WIN A KINDLE!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, to share the fun and my good fortune I’ll be giving away a latest-generation Kindle. How to get in on this, you ask? Easy—this might take some of you back to the really old days of supermarket giveaways: in 25 words or less, tell me why you want an e-reader (seemingly the fastest growing segment of this moment’s technology). See--easy!!

The contest will run from November 1 to November 10, 2010. Winners will be announced no later than November 15. I’ll post the winner’s name on my website, and you’ll be famous!

So put your creativity to work and send me your entry at alexis@alexisharrington.com.

Someone will win! It could be you!

For A Limited Time--Don't Miss Out on a 99-Cent Book!

For a limited time this week, don't miss the chance to snap up this e-book for 99 cents!

Even ultra-picky Mrs. Giggles gave this one an 87.
For your Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/2g5mtp6
For your other e-reader: http://tinyurl.com/233puxa

Don't miss out!

$2.99 or $3.99: What’s the Deal?

After I published my backlist online and it had been there a while, I determined that readers want reasonable prices on e-books (duh, makes great sense) and I made the decision to sell my books for $2.99, across the board. New titles, older titles, one price—$2.99. It's fair and it  worked for all parties involved, including me.

My books are available through two primary distributors, Kindle and Smashwords. Smashwords also acts as a clearinghouse, distributing my books to Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Apple and Diesel. Here’s where things got sticky.

If you buy my books directly from Kindle you’ll pay $2.99. But those other distributors that Smashwords works with can set whatever price they choose. So, for example, Barnes & Noble discounts my books by 20% and was selling them for $2.39. Several other sites also discount my books by varying amounts, sometimes taking the price as low as $2.19. The problem worsens because Amazon will not be under sold, so they have a web crawler out there looking for the lowest price, which they will match. It may not sound like a lot of money, but believe me, it is. For a good example of what kind of difference it can make, go see what Joe Konrath has to say at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/09/ebook-pricing.html.

Although I didn’t want to change anything, to even things out I raised my sale price at Smashwords (and therefore, the other stores) to 3.99. Now the books are discounted to $3.19, a bit more than $2.99 but close enough to be fair. I’m not making more money—don’t forget, everyone else gets their cut before I am paid—but just about the same.

So if you’ve been baffled by the disparity, I hope this answers the question.

Back to Real Life

SoCal was great fun, if too hot, and I didn’t get to see or do half of what I’d hoped. But for now I’ve returned to Real Life and the Magic Kingdom is another memory in my camera.

I’m thrilled and honored that so many of you are enjoying the second life of my backlist. It sat in rumpled brown shopping bags of used bookstores for a long time. Now a whole new set of readers has come along to make use of technology that has freed those books from their dingy prisons. Yay for that!

To thank all of you who have given these books new life—and those of you who will—I’m going to help matters along. In November, I’ll be giving away a latest-generation Kindle. Details to follow in a few weeks.

For the time being, I’m busy working on several projects that are nagging me for my attention. Besides writing, I’m putting together a trailer that I hope will soon debut on YouTube. More to come about that too!