Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Blood Solution: Progress Report 5

Approaching Infinity: Book Three
Word Count: 44,800
The Goal: 75,000

I fell behind in January, but it couldn't be helped. I wasn't expecting to have to quit my job (reason 1 for a permanent change of scenery, by the way) or prepared for the stress that that would bring me. It's all for the best, though. Ai and I had been making plans anyway. Now we just need to move things along more quickly.

Thanks again to those who downloaded The Artifact Competition during the free promotion and to everyone for their continued support!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

1st Amazon Promotion Results

So I decided to go with Amazon's KDP Select program which meant that I needed to make all participating works exclusive to Amazon. No real decision involved there since I've only sold one electronic copy of each novel through Smashwords and all their extended distribution. The program basically enables you to earn money in two ways: first, through sales, which is no different than just having a book published for Kindle; second, through borrowing. I thought: What do I have to lose? Nothing. The program also enables you to make your book free for up to 5 days out of the 90-day term. I've gone back and forth about how I feel about offering books for free, but I finally decided that the exposure would be well worth any potential loss. I was nervous about it until the promotion period began and I saw how many downloads I was getting. I didn't break any records, but I'm pretty satisfied with the numbers. If even half the people who downloaded the first book for free pay for the second, or any of the other short stories I have available, it was totally worth it. If I get even a small handful of reviews out of this, it was totally worth it. Thanks to everyone who downloaded!

Here are the numbers:

The Artifact Competition
534 Amazon.com
066 Amazon.co.uk
005 Amazon.de         
605 Total Downloads

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Reasons 2 & 3 for a permanent change of scenery

Tokyo 'has 70% chance of powerful earthquake within four years'
The convergence of 3 tectonic plates under one of the largest cities in the world can only be a recipe for (a recurring) disaster.


Tainted stone tied to 60 buildings so far
Why go out in search of radioactive material when you can be surrounded by it in the comfort of your own home? Hell, it is your own home!