Thanks so much to Sally Cronin for giving my novelette a shout-out! Please check out her post! 😀
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Tag Archives: books
Thank you!
I want to express my deepest gratitude to all who have bought and shared my novelette, All Good Stories. I’m truly grateful for this WordPress community, and I’m humbled by the outpouring of love and caring I’ve found here, from friends and strangers alike. Since I posted my plea for help, I’ve sold 79 copies and gone from #1,600,000 on the Kindle Paid Best Seller List to #14,376, which is awesome. More importantly than that, I’ve doubled the number of reviews on Amazon.com to six. Only 19 to go to reach that magic number where Amazon begins to promote my book!
I’m still hoping to reach $100 in royalties, which means 350 sales; Amazon only pays me 35 cents on a 99 cent book. It seems an insurmountable goal, but maybe it’s not. If you haven’t shared this post yet, please do so. Any social media will do. And if you have read the book, please take the time to write a review. Just five minutes of your time is invaluable to me. It only needs to be a sentence.
You can find my original post here: https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/25/im-out/ and here are the links for the book, as well as my Goodreads page:
Amazon.com (U.S.A.) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JQWMQAE
Amazon.ca (Canada) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01JQWMQAE
Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01JQWMQAE
Amazon.com.au (Australia) https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01JQWMQAE
and on Amazon, in English, almost everywhere else in the world, as well as
Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/ebook/all-good-stories
Linda on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15577348.Linda_G_Hill
Thank you so very much. 🙂
100 Books To Read Before You Die Challenge
Stephanie has posted a list of 100 books – how many have you read? I only have 31 1/2 under my belt – I didn’t finish the Narnia series. So many here I want to read and reread!
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So I’ve been tinkering with Pinterest lately – that’s what happens when you’re on sick leave and can’t concentrate long enough to do anything really productive – and I found a few lists of 100 books one should read before they die.
I picked this one list just because it doesn’t separate series into multiple books (as in Harry Potter series has one spot instead of HP 1, HP 2…); I merely switched CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (included in The Chronicles of Narnia) for The Hunger Games since the latter was on every other list I found and Shakespeare’s Hamlet (obviously included in Complete works) for The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho for the same reason.
Since this list is apparently dating back to 2003 it’s certainly missing some good books from the past decade but well… I need to stop at one point.
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#SoCS – Accumulation
When I think of all the things I’ve accumulated in my life, aside from dust-bunnies, the first thing that comes to mind is words. It fascinates me that we can express so much with such a small combination of possibilities. 26 letter comprise our alphabet, but oh, how many ways they can be arranged!
I love the idea of painting a picture with words. I’ve always wanted to be able to produce art. However, even my stick figures are hardly believable as humans. I once found an instruction on how to draw a sitting cat, when I was about 7 years old. I drew that cat everywhere, until I managed to forget how. For a while I had an intense obsession with dragons. Probably around the time I first read The Hobbit. I drew them everywhere as well. I think I stopped around the time I got a tattoo of one. I still love me a good dragon though.
I tend to accumulate books. I can’t bear to give them up, in case I ever want to read them again. In actuality, my to-be-read pile is so high that there’s not likely any chance I’ll get back to them. I can’t imagine how many shelves I’d need if it wasn’t for ebooks. I do still love paperbacks though. Not only are they more fun to collect, they’re easier on the eyes after a day of being on the internet. And writing, of course. Accumulating my words.
This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link to find out how you, too, can join in the fun! https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-316/
What Makes You Buy a Book?
As a subtitle to this post, I should write, “And What Turns You Off?”
The reason I ask: I’ve been told by the experts that I should be “spamming” my friends on my blog, and on all other social media, in order to entice everyone to buy my new novelette, All Good Stories. I told the experts, but I don’t want to do that to my precious blogland friends! but the experts were insistent. “Choose between your friends and your success!” they said. Chanted, really. It was like a waking nightmare until I thought, why don’t I just ask my friends what they think?
So, friends, let’s start with what convinces you to hit that “Buy It Now” button when you’re considering the purchase of the book.
