C.L.R. Dougherty's Blog, page 4

Remember me?

It's been so long since I posted my own thoughts that I feel like I should introduce myself. I'm not going to do it. This is my blog; I started it, and it's still on my web page ... I think.

The crews of Vengeance and Diamantista are busy, so I have a chance to say hello. Charter season is in full swing here in St. Martin. This weekend, the 35th annual Heineken Regatta is taking place. That's a big deal in the yachting world, and in St. Martin in particular.

Several hundred boats show up to vie for space in the already crowded anchorages and marinas. Many of them are medium sized, bareboat charters, hired for the race by groups of refugees from winter. Those are the ones that provide the entertainment; they aren't serious racers, and their antics are always amusing. Then there are the big, crewed charter yachts that are in it for the publicity. They're fun to see; they're sailed by professionals and immaculately maintained -- real showpieces, like this big, dark blue ketch.


There are even a few hardcore racers; they're in it for the competition.  And then there are the crewed charter yachts of all sizes that are hired by people who just want to watch, to be close to the excitement. The Heineken Regatta is to St. Martin as Mardi Gras is to New Orleans -- a big party and a major but welcome disruption to life on the tiny island. Leslie and I have been watching the buildup over the last few weeks.

The chefs from the crewed charter boats have been swarming like locusts around the two gourmet grocery stores, cramming multiple shopping carts with all kinds of goodies to feed their guests. Grocery shopping can be a challenge in the islands under normal circumstances; Heineken Regatta must be a tough time for charter boat chefs like Liz Chirac and Paul Russo.

We haven't seen Paul, but we've had numerous sightings of Liz over the last week or two. In fact, Leslie referred to the shoppers in one of the two big grocery stores as a "swarm of Lizzes" the last time we were there. There were several of them in every aisle: trim, pert-looking young women, their shopping carts overflowing with luxury foods.

They're easy to spot, because they look like Liz Chirac. They're well groomed but not heavily made-up, with moderately short hair. They're in uniform: T-shirts or polo shirts with a line drawing of their yacht on the back and the vessel name over the breast pocket, and those tennis skirt things that are a cross between shorts and skirts. The colors of their uniforms vary, but not much. White, blue, and khaki dominate. They aren't all young, but most are; we suspect that like the infantry, these jobs require the stamina of youth. They aren't all female; there are some male chefs sprinkled through the scene, and they're attired in similar fashion -- with plain shorts, of course -- at least the ones we noticed. But they get lost in the swarms.

We were in a checkout line behind one Liz the other day. She was probably from a smaller luxury charter yacht; she was by herself, with only one overfilled shopping cart. The Lizzes from the bigger boats come in pairs, usually. She was chipper and pleasant to the cashier as she rang up the bulk purchases, as our Liz would have been. She was laughing as she stacked five cartons of cage-free eggs on the conveyor belt with choice cuts of flash-frozen meat, poultry, and seafood. And we mustn't forget the quail eggs. She had a few dozen of those, too.

I'm sure she wondered why the crusty old man (Guess who?) behind her was giving her the eye, especially since his wife was, too. When she turned toward us and I saw the name of her boat, Voodoo, I was tempted to approach her, but she looked too harried. I almost asked her to pose for a picture; I would have offered to make her famous -- given her a starring role in one of the the movies based on my books. It's a good thing her boat wasn't named Vengeance. Then I wouldn't have been able to restrain myself. Leslie would have probably come to visit me in jail, but I'd rather not have first-hand experience of incarceration in the islands.

It's been fun to visit; I'm not sure when I'll get the chance again. Connie and Paul are busy dealing with some terrorists, but I think Dani and Liz are probably having one of those peaceful trips that Liz mentioned. I'm sure we'll hear from one of them soon.

Who is Connie Barrera?

Dani and Liz suggested I write this; I would have never considered it otherwise. Sharing my thoughts this way is a little uncomfortable; I'm the epitome of a private person. I'm Connie Barrera, the co-owner and skipper of the charter yacht Diamantista II, and until recently, I was the quintessential loner.

