Tag Archives: Dancing in Heaven

Many Books – featured author of the day

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I’d like to thank ManyBooks.net for selecting me as the featured author today. They posted a nice article about me complete with pictures, even one of my writing desk (which looks a little chaotic, I might add.) Of course, I took the picture and sent it to them. I wanted it to be mostly realistic. I say mostly, because usually my work area looks more cluttered than this. You can see the photo and read the interview at ManyBooks.

Me and Annie ~1959

Me and Annie, 1959, after Annie’s testing. The staff at the hospital shaved Annie’s hair. My mom cut mine. It looks like she set a bowl on my head, but I think the truth is that she stuck a piece of scotch tape straight across my forehead and cut below it.

The article leads off with this photo of me and Annie taken in 1959. This was after my parents had taken Annie to Columbus Children’s Hospital for testing because she was over a year old and wasn’t yet able to sit up. They shaved her hair to do the test. It was a very difficult test for everyone involved. I describe it in more detail in Dancing in Heaven.

Today is Annie’s birthday. She would have been 58, a year younger than me. Her first birthday, after she was gone, we celebrated the day at my parents’ house. Mom had a helium balloon for Annie, because she loved them. In subsequent years, I always made sure to call Mom to acknowledge the day. Now that both of my parents have joined Annie, I decided to acknowledge her birthday this year with a Kindle Countdown deal. Dancing in Heaven  (Kindle version) will be on sale for 99cents today. If you haven’t read it yet, this is a good opportunity to get it at a bargain price.

If you have read it, or do read it, I hope you will let me know by leaving a short review at Amazon and here as a comment on the Dancing in Heaven book page, I will answer any questions you might have if I am able. Feel free to ask in a comment. Or you can contact me at my Facebook page Christine M. Grote.

 

 

Using Amazon’s KDP Program to Greatest Advantage

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I recently attended the Mad Anthony Writer’s Conference held in Hamilton, Ohio, where award-winning writer Bob Hostetler, and Jane Friedman, renown strategist for authors and publishers, were presenters. Over time I hope to share some of the wisdom about writing and publishing that I learned from them. The following is a tip from Jane Friedman, and what she says many authors do.

If you are in the KDP Select program, run your book for free for 5 days every three months without fail.

Amazon offers the KDP Select program to authors as a tool to promote your Kindle book on a Countdown Deal or as a free promotion for five days every three months. In return, if you enroll in the KDP Select program, you have to remove your e-book from all other sales channels and sell exclusively on Amazon for the three-month period of enrollment.

I began debating whether or not to enroll in this program in January of 2012 a few months after I published my first book, Dancing in Heaven. I debated the issue for a while, but was bothered by the exclusivity. Not because I was going to lose a lot of sales. The vast percentage of book sales came from Amazon. But I had a philosophical, or maybe ethical, problem with participating in what was clearly an effort on Amazon’s part to corner the market of e-books, which they have largely done without my participation, anyway.

This January I decided to try the KDP Select program with my second book, Where Memories Meet-Reclaiming my father after Alzheimer’s. I was having trouble getting the word out about the book, and I wanted to do a Countdown deal on Amazon that I could advertise through various other websites. I actually sold a lot of books on the days the price was reduced and the book was marketed. But I did not realize a lasting increase in my sales, and don’t expect to. I’m planning to take Jane’s advice and put it up for free for five days next month around Father’s Day. And I may cycle it through five free days every three months for a while.

I suspect some, perhaps many, of the customers who download a free book don’t read it. But I also think some will. At least it is a way to generate a little conversation online and get the book out and into readers’ hands. If I’m not really selling a lot of books anyway, I don’t have much to lose.

I have since put Dancing in Heaven on KDP Select and plan a Countdown to run beginning on my sister Annie’s birthday, May 17th, when the book will be priced at $0.99. I’m over the philosophical/ethical dilemma, at least for now. I’m not really supporting a monopoly, when no one was visiting the other sites to buy the book anyway.

I don’t know how long I will stick with the KDP Select program for either book, but for now, thank you Jane Friedman, for the tip.