Congratulations to Dianne Harman for her book BLUE COYOTE MOTEL making it to the Quarterfinals of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Contest!
http://asmsg.weebly.com/1/post/2013/03/asmsg-members-got-talent.html
Amazon
Luck o’ the Irish (or American mutt, whatever)
Last night I was feeling a little down in the mouth as my Advertising/Promoting budget is…well…non-existant. So it’s me, my blog, and my tweets/facebook. Sometimes Pinterest (hey, that’s Admin time, not at all farting around on the internet…honest). And of course, I was feeling very grateful to those of you who go around actually talking about the books! Since, of course, that’s the best way to spread the word for an Indie like me, and also, clearly I have paid none of you to do so! Hahaaa!
What was my point, you ask? (Been a while since you’ve had rambling Gen, hasn’t it?)
A friend forwarded this email to me this morning, and holy hobnobbing leprechauns, Amazon actually advertise FOR me. I didn’t pay them to either. Usually they recommend other people’s books. Not mine.
Is it luck? Is it an algorithm?
Who cares!
I hope you’ll keep spreading the word and I’ll keep writing. And next week I find out if I move forward in Amazon’s contest, so I’ll either be drowning my sorrows or celebrating, either way….
SLAINTE!
First, I Love You made it through to the 2nd Round of ABNA! #ASMSG Wow!
So this morning I prepared myself for disappointment and thus my excitement is TEN-fold to announce that First, I Love You made it to the next round of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Contest!!!!
Every year Amazon selects Indie novels from 20,000 entrants in the first round to potentially win a final prize of $50,000 AND a publishing contract with their imprint.
They have five genre categories and select 400 of these entrants in each category to advance to the second round:
This is SOOOOO exciting!!!
(Or is that just me?)
Hee.
Happy Holidays! First, I Love You is $.99 at Amazon on 12/18-20!
Get it HERE:
Where to get First, I Love You
And here’s a handy dandy list of the places and formats you can get First, I Love You. (These are also found in the static posts to the right)
At Amazon (Paperback & Kindle): http://amzn.to/Ny1hHC
At Apple (iPad/iPhone): http://bit.ly/NWNuZR
At Barnes & Noble (Paperback & Nook): http://bit.ly/VZcB5W
At Sony: http://bit.ly/X5mocD
At Kobo: http://bit.ly/QF4SJm
At Diesel: http://bit.ly/RBhaPQ
At Smashwords (iBooks/Kindle/Nook/Phone): http://bit.ly/QF5rmv
At CreateSpace (Paperback only): http://bit.ly/X5owRw
Chocolate, Wine, and a Good Friend
… are the cure for the writer blues. And quite possibly everything.
I have to preface the rest of this post with a disclaimer so I don’t offend the wrong people. True, those of you who know me know I don’t usually concern myself with such things, other people’s opinions of me are their problem. Two farts and tinker’s damn are three currencies more than I care about what people think of me. But, it’s best not to bite the hand that feeds you. Or takes royalties from you in exchange for allowing you to sell books … whatever. But the last thing I want to do is insult or belittle a book retailer selling my book, with whom I would like to have a long and fruitful relationship. Because I would — like fruits in our relationship, that is — which I hope eventually gets to be less one-sided. And then we’ll be back to being besties.
“In such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable.” — Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice
Oh, the babbling again. Fine, I’ll get to the point.
After I released my book it took my distributor forever (alright, fine, a month) to get the book out to Apple and Barnes & Noble, meanwhile Amazon was happily providing my book to the masses. Then, immediately after stocking the book, Apple and B&N and all the rest of the retailers (except, of course, Amazon with whom I get to deal directly) had it shelved in with all the poetry and plays. Why yes, it is rather like Shakespeare … with gangsters … only not.
“God damn fucking tragedy is what that was.” — Mickey Downey, Second of All
‘Oh dear’, I said (in the highly sanitized Disney historical revision of events) and sent a politely worded missive to the distributor reminding them it is a Fictional novel, to be classified as Fiction & Literature. They directed me to change my genre classification and added, perhaps “romance” should be the category.
A rose by any other name…
Alright. *Kanye shrug*
Of course there is romance in the book. Actually a good bit. But if anyone is expecting in this first book the classic boiler plate ‘boy meets girl, love and banter and sexy situation ensue followed post haste by the ubiquitous Happily Ever After’, they will be sorely disappointed. As would anyone thinking they will be getting poetry or a broadway play. But hey, I’ll play the game. Click went the finger stroke of the near real time digital age.
That was three weeks ago. Still no change.
So, yesterday in a fit of immense gratitude to Amazon I dropped the price of my book to $3.99 and shall commence, henceforth, actively leading people to purchase the book from them until Apple and B&N and Smashwords start actually communicating with each other faster than the Platte runs in September (or molasses in January for my southern fried friends). In fact, I might just start participating in their periodic giveaway and monetizing programs.
“It’s not personal. It’s business.” — Michael Corleone, The Godfather
Genevieve Dewey 