Bud's busy with the next book in my Connie Barrera Thriller series, and I want to keep him focused. Right now, he's got me caught up in a terrorist’s plot. I need to give him time to resolve that so I can get on with my life.  So, against my nature though it is, I’ll share a little of my history with you.

My background has a lot to do with my penchant for keeping to myself. I didn't have an easy life in my early years. I'm not complaining, but you should know that until recently, I held the view that people could be divided into two classes: scammers and their marks. I didn't consider the boundary between the classes to be rigid, either. One person's mark was often another's scammer. That was what made life fun; that, and scheming to come out on top every time.

I believe in fair play; I always have. I never fleeced anyone who wouldn't have done the same to me, but that left a lot of room for maneuvering. I have a better life now, thanks to hard work, an open mind, and a little luck. It's a mistake to discount the importance of luck in determining life's outcomes, but I always work hard to minimize its effect.

Luck caused my life to change for the better when I met Dani and Liz a couple of years ago. I was in a hurry to depart from Nassau without leaving a trail, and I chartered Vengeance to make my escape. That story is told in Bluewater Ice.

Unqualified friendship was a new experience for me. Dani and Liz were watching my back for no reason other than their sense that it was the right thing to do. What an awakening that was! The idea that they were in my corner with no quid pro quo stunned me. As I said, it changed my life. I liked it so much that I stuck around with them for their adventures in Bluewater Betrayal.

They introduced me to sailing, which is pure magic. Harnessing the wind to make a 50-ton boat go where you want is an experience like no other. You can't overpower the wind and the sea, but you can adjust the way you deal with them so that they assist you in achieving your goals. If you can get what you want from Mother Nature, getting people to go your way is no challenge.

Besides teaching me to sail, Dani and Liz introduced me to Paul Russo, the love of my life. Paul's a life-long sailor, and he happened along when I had decided to buy a yacht and go into the charter business. He had just retired from the Miami Police Department, and he was looking for something to do. Next to sailing, his other favorite thing is cooking. I was dubious about taking up with a cop, but I needed a good cook for my luxury charter yacht. Making a peanut butter sandwich taxes my culinary skills.

Paul agreed to help me get started.  That was in Love for Sail, the first Connie Barrera Thriller. In Sailor’s Delight, the second book in the series, we got the business going and worked out some personal problems. Now we've bought a nicer boat and we're going to marry. I'm still astonished by that. I've had men in my life before Paul, but always on my terms and only to further my goals. I wasn't looking for love back then; I was recruiting talent for my schemes. There was an element of that in my relationship with Paul, but it didn't last long. Until I met him, the men I knew had been trying to use me.  Not that I wasn't doing the same, but this time, I’m in love.

We have some rough spots in our relationship, and Bud keeps throwing external conflicts like these terrorists our way to keep things exciting, but we're going to make it, Paul and I are. We're committed.  And we're committed to entertaining the people who like to read about our adventures, too. We wouldn't be here without you all. Thanks!

Meet Liz Chirac.

While Bud's busy with the next book and Dani's touching up the varnish on Vengeance, I'm taking my turn at the blog. I'm Liz Chirac, Dani Berger's partner in Vengeance, and I'm worried that these Bluewater Thrillers are bad for our business. In spite of what you've read about us, we do have charters that don't involve murder and mayhem. The problem is that I can't get Bud to write about them, and Dani's ... well, you know Dani. She thinks reading about perfect sailing with happy people and beautiful islands would be boring.  So when I get my chances at the keyboard, I'm going to post some comments and maybe an occasional picture to share some of the high points of places that we visit.

By way of introduction, I'm not shy, but I don’t compete with Dani for the spotlight. She's much quicker to say what's on her mind than I am. Well, most of the time, she is. When it comes to talking about guys, she's pretty reticent. But we've already dealt with that, at least for now. Thanks for your comments a couple of weeks ago.  You encouraged her to talk that over with me.

