, or about 50k words). The first chapter requires some changes, but the rest I’ll probably let stand as it is and pick up where I left off. Once I’m fully immersed in this story again, I think the rest will come quite readily.
In the meantime, here’s a video of Mariam Elieshvili singing “ჩვენ ახლა ერთურთს,” chven axla erturts. I have no idea what the lyrics mean (something about looking for love in each others’ eyes), but Mariam’s voice is amazing and I think I may have a small celebrity crush on her. All this Georgian music definitely puts me in the mood to work on The Sword Keeper, kind of like how all that Arabic music helped me to write Desert Stars.
… and now I want to go back to Georgia. Again. :'(
That’s right! My latest book, Star Wanderers: Benefactor (Part VI) is now available on Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo! It’s $2.99, but for the next couple of days until the end of June, you can get it for $1.49 from Smashwords with the summer promotion code.
This one took a long time to write, especially for a novella, but I’m very satisfied with the result. It shows the events of Fidelity from Jakob’s point of view, really diving into his character and exploring his background as a star wanderer who settled down and now struggles to take care of his family. There are overtones of an impending conflict between the Outworlders and the Gaian Empire, which I plan to make a major part of the overworld story arc, and some new characters introduced as well.
Here’s the teaser:
IN A COLD AND LONELY UNIVERSE, A SIMPLE ACT OF GRACE CAN RESONATE ACROSS WORLDS.
An outworlder is nothing if not fiercely independent, and Jakob is no exception. But ever since he brought his family of starbound refugees to Alpha Oriana, he’s felt increasingly powerless. With the recent Imperial takeover and rumors of job cuts at the dockyards, it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to move on—again.
When a young man and woman with an unusual story show up from his wife’s homeworld, he takes them in, if for no other reason than that they remind him of a time when he was young and still in love. Ever since he sent his sons away, his marriage has been a nightmare—but all he wanted was to give them a chance at a better life out among the stars. Whether or not that was a mistake, his wife has never forgiven him for it.
In the face of so many challenges, it’s not clear how long the family can hold together, but Jakob will sacrifice everything before he asks for help—even if the only way out lies through an open airlock.
Star Wanderers: Benefactor (Part VI) should be up on Barnes & Noble shortly, as well as Drivethru Fiction and All Romance eBooks. In a couple of weeks, it should be out on iTunes, Sony, and Diesel as well. If you want to add it to your Goodreads library, you can find it here.
Thanks guys! I’m heading out on a short backpacking trip this weekend, but I’ll be back in a couple of days with more updates. Later!
Every summer, Smashwords does a sale in which authors can enroll their books. This year, I’ve enrolled all of mine at 50% off, so all of them are under $2.50. Check it out!
Genesis Earth
A boy and a girl on a voyage to an alien star.
Price: $4.95 $2.48
Bringing Stella Home
He’ll go to the ends of the galaxy to save his brother and sister.
Price: $4.95 $2.48
Desert Stars
A tale of adventure and romance from the fringes of an interstellar empire that has forgotten its holiest legend: the story of Earth.
Price: $4.95 $2.48
Stars of Blood and Glory
The only hope for the last free stars now lies on the path of blood and glory.
Price: $4.95 $2.48
Star Wanderers: The Jeremiah Chronicles (I-IV)
He wanders the stars in search of a home. Instead, he got a girl without one.
Price: $4.99 $2.49
Star Wanderers: Fidelity (Part II)
Is fidelity worth the price of freedom? Can love take root beyond the stars?
Price: $.99 free!
Star Wanderers: Sacrifice (Part III)
She gave up everything to wander the stars with him. Now, he must do the same.
Price: $2.99 $1.49
Star Wanderers: Homeworld (Part IV)
They’ve finally found a world to call home. But first, they have to fight for it.
Price: $2.99 $1.49
Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver (Part V)
He saved her from death, but to save him, she must command the power of dreams.
Price: $2.99 $1.49
Journey to Jordan
Travels of a young Mormon writer to Jordan, Egypt, and the Holy Land.
Price: $2.99 $1.49
Decision LZ1527
A boy, a girl, and a whole crew of matchmakers.
Price: $.99 free!
One of the great things about Smashwords is that these prices are the same throughout the world–no extra surcharge for international sales. So if you live outside the United States and don’t have a US bank account, these are the best prices you’re going to find.
These books will remain 50% off on Smashwords through the month of July. Just use the coupon code SSW50 to get the discount. Smashwords does accept Paypal, so you don’t have to sign up for an account or share your credit card information to purchase.
If you’ve been meaning to check out some of these books but haven’t gotten around to it, this is a great way to try them out. And if you want to sample them first, the first 15% to 25% is available on each book’s Smashword’s page.
Enjoy! 😀
I’m getting ready to publish Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver over the weekend, but first I need to finalize the teaser / book description for Benefactor so that I can include it in the back. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
IN A COLD AND LONELY UNIVERSE, A SIMPLE ACT OF GRACE CAN RESONATE ACROSS WORLDS.
Jakob is entrapped in a life he never made for himself. A one-time starfarer, now he struggles to provide for his family of starbound refugees. With the recent Imperial takeover of Oriana Station and the worsening economic situation, it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to move on—again.
To make matters worse, his wife’s resentment has been growing ever since he sent their two sons away to seek their fortunes across the stars. She claims that he stole them from her, when all he wanted was to give them a chance at a better life. Without her support, it’s not clear how long the family can hold together.
