WHY MY BOOKS ARE FREE: I am proud of my books. I think I often tell stories that folks haven't heard before. Oh, I'm a sucker for a frothy romance or a titillating "who dunnit", but at the end of the day, my plots–they often don't seem to fall into any particular category. And I’m proud of that.
So, I am not giving my stories away because I think they have no value–but rather because the greatest value they could have for me is to make myself believe in myself again. That will happen by people reading my stories and reacting, and that is most likely to happen if I just give them away. I am getting old; most days, I feel older than Yoda's mother (but not as wise), and I have been thinking a lot about my legacy. I would rather create an audience by making my books freely accessible than by trying to stack up some gold dubloons to put towards my headstone.
Yes, yes, many people just download freebies and never look at them. But I am willing to bet that people will take a glance at the first page of whichever of my novels appeals to them the most. . . (A down and out homeless Hollywood producer seeking sobrirty justice? A dystopian take on the Pied Piper's tale? A man hit by lightning at his brother's funeral who can now read the date of your death dancing above your head? Or how about the story of a man who figures out how to inject a woman's soul into a vintage of wine?) . . . And I bet that if bookish folks are intrigued by the one paragraph pitch, they might just read the rest of the book. Cool., huh?
So what is in it for me? Let's not tapdance:
1. I NEED EYES ON ME: Because thousands of dollars worth of museum pieces were stolen from our storage unit, I am going after corruption in the tiny town where I live, and I believe that could put me in danger. Even if it's just having all of our shop windows broken, which happened before when I took action, costing me thousands. That is, if it does not devolve into physical attacks.
2. Giving away the books will get a lot of people to my websites, and I would like to use that platform to advocate for and champion my causes: Committing Random Acts of Kindness (on a regular basis), sober living, animal rescue.
3. Small, tertiary point: I might actually start to believe in myself again. For over thirty years, most of my adult life, I have been working on this museum. Thieves in town broke into our storage unit and destroyed all that. And my hope for the future along with it.
–some of you may take an interest in my museums (there's more than one), and based on what happened to their contents, I might be encouraged to make repairs, replace AWOL items, and take on some scary authority figures.
But I CANNOT take on authority figures without eyes on me. Piss off the wrong people, and physical violence as retribution is the least of your worries. You need to think also about things like broken store windows and multiple police stops/harassment for no reason.
I am not making this up. I save my fabulism for my fiction.
So, I will make a deal with the world. For now, my work is free: half a dozen fiction books, three audiobooks, three non-fiction books, a ridiculously accurate self-help book called "Ten Terrible Truths About Men". All of that, and some damn fine blogging. The books alone would cost you about ten or twenty bucks, and that is if I put their price at .99 cents on Amazon. (Stupid Jeff Bezos now limits authors to uploading a mere THREE BOOKS A DAY–TO FIGHT A.I.!! 11,000 new books a day on Amazon, high end estimate. How can I compete with the results of that twisted logic?
So. Free books! All I ask of you is that you click on my website once in a while, to see if I am O.K. as I take on my town--but hey, with a dozen free offerings, you'd probably click on my site anyway, yeah?
Let's face it, as an unknown name in the book world, I would probably make very little money. However, as a fine writer giving away their work and recruiting the help of influencers, I have a chance of not dying in a state of complete anonymity. I prefer my anonymity in the Little Brown Church, Monday nights at 7, where for an hour, we all read the same book.
So, I am not giving my stories away because I think they have no value–but rather because the greatest value they could have for me is to make myself believe in myself again. That will happen by people reading my stories and reacting, and that is most likely to happen if I just give them away. I am getting old; most days, I feel older than Yoda's mother (but not as wise), and I have been thinking a lot about my legacy. I would rather create an audience by making my books freely accessible than by trying to stack up some gold dubloons to put towards my headstone.
Yes, yes, many people just download freebies and never look at them. But I am willing to bet that people will take a glance at the first page of whichever of my novels appeals to them the most. . . (A down and out homeless Hollywood producer seeking sobrirty justice? A dystopian take on the Pied Piper's tale? A man hit by lightning at his brother's funeral who can now read the date of your death dancing above your head? Or how about the story of a man who figures out how to inject a woman's soul into a vintage of wine?) . . . And I bet that if bookish folks are intrigued by the one paragraph pitch, they might just read the rest of the book. Cool., huh?
So what is in it for me? Let's not tapdance:
1. I NEED EYES ON ME: Because thousands of dollars worth of museum pieces were stolen from our storage unit, I am going after corruption in the tiny town where I live, and I believe that could put me in danger. Even if it's just having all of our shop windows broken, which happened before when I took action, costing me thousands. That is, if it does not devolve into physical attacks.
2. Giving away the books will get a lot of people to my websites, and I would like to use that platform to advocate for and champion my causes: Committing Random Acts of Kindness (on a regular basis), sober living, animal rescue.
3. Small, tertiary point: I might actually start to believe in myself again. For over thirty years, most of my adult life, I have been working on this museum. Thieves in town broke into our storage unit and destroyed all that. And my hope for the future along with it.
–some of you may take an interest in my museums (there's more than one), and based on what happened to their contents, I might be encouraged to make repairs, replace AWOL items, and take on some scary authority figures.
But I CANNOT take on authority figures without eyes on me. Piss off the wrong people, and physical violence as retribution is the least of your worries. You need to think also about things like broken store windows and multiple police stops/harassment for no reason.
I am not making this up. I save my fabulism for my fiction.
So, I will make a deal with the world. For now, my work is free: half a dozen fiction books, three audiobooks, three non-fiction books, a ridiculously accurate self-help book called "Ten Terrible Truths About Men". All of that, and some damn fine blogging. The books alone would cost you about ten or twenty bucks, and that is if I put their price at .99 cents on Amazon. (Stupid Jeff Bezos now limits authors to uploading a mere THREE BOOKS A DAY–TO FIGHT A.I.!! 11,000 new books a day on Amazon, high end estimate. How can I compete with the results of that twisted logic?
So. Free books! All I ask of you is that you click on my website once in a while, to see if I am O.K. as I take on my town--but hey, with a dozen free offerings, you'd probably click on my site anyway, yeah?
Let's face it, as an unknown name in the book world, I would probably make very little money. However, as a fine writer giving away their work and recruiting the help of influencers, I have a chance of not dying in a state of complete anonymity. I prefer my anonymity in the Little Brown Church, Monday nights at 7, where for an hour, we all read the same book.