I grew up in Belgium, and I thought I was well-traveled until I found these Caribbean islands. I attended a boarding school in the U.K. and studied for my undergraduate and graduate degrees in France. Along the way, I saw most of Europe.  I finished my education and took a job in Brussels for a couple of years.  After my father’s death, I was at loose ends with a small inheritance, so I took a sabbatical and flew to Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies. I spent several weeks on some beautiful beaches and decided that I would stay in the islands.

The story of how that came to be is in Bluewater Killer and Bluewater Vengeance.  In hindsight, that was a scary experience, but at the time it just seemed strange. That's another story; the good part was that I met Dani at a time when we were both trying to figure out what to do next, and we bought Vengeance. Life has been grand ever since.

Enough about me. I'll start our tour in Antigua, which is featured in several of the Bluewater Thrillers. Until its independence in 1981, Antigua was a British colony. The French held the island for a brief period in 1666, but unlike a lot of the islands that alternated between French and British rule, Antigua didn’t get passed back and forth. There was a British naval base in English Harbour from the early 1700s until it was abandoned in 1889.  Nelson’s Dockyard, as it’s called, is now a national park, and it is the center of a lot of yachting activities.
This shot of English Harbour was taken from the guard post at the harbour entrance.  When you stand where the photographer was, it's easy to imagine the anchorage filled with 18th century British warships.

Another place in Antigua that’s mentioned in the books is Jolly Harbour, where we often have Vengeance on a mooring.  We like to have sundowners in the cockpit with our guests there. Here’s a typical sunset:


I hear Dani putting the lid on the varnish can; it’s time for cocktails.  I’ll be back to share more photographs and perhaps a few of my sketches.  Let me know if there’s a particular place you would like to see.

Bluewater Rendezvous is available - Dani was right!

As Dani predicted in her last post, Bluewater Rendezvous is available now in the Kindle Store.  I appreciate her filling in for me while I wrapped up the book.  She was in more trouble than usual in Bluewater Rendezvous.  Before the villains even showed up, she was quarreling with her mother, of all people.

Dani’s so self-assured that she doesn’t often provide us with insight into her personal life.  I had forgotten she had a mother — we haven’t heard from her since she got into a snit because Dani didn’t call her on her birthday a few years ago.  The fact that Dani was unconscious and being held by human traffickers didn’t matter to the woman.  I learned early in Bluewater Rendezvous that the two had not spoken since then.  That was eight books ago.  Dani’s making a throat-cutting motion with her hand.  It’s clear that she wants me to stop.  I’m not sure if she’s worried about spoilers or if she wants the floor.

I created a monster when I invited her to make that first post a few weeks ago.  Now that she’s had a taste of what it’s like to speak for herself, she wants to make blogging a regular activity.  Not only that, but her sidekick, Liz Chirac, is clamoring for her turn at the keyboard.  Then there’s Connie Barrera, who already has me tied up with writing about her current adventure.  She wants in on this.  Once Paul Russo finds out, I’m guessing he’ll want a turn, too.  These are not patient people.

I would appreciate it if you would help me sell a few copies of the new book; I have a feeling I’m going to have to buy computers for the whole gang if this keeps up.

Liz said to mention that she’ll be writing the next post.  I notice that she waited until Dani went ashore to tell me that.  I need to go before trouble breaks out.

Thanks for your support.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Bud’s busy wrapping up Bluewater Rendezvous, so the coast is clear for me to write another post.  Thanks for your suggestions on how to handle Liz’s questions.  It’s hard sometimes for someone with my background to be objective.  Let’s face it: everybody I know has a lot of the same subconscious biases.  Bud’s a great guy, but he has an inordinate amount of influence over what I think.  He not only shapes my thoughts, but all my friends’ thoughts, as well.  You can see why your ideas were particularly valuable to me.

