Musings of Two Creative Minds

Some months back, I talked about Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited and how I did not feel comfortable about having my e-books available exclusively in Kindle form.  For those unfamiliar with what was discussed, here's  a quick explanation.  In order to be part of Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited, your book cannot be available in any other e-book format (Nook, Sony, Apple, etc.).  This of course means your the e-version of your book cannot be up for sale through Smashwords, Nook, and other e-formats.  This did not rub me the right way at the time, but since then there as been no activity for either of my books through Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, or other outlets besides Amazon in spite of a lot of promoting on my part. But then another disturbing trend began to appear.  I started seeing my books selling on Amazon and I began hoping this meant a growing trend in sales.  However, there was a problem.  In spite of the sales I was not s...

First off, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year's Eve.  We've gotten through another year, and I hope that whatever you do to celebrate tonight, please be safe. This past year has been another interesting one, especially with the release of the second novel in my Para-Earth Series.  "The Ship" has gotten a number of 5 star reviews and has been hailed as better its predecessor "The Bridge".  Although both are connected, each novel stands on its own and can be sampled for free at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  For those wondering, I've made the first 30 pages of each novel available for sampling (that's right, I don't skimp). I also created a new blog titled "The Vampyre Blogs - Private Edition" (link:  http://thevampyreblogs.blogspot.com/ ), which serves as a preview of my next venture into the Para-Earth Series.  On this blog you can meet my first vampyre character, who shares many strengths and weakness of th...

Recently, I tried to get some new reviews for my two novels on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  I even offered free Read-2-Review copies of the books to anyone who wanted to do a review.  The results... not a single bite. I couldn't believe it.  Giving away "FREE" copies of a book in exchange for an honest review is usually one of the very best methods known to get some reviews for a book.  But I wasn't getting any takers.  In fact I actually heard back from a few people who had read the books and loved them.  Yet when I asked if they would be kind enough to leave a review this is what I kept hearing from a number of them.. "I love to read, but I don't know what to say in if someone asks me to review their book..." Does this sound familiar to anyone else out there?  If it does, don't be embarrassed.  A lot of people feel that way.  Some don't know what to put down because they see all these other reviews that are li...

Well, as you all know last month I did my first free promo on Amazon, where 400 people snatched up their own Kindle copy of my paranormal/mystery "THE BRIDGE".    Now, one of the things that inspired me to take that risk was the fact that I'd read in many different articles and blogs, that such a promo could help actual paying sales.  Those who grabbed a copy start spreading the word about how much they liked the book and tell others to get their own copy.  I can safely say, I've seen a slight increase in the number of actual purchased copies of the book, but nothing astronomical.  So this last weekend I did a special .99 cent promotion which netted about 5 or 6 sales total and that's all.  Now a number of you may be thinking, "Wow, that wasn't very impressive."  And you'd be right.  But, it's about what I expected because, "THE BRIDGE" is my first book.  I'm still an unknown author.  I did try and foster a following in adv...