A New Kind of Online Store

Some industrious authors, including Patricia Ryan and Doranna Durgin (there are others, so please forgive me for leaving them out) have put together a very cool new store!

The Backlist E-Bookstore--http://astore.amazon.com/backlebook-20
Actually, this store includes not only backlist print books that have been converted into e-books, but new, previously unpublished work as well. Our authors include Doranna Durgin, Patricia Ryan/PB Ryan, Deb Baker, Becky Barker, Lorraine Bartlett, Pamela Burford, Marsha Canham, Lillian Stewart Carl, Phoebe Conn, Christina Crooks, Winslow Eliot, Karen Fenech, me, Michele Hauf, Libby Hellmann, Mary Ellen Hughes, Kelly McClymer, Tim Myers, Terry Odell, Beth Orsoff, Ryne Douglas Pearson, Karen Ranney, Patricia Rice, Kathryn Shay, and Laurin Wittig.

Plus, authors are being added all the time. So if you have/want a Kindle—and don’t forget, you can win one from me right here—and would love to get a look at books you might not have read before or would like to see again, come and visit.

We also have a Facebook page http://tinyurl.com/2ecwyk4 that includes up-to-the-minute information about participating authors.

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!

The Traveling Blogger

I came to Los Angeles with a friend who needed to attend a conference (just in time for a record-setting heatwave so that was grand too). I had a couple of things to take care of so it sounded like a great idea in the planning stages. She has a GPS unit for which she downloaded a map update so the nice lady who talks you through traffic and freeway nightmares had the latest information. If you deviate from her kindly instructions, she'll say "Recalculating" and you're on your way again. But the GPS lady takes special pleasure from confusing me if I'm driving alone. Or maybe she gets confused. In any event, both mornings I've dropped off my friend at her conference in Century City and tried to make it back to our hotel--I've gotten trapped on the same cloverleaf both times. Around and around I go while the soothing voice in the unit stuck to the windshield with a suction cup says, "turn right, then turn right." I keep seeing the same street signs--Avenue of the Stars, Olympic Blvd. West, Galaxy, "turn right, then turn right." And I'm trying to travel only a half-mile! My response to her wasn't as soothing and polite.

Finally, after the third time I purposely ventured down to Santa Monica Blvd. and made a few right turns till I got into a dead-end cul-de-sac kind of thing that Fox shares with their neighbors across the street. I thought it might break whatever loop she might have gotten herself (and me) stuck in. "Recalculating." It seemed to have done the trick. After she regathered her wits, I got better directions and saw my hotel in the distance.

Disneyland is the next big destination--I'll be interested to see how that goes.

The Accidental Blogger

Not the most dependable blogger on the net, huh? I got caught up in ongoing family mini-dramas, friends’ major tragedy, a hair-coloring incident that went from wrong to way wrong and has now made me a redhead (despite extensive attempts to change it) and proofreading and brushing up on my high school French. In ’tween times I’ve also been busy writing, trying to stay on top of the rapidly morphing e-book trend, and reading for fun and for my continuing writing education. In addition, I'm updating the covers of my OOP-turned-e-book backlist. I needed a true professional's help; only a couple of the ones I created weren't dog's-butt ugly.

At this moment though, I’m taking a breather to sit down and chat with you. While Josie, my surviving cat, munches down on Whisker Lickin’s salmon treats beside me, I’m savoring the ambrosia of that wonderful Irish treat of my own, Bailey’s.

What I’m reading right now: Catching Fire, the second book of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. It’s a wild ride of danger and survival in a dystopian land that once was America, but now seems more like Nazi Germany with futuristic technology. This is the third YA series I’ve read. If books like these don’t make readers out of young adults, I don’t know what will. They are gripping, imaginative, fully developed stories, genuine page-turners.

On Saturday, I’m going to LA for a brief conference, but I’ll be back in time for the Book Club Babes to ride again. I guess the question of my Halloween costume this year is partially solved. I’ll be going as a red wig.

Stay tuned, most especially as November draws near. I will have a very special surprise for you, a combination holiday gift and a way to thank you for your interest and support.

Now, to get ready for the strip-search and citizenship test one needs to take these days to get on an airplane. This is really a case of the destination being more fun than the getting there!