Now that we’ve resolved all the life or death conflicts in Bluewater Rendezvous, Liz and I have had a chance to sit down and talk things through.  I don’t think she’s completely satisfied with my answers, but at least she understands how I feel.  Oops!  I’d better clarify that.  She understands how I feel about kissing and telling.  Even I don’t understand how I feel about Ralph Suarez.  He’s an enigma, for sure.

Speaking of him, he played a behind-the-scenes role in this latest adventure.  I was worried right up until the end that he was going to drop in on us.  Unless there’s a rewrite, I’m out of the woods, but who knows?  Talk about nervous!  I can stay cool in some pretty tough situations, but that’s my job.  There’s something else going on where that guy’s concerned.  I suspect that this isn’t over yet.

At least it’s going to be on the back burner for a while, though.  Bud has to deal with the editing and publication of Bluewater Rendezvous, and my sly friend, Connie Barrera, is already up to something.  She and Paul are taking delivery of their new boat, and she’s got Bud focused on their next adventure as they sail from Maine to the islands.

I’m relieved.  That gives me time to think about Ralph Suarez without being center stage in another book while I’m doing it.

Thanks again, and Bud asked me to mention that Bluewater Rendezvous should be in the Kindle Store in a couple of weeks.

Looking for a Little Advice

This blog idea worked out well last time, and I've talked Bud into letting me give it another shot. I was pleased that he didn't censor that first post, so I'm going to press my luck a little this time.

I need some advice; he's put me in a real bind in this current book. I don't mean the conflicts with the bad guys; that's to be expected. Being a kick-ass heroine is my job. I get that; I wouldn't have it any other way. The problem is that he's getting into some aspects of my life that I've always kept private, and it's playing right into Liz's insatiable curiosity.

You might have noticed that she's sort of man-crazy. I don't mean she's easy, but she sure does like to look, and her comments and facial expressions give her away, at least to me. It's not that I don't enjoy ogling the guys every so often, but I'm a little more reticent when it comes to that stuff.

Bud got me into a tight spot back in Bluewater Voodoo with this hunk named Ralph Suarez. He was just a bit player in the story, but I spent some private time with him and got him to share some critical information about an undercover operative who was causing us problems.

Bud left it up to me to determine what happened between the two of us, and he let me decide how much of that would be revealed in the book. There are some things I'm not comfortable disclosing in public. The whole situation might have slipped by unoticed except Bud let Liz start wondering what did or didn't happen between me and Ralph in his hotel room for that couple of hours.

When I rebuffed her queries in Bluewater Voodoo, Liz let it drop. That's typical of her. She's a good friend and deals with my quirks, whether she understands them or not. The problem is that Bud has brought this whole thing to the surface again in Bluewater Rendezvous. Ralph Suarez keeps showing up in the story -- not in person, at least not yet -- but he's in the background, somewhere.

Liz is looking at me that way again; I know she's still wondering. One time, Bud almost let her come right out and ask, but he's a pretty good friend, too -- at least for a guy. He left me an opportunity to shut her down without answering the question. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but there are some things that I think a girl should keep to herself.

I could use a little advice; I know Liz is dying to know, and I've never had a better friend. Should I tell her? I mean, like, in private -- not right out in the book. I trust Bud’s judgment on most things, but I’d like some other opinions on this one. What do you think?

Tips for Succeeding as a Self-Published Author

Dani’s blog post last week was fun, but she asked one question to which I’ll respond directly:

"I mean, how hard can it be to sit down and put a few words together?”

She should have asked, “How hard can it be to put a few words together that people will want to read?"  Most writers want their work to be read; a lot of us harbor the notion that people might pay to read our work. As those who have tried it can attest, it’s harder than Dani thought.

Know why you write.To improve your odds of success as a writer, you need to understand why you want to write.

If you’re like me, you want to sell the books you write.  Getting paid for the hundreds of hours of work that’s involved in writing a book is important; it's making a living. It’s also a source of satisfaction, a sign that your art resonates with other people.

If you’re pursuing writing for the sake of fulfilling your artistic desire, your motivation may