The Smashwords.com e-book-selling website kicks off its holiday sale today. It's an opportunity for authors to offer their wares at a reduced price. And, man, I couldn't have reduced mine any more without having to pay you to read them. I haven't gotten that desperate for readers yet.
While I first offer my books at Amazon, because that's where something like 75 percent of e-books are purchased, I eventually (after the contract allows) slide all my e-books over to Smashwords. I sell vastly more books on Smashwords than Amazon, which seems odd. But it's probably because that's where I started with my first book. It's where I have my most loyal following, if you'd call it a following. (It's somewhere between David Koresh and Jim Jones.)
And they do a better job of promoting independent authors. Amazon sticks to promoting Koontz and Patterson; and the Haugens of the world are dismissed as mostly an annoyance.
Smashwords also treats the authors better. For a 2 dollar book, Smashwords keeps about 40 cents, with the rest going to the author. Amazon is about opposite that. So I remain loyal to Smashwords and have sold over 1,200 books there and given away about 5,000 free downloads. Not enough to let me quit my day job but enough to feel appreciated. And you can get them in about all formats, not just for Kindle.
On top of all that craziness, this week I made the second Bags Morton book available on Smashwords. So you can "buy" the first one of the series, Bags of Bodies, and "buy" the second one, Bags of Rock, for the same price. All free!
So you might be asking yourself: "Self, has Haugen lost his damn mind?" Maybe so. But I'm about gaining readers, not Benjamins. And there's always the possibility that the third and fourth books of the Bags Morton series will come out in 2021, and you'll be hooked on the Bags books like meth and need to buy more. That's when I'll jack the price up to an entire $1.99 and will be rolling in greenbacks in my bed, laughing like Elon Musk must do every night. Bags, like love, is a drug and you'll be hooked on him and I'll be rich. It's a win-win for everyone.
And they thought I was crazy. Pffft.
All you need to do to begin this addiction is to go HERE and sign up if you haven't already. Download the books with the code, LR74Y, and let the hallucinations begin.
But seriously, kids, don't do drugs, unless they're books. Then do lots of them.
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