Initially, for me, the cover has a lot to do with it. We do, in fact, judge a book by its cover. The artwork has to be attractive AND hint at what might be inside. It has to make me ask questions. Like, why the parrot? But it’s not only the front! The back (or the blurb in the case of an ebook) is a crucial part of my decision. It not only has to make me want to read the book, it has to be free of errors and give me a hint, through its voice, of what I can expect on the inside.
Reviews and recommendations come next. Even if they’re not jumping off the page to say “This was the best thing ever!” there has to be some consistency to them. For example, “This made me laugh!” and “I chuckled when I read this!”
But then there are those authors who keep on and on and on. Some of us can ignore it, turning it into white noise. I especially tend to disregard an ad if I’ve already bought the All Good Stories book. Then again, seeing “Buy it today!” or “Pre-order now, only 99 cents!” really seems to get under other people’s skin. There has to be a balance! Am I right?
What do you think? What’s most important to you? And would you spend .99¢ to shut me up? (Please see the link at the top right-hand corner of this page.) 😀
#SoCS – Half
I don’t know why I keep buying books. It’s a compulsion. If I spent just half my time reading all the novels I have on shelves, Kindle, and Kobo, I’m sure it would still take me a year to get through them. And don’t even get me started on my to-be-read list of books that I haven’t bought yet.
As it is lately, I seem to be spending half my time on the computer, whether the laptop or working on my novels. I haven’t done a lot of real writing lately, which is why I’m trying to post every day on my fiction blog. …where I don’t have even near half of the traffic I get here. I wonder why that is? I suppose if you click my gravatar it brings you here, rather than there. Have you clicked your gravatar lately? Where does it go? Actually, your gravatar is only half of it. When you click your picture it should take you to a site where you have all your information, and your blogs lined up in a neat clickable row. If you click your name (we’re talking about in the comments section of any given post where you’ve commented, now), it should take you to your main site. It’s frustrating when I want to find someone’s blog but their information isn’t available.
I’m half of a mind to complain to WordPress about the pingbacks not working, but complaining never seems to do anything. I wonder if their own Daily Post blog is suffering, since it relies on the same idea of pingbacks. Anyway, if it’s not fixed half-way between now and Wednesday, I’ll go through the process of bitching about it.
That’s at least half of what I can come up with at the moment. The other half would be forcing it. Happy weekend, all, and don’t forget to manually add your link to the prompt post this week!
This post is part of SoCS. Click here and join us today! https://lindaghill.com/2016/04/08/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-916/
Please Share This! Book Promotion Offer Here!
Authors! Click on the original post for an offer you can’t refuse!
Review – 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
1Q84 was a long, drawn out science fiction tale, seemingly full of extraneous information. The depth of its characters was its saving grace. I’m not sure that I would recommend it for anything but for the experience of reading it. I’m not sure how else to describe it.
Not my favourite Murakami novel, and certainly not the last of his that I’ll read.
Nano Poblano – Day 18: What to do about a Book Sale
Don’t ever let me loose at a used book sale.
There’s more that one bit of good news in this though. The nine books only cost me $21, and the proceeds went to the Alzheimer’s Society.
But while I was browsing the thousands of books for sale that day, I got to thinking: what if I had my book published and gave away copies at events such as the Alzheimer’s book sale? Wouldn’t that be a neat way not only to get my novel out there, but to give to a worthwhile charity at the same time? Heck, I could even sit there and sign them. But then I got to thinking – does that make the sale suddenly more about me than the cause?
What do you think? Should this even be a tough call?
Which Book or Movie Title Describes your Life?
I don’t often post surveys, nor do I usually participate in them. But I came across one that I thought might be fun on Facebook the other day and I thought it might be amusing to pass it along. Kind of.
The Facebook version asked a lot of random questions and came up with the answer for me. However, I lost all respect for it when it posed a question in which I had to choose a “literary character,” one of which was Christian Grey of 50 Shades of Grey fame. 🙄
So instead of posting the actual survey, I thought I’d just ask: If you could choose just one book title (or movie title, I’m not picky) to describe your life as it is right now, what would it be?
I realize you must scroll through the comments to get to the comment box, so try to come up with your answer before you look at the others, so you’re not influenced.
Go!
lindaghill.com 