More on My Latest Book Promotion

I gave away a bunch of  books during my recent promotion of ALIEN BONDS,  but interesly, this didn't have a lot of impact on sales afterwards. It did, however, noticeably increase my Kindle Unlimited borrows for the Wakanreo trilogy. All three books are still doing better, in fact,

I think this must relate to how sales (in this case, during the promotion) affect what is recommended to customers. I'm thinking that the buying history of anyone who bought my books during the promotion would prompt KU borrowers to see, "People who read this also read. . ." with ALIEN BONDS included on the list. And since the entire trilogy is in KU, all three of them have been doing better.

And with long books like this, I actually make more money on a borrow than a sale. 

My Latest Book Promotion

This one is for other authors, as it's about giving away books. Why would anyone give away their books? Well, if you write in a series, giving away the first book can yield good sales on the sequels.

 I recently made ALIEN BONDS, the first book in the Wakanreao trilogy, free for several days.The free period started on last Thursday, and I paid for a book slot in two mailing services that are free to readers and offer free or cheap ebooks: Book Gorilla and Ereader News Today. The entry for ALIEN BONDS ran in BG on the Friday, and in ENT on the Saturday. Both promotions did reasonably well., with almost identical numbers.

All together I gave away 1,353 Kindle copies of ALIEN BONDS in the 5 days it was free. The first day, before the promo ran, I tweeted and posted in FB about it. That yielded 21 copies given away. The next day the BG promo ran and I gave away 574 copies. Then on Saturday the ENT promo ran and yielded 578 copies. Some of that total could be from the influence of the earlier promo, because on Saturday with no promo I gave away 125 copies. 

By Friday evening, ALIEN BONDS had risen through the rankings to this.

And on Saturday it reached this:

So, being #2 in Kindle science fiction romances probably helped the giveaway, too. There were 55 copies given away on Monday, the last day it was free, and  also 4 copies on Tuesday that snuck in because any Amazon promotion to make the book free ends on Pacific Standard time so there were a few hours that it was still free in some places. 

It was also interesting to see where the copies were going.  Here's the country list:

Pretty  much as expected. Only Canada, the UK and Germany made double digits. It was interesting that Germany beat out English-speaking Australia. 

Now, of course, I have to wait and see how it goes for sales of ALIEN VOWS and ALIEN SKIES, books 2 and 3 of my Wakanreao series. 

ALIEN BONDS is free for a few days!

To celebrate the completion of the Wakanreo trilogy I  have made ALIEN BONDS, the first book in the trilogy, free for a few days. From Thursday, November 14, 2019, 12:00 AM PST to Monday, November 18, 2019, 11:59 PM PST the Kindle version will be free on Amazon.

If you don't already have it, get your copy now! And don't forget the whole trilogy is free in kindle unlimited, too1

A story of two very different people from two very different cultures, a sort of AVATAR combined with PRIDE & PREJUDICE. In ALIEN BONDS, two lives are changed in an instant. Industrial chemist Dina Bellaire travels all the way to the planet Wakanreo to advance her career. Her carefully planned life goes up in flames the second she meets Kuaron Du, a Wakanrean who makes his living singing ancient songs in a dead language. Both of them know they can’t go back to the way they were before they met. They just have to convince the rest of the universe that what happened to them is real.

ALIEN SKIES is now available in paperback!

The paperback version of Alien Skies is now for sale on Amazon!  The Kindle version is still on pre-order with a release date of October 29. Amazon has not yet linked the two versions, so click here to buy the paperback.

This means the trilogy is now complete! As of October 29, all three book will be  free in Kindle Unlimited. 

ALIEN SKIES is available for pre-order!

It has taken much longer than anticipated to get Alien Skies ready to launch, but it's finally ready! The trilogy is complete! You can pre-order the Kindle version here. The Kindle version is, like the rest of the trilogy, free in Kindle Unlimited. The paperback will be out about the same time, but no link is available yet. because Amazon does not support pre-order for paperbacks. Also, at the moment they are having trouble displaying the cover image for pre-order Kindle books but they assured me they are working on it. The cover is below, in any event.

Alien Bonds was very much Dina's story, and Alien Vows was Yulayan's. All the characters are in the final book, but this story belongs mostly to Kamuhi,. Here's the back cover blurb:

 Wakanreo was not always a safe place for a half-Wakanrean—

Or for a human married to a half-Wakanrean. Unfortunately, it was where Kamuhi Hailoaka had been posted by ThreeCon. He and Yulayan work at being married and being parents on the only world in the galaxy where the dominant species mate for life. They deal with the usual obstacles to two strong-willed individuals making decisions together, but Wakanreo has some extra challenges, even dangers.  

Kamuhi finds this out the hard way when they attend Yulayan’s grandfather’s funeral. Their toddler daughter starts to fuss, so Kamuhi takes her outside for some air. He returns to find his father-in-law and his-brother-in-law lying unconscious on the steps. Worse than that, Yulayan has been abducted.

Now Kam has to figure out how to get her back!

The Last Giveaway!

Amazon is shutting down their giveaway feature. so I am running one last giveaway. I have made 10 copies of ALIEN BONDS free!

Click here to enter!

Don't wait! They're going fast!  

ALL COPIES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED! 

Another guest blog post

Today I am guest blogging on Vicki Bateman's blog.   My post is part of her Book & Bag series where writers discuss their favorite handbag and also their book. I wrote about my current purse and about the first Wakanreo novel,  ALIEN BONDS.

A literary time machine!

No it's not science fiction!  It's not fiction at all. I recently read and enjoyed One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson.

This was like a literary time machine! I had read a couple of Bryson's books but they were not about a period of time. This was an amazing deep dive into life before television, computers, the internet, or so many other things we take for granted. Even radio was really just getting started.

Bryson focuses on the summer of 1927, especially on Charles Lindburgh's solo flight across the Atlantic, Babe Ruth's career, boxing, baseball, politics, and some events I had never heard of, such as a scandalous murder trial. I learned a lot, and I was entertained at the same time. 

The narrative jumps around a bit; I did wish the publisher had enabled the Kindle's X-Ray feature because people would be described in one chapter and reappear chapters later, and I didn't always remember their details. The X-Ray feature on the Kindle is great for this kind of thing but a lot of publishers just don't care about the ebook version. The footnotes were not formatted as links, ether, which made them much less helpful because you only read them when you got to the end of the chapter. If you read the ebook version, all the illustrations are at the end, so be sure you keep paging through as they are interesting. 

I don't generally read much nonfiction. I like a story, with a plot and characters I can relate to, but I loved this book! 

p.s. The Kindle version is really cheap right now! Only $1.99!

Guest blog post!

I have a guest post on Delilah Devlin's blog. The post is all about how I came to write Alien Bonds.

Delilah Devlin is a perfect name for  science fiction romance writer! Check our her blog if you like steamy SFR.

Smashwords Sale!

It's July, which means Smashwords summer sale is on. All my books for sale through Smashwords are either half price or free!

Check it out!