My Freakout, Your Free Reads

So, here's the deal. After a restful week of visiting friends, working around the house and doing my best to piss off the literati establishment, it's back-to-school time here in lovely Marietta, Georgia. Since we also just voted to have Sunday alcohol sales (in the afternoon only - no drinking in church), parents in these parts have multiple reasons to celebrate.

I have mixed feelings today, because both Monkey and my little Fozzie Bear are going to preschool three days a week starting this fall. It's a wonderful little religious preschool where Monkey has always been happy and Fozzie is going to be snuggled and kissed all day, so I know they'll be fine, but somehow it's so much harder dropping my baby off in a new place than just sneaking out the front door while he's playing with the nanny in our living room. I'm getting more time to work, and write, which is great and empowering. But still.

How do I handle mixed feelings? Well, it's too early in the day for vodka (or at least, too early to publicly admit to drinking vodka), so I've decided to distract myself with a free book promo. Or two.

That's right, my lovelies. Both books, free, now. today and tomorrow only (until midnight-ish Tuesday the 14th), you can download The Marriage Pact free for your kindle AND Regrets Only, the sequel. If I had a third book, I'd give that one away, too, just for fun, but I haven't started writing that one yet. So this is going to have to tide you over for a while!

Think of it as my back-to-school gift to you. Or an end-of-summer gift for those of you who haven't started back yet. Or a "this doesn't impact me" gift for those who don't have kids in school. Think of it however you'd like, just download, read and enjoy, and please do post honest reviews about either or both if you get the chance.

In the meantime, I'm just going to curl up with a couple of my kids' stuffed animals and have a good cry. And maybe just one screwdriver, for courage.

Get The Marriage Pact here (normally 99 cents): http://www.amazon.com/The-Marriage-Pact-ebook/dp/B0055LH79Q/

Get Regrets Only here (normally $2.99): http://www.amazon.com/Regrets-Only-ebook/dp/B008QD09P4/

I'm predicting there will be very few promos for Regrets Only, so share the love with others while you can!

xoxox,
M.J.

And Our Kindles Shall Grow Fat on Freebies

Well, my experiment with amazon's new KDP Select program is going gangbusters. At this writing, it's been a little over 24 hours since I put The Marriage Pact on free promotion. There have been 15,279 downloads so far, and TMP is at the top of the Kindle Contemporary Fiction List. It's Number 6 on the Free Kindle list overall.

Amazon updates those rankings hourly, so by the time I finish this blog (especially with my sweet little interruptions), it may have changed. Still, as a first-time author, it is an absolute thrill to know that something I've written is in the hands of more than fifteen thousand people. And to be at the top of any best"seller" category is something I wouldn't have dreamed of a few months ago.

Please pardon the Oscar speech. I'm humbled by the experience and grateful to everyone who has participated so far. My friends and family, as well as loads of Twitter followers, have been downloading and spreading the word with enthusiasm. I also want to send a particular shout of gratitude to my amazing mother-in-law. Neither of my parents is alive to share these little moments of triumph with me anymore, but she took the ball and ran with it last night. We were on the phone half the evening, and it was like watching election returns come in. There's a reason Hubs is such an amazing man. End of Oscar speech.

Not only have I been promoting my own book lately, I've been taking advantage of the opportunities these free promotions are offering. I have seen some really interesting books come across the Twitterverse for free -- independent authors promoting horror, mystery, suspense, sci-fi, fantasty, etc. And of course, contemporary fiction like mine. I love taking advantage of the opportunity to download some of these for lots of reasons.

For starters, it's a chance to support other authors, which is a no-brainer. My kindle is getting fat and happy and I will soon have enough free reading material to get me all the way through the summer. And maybe next summer, too. :)

But it also allows me the opportunity to download, risk-free, books from a variety of authors and genres -- maybe even those I wouldn't normally explore. I'm not a huge fantasy person, for example, but I do love a good story and I respect that sci-fi and fantasy authors have the enormous task of creating whole new worlds - with rules and places and languages - in addition to the usual writing tasks of plot, character and conflict.

I think it's good for writers to read lots in their own genre, to understand what works and what doesn't. Obviously, you probably aren't writing in a particular genre if you don't already like to read it. But other genres can teach us a good bit about the craft of writing: details, suspense, language, emotions... the list goes on. Good writing is good writing. I'm happy to find it and learn from it wherever I can. And if I get hooked on a suspense or fantasy series in the process, so much the better for me and my writing.

It's not clear what kind of impact the KDP Select program will have on reading and writing, but it certainly will be a venue for many independent authors to go from unknown to less unknown. The strength of our stories and honing of craft will have to carry us from there.

Again, thank you to everyone who has downloaded, forwarded, tweeted, and taken a chance on my little book. I hope you enjoy Marci's adventures and will be awaiting the sequel featuring Suzanne this summer. Feel free to join the email list if you want to be notified when it comes out.

PS - For those who are curious, the number of downloads is now up to 15939. Incredible.