When a young man and woman with an unusual story show up from his wife’s home world, he agrees to take them in, if for no other reason than that they remind of his sons. They soon become part of the family, though this adds even more to the burden he can barely carry on his own.
An outworlder is nothing if not fiercely independent, and Jakob is no exception. He’ll sacrifice everything before he asks for help—even if the only other way out lies through an open airlock.
What do you think? Does it sound interesting? What works, and what do you think needs to be cut?
Also, a quick update on the situation with Star Wanderers and Smashwords. I’ve discovered that the updating problems aren’t just restricted to iTunes, but all of the sites that I distribute to through Smashwords (Sony, Diesel, and Barnes & Noble (for Outworlder)). We haven’t been able to get the books fixed, so I’ve decided to pull them all and republish.
What this means is that the first four Star Wanderers novellas will be temporarily unavailable from these sites, probably for a week or two. If you got your copy from Smashwords, you should still be able to access it there–the books have been updating just fine on Smashwords, it’s only with the other retailers that I’ve been having problems. For Dreamweaver, there shouldn’t be any problems though (I hope).
Thanks for your patience while I get this mess sorted out!
In case you didn’t know, the first week of March is Read an Ebook Week. Apparently, this is something that the early adopters of ebooks started back in 2004 to help popularize the new reading format and break down some of the initial wariness from the general public.
Well, Smashwords does a Read an Ebook Week promo every year, and I’ve enrolled all of my books at a 50% discount. If you want to check out one of my $.99 short stories like “Memoirs of a Snowflake,” or Part II (Fidelity) and Part III (Sacrifice) of the Star Wanderers series, you can now pick those up for free. If you want to try out one of my novels, like Bringing Stella Home or Desert Stars, they’re all under $3. In fact, with the promo code REW50, all my books are under $3 on Smashwords right now.
Also, if you’re a Smashwords affiliate, I’ve juiced the affiliate bonus for all of my titles to 35%. Since I sell all my full-length novels at $4.95, you can make about $1.75 for each referral–almost the full 85% for a novel selling at $2.99.
Some indie writers aren’t too keen on Smashwords, but I’m definitely a fan of the site. Mark Coker has done a lot of great things, opening doors and breaking down walls to help us get our stories out to the world. He’s also been good to readers, especially international readers, who have to pay an extra $2 surcharge for any ebooks they buy on Amazon.
Once you purchase a book on Smashwords, you have access to multiple DRM-free formats, including mobi (Kindle), epub (Nook, Kobo ereader), PDF, and straight up HTML for online reading, among others. Anytime the author uploads a new version, you have access to that as well (or any of the previous versions since the initial purchase). All the books are screened before going up on the site, so the formatting is generally pretty clean.
So yeah, between March 3-9, feel free to check out my books on Smashwords! And while you’re at it, check out some of the other great authors as well. There’s a lot of good stuff up there–a lot of black swans that would never have made it in traditional publishing, but thanks to the ebook revolution now have a decent chance. Who knows what you’ll find? It might just be your next favorite book!
Hi everyone! So I got the proofreads for Star Wanderers: Sacrifice (Part III) back a little early, so I formatted the ebook yesterday and published it just an hour or two ago!
It should be up on Kindle and Kobo in a couple of days, and Nook as soon as I can get a better internet connection (for some reason, the internet at the village center keeps logging me off of Pubit). But it’s up on Smashwords right now, so if that’s where you like to get your ebooks, feel free to pick up a copy!
From the book description:
SHE GAVE UP EVERYTHING TO WANDER THE STARS WITH HIM. NOW, HE MUST DO THE SAME.
When Jeremiah found himself alone on his starship with an accidental bride, he had no idea how much his life would soon change. Now, with Noemi’s quiet confidence supporting him as she carries their first child, it’s hard to imagine life without her.
But life in the Outworlds isn’t so simple. Good men are hard to come by, and Noemi’s friends expect her to share. As part of a colony mission bound for an unsettled star, Jeremiah can’t say no without causing a rift in the community. But if he says yes, his new-found happiness may soon come to an end. One way or another, he will have to make a sacrifice—one that could tear their starbound family apart.
The next installment Star Wanderers: Homeworld (Part IV) should be coming out in about a month. It’s already written, but I want to run it by my first readers and do another revision before I get it ready to publish. This will conclude the main arc of the Star Wanderers novelette series, but I still plan to write more stories with the same characters–perhaps even a follow-up novel, eventually. Who knows?
That’s all for now. Thanks for everything, and I’ll see you guys around!
The next installment of Star Wanderers is now up on Amazon, Smashwords, and Xinxii! In a couple of weeks, it should be up on Kobo, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble as well.
This continues the story of Jeremiah and Noemi, a boy and a girl from completely different worlds who end up married by accident after a deadly famine drives her away from her home. Neither of them speak the same language, but they eventually come to an understanding of each other and figure out how to make things work.
In Part II, though, all that is put to the test.
It’s available right now for $2.99, but if you sign up for my email newsletter in the sidebar, I’ll send out a Smashwords coupon code at the end of the week that you can use to download it for free. Part I is already free on Smashwords, and should be free soon on the other sites as well.
Part III needs a lot of work, but I should be sending the rough version out to my first readers pretty soon. Once I’ve gotten their feedback, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get it finalized and ready for publishing. After that, it’s just a matter of finding proofreaders and formatting it, which doesn’t take long at all.
That’s about all for now. I hope you enjoy it–and if you do, please share!