Today only, my short story “Always Stop for Funer­als” is FREE for Kin­dle on Amazon.com.

In this short story, a teenager nar­rowly avoids get­ting abducted and that close call affects her sum­mer (and her psy­che). Even though she’s in no dan­ger, she can’t help but com­pare her­self to the miss­ing girl.

As a spe­cial treat, the free down­load con­tains an excerpt from my col­lec­tion of short sto­ries The Heav­i­est Cor­ner on Earth.

Hey all, this Thurs­day and Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 12 & 13), for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son, I’m offer­ing a spe­cial pro­mo­tion on my col­lec­tion of short sto­ries The Heav­i­est Cor­ner on Earth. For these two days, any­one and every­one can down­load the ebook for FREE from Ama­zon.

Please take advan­tage of this spe­cial pro­mo­tion and get the free ebook while the getting’s good, because this pro­mo­tion won’t last long. Free ebooks aren’t just for Ama­zon Prime mem­bers anymore.

In keep­ing with the theme of new begin­nings and res­o­lu­tions to try new things, this set of links focuses on mak­ing your world a bet­ter place.

My favorite link of the week — The Phone Stack. Brought to us by Kempt, the phone stack is a sim­ple idea that could make a huge impact on the way we inter­act with each other in per­son, while being con­nected to the rest of the world via our devices. At din­ner, every­one stacks their phone on the table face down. The first per­son who answers picks up the tab!

Con­tinue read­ing “Fri­day Links — New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion Edition” »

Wel­come to 2012!! Ama­zon just released its 2011 sales roundup and the #1 and #4 best-selling books for Kin­dle were self-published! This is great news of self-publishers (like myself) because it shows that there’s both a mar­ket and a viable plat­form for pub­lish­ing your own work.

The #1 best-selling book for Kin­dle in 2011 was The Mill River Recluse by Dar­cie Chan. The #4 best­selling book for Kin­dle in 2011 was The Abbey by Chris Cul­ver. Both books were pub­lished using Kin­dle Direct Pub­lish­ing, Amazon’s self-publishing platform.

Con­tinue read­ing “Self-Published Books Top Amazon’s 2011 Best-sellers” »

The video above comes to us via Kobo by way of Ebook Friendly, and though it’s obvi­ously meant to sell Kobo read­ers, the video is actu­ally a great intro­duc­tion to eread­ers in general.

The won­der­ful folks over at Brain Pick­ings put together a roundup of 7 great book trail­ers. The post went up way back in April, but since I’m start­ing to think about cre­at­ing a trailer for my upcom­ing young adult novel Dar­win, Singer, this post caught my eye. Think I’ll be able to get Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis for my trailer?

Con­tinue read­ing “Fri­day Links: Videos and Cook­ies Edition” »

When I started work­ing on this post, it was going to be a long screed that told the tale of how I came to pub­lish my col­lec­tion of short sto­ries in ebook form. But that screed was going to be con­vo­luted, mean­der­ing and pos­si­bly nonsensical.

Instead, I think a list bet­ter serves this topic. I love lists. Bul­let points excite me. Besides, short and sweet is often the best for­mat through which to con­vey infor­ma­tion, so here we go. What I did over sum­mer vaca­tion Why I Decided to Self-Publish My Book:

Con­tinue read­ing “Why I Decided to Self-Publish My Book” »

With the new year fast approach­ing, everyone’s think­ing about the future, and the world of pub­lish­ing isn’t immune. Fortykey put together a great roundup of trends in the worlds of paper books, e-readers and book­stores now and for the future.

The Mil­lions shares some gift ideas for the writer in your life—items like lip­stick, a bathrobe or a man­i­cure. The list is obvi­ously geared toward the lady writ­ers in your life, but the main idea applies to male writ­ers, too. As beau­ti­ful as leather-bound jour­nals are, they’ll never get used in any way other than as a chai tea (or bour­bon) coaster.

Con­tinue read­ing “Fri­day Links” »

Ama­zon sent this email out to Kin­dle pub­lish­ers today…

We’re excited to intro­duce KDP Select — a new option ded­i­cated to KDP authors and pub­lish­ers world­wide, fea­tur­ing a fund of $500,000 in Decem­ber 2011 and at least $6 mil­lion in total for 2012!  KDP Select gives you a new way to earn roy­al­ties, reach a broader audi­ence, and use a new set of pro­mo­tional tools.

 

Here’s how KDP Select works:

Con­tinue read­ing “Kin­dle Direct Pub­lish­ing Announces <span class=“caps”>KDP</span> Select” »

Attend­ing work­shops and talk­ing about ebooks with read­ers and book­sellers had led me to real­ize many folks just don’t really know that much about ebooks or they have mis­con­cep­tions about the world of epub­lish­ing. Well, here’s my attempt to explain this rev­o­lu­tion­ary tech­nol­ogy and clear up some com­mon myths about ebooks.

What is an ebook? An ebook is an elec­tronic book. Obvi­ously. But it’s also much more. Ebooks can do most every­thing a paper book can do plus other fun stuff. But before we delve into that, let’s talk about what they can’t do. Con­tinue read­ing “Ebook School: The Basics” »

My first col­lec­tion of short sto­ries is now avail­able for pur­chase world­wide! The Heav­i­est Cor­ner on Earth just went up for sale online at Ama­zon and Barnes & Noble for only $2.99!

I’m cur­rently work­ing on get­ting the book into the iBook­store and prep­ping it for print on demand–check the blog often for updates!!

In honor of this aus­pi­cious occa­sion, I’m offer­ing a short story out of the col­lec­tion as a free down­load right here on my blog!

Con­tinue read­ing “<span class=“quo”>‘</span>The Heav­i­est Cor­ner on Earth’ eBook Now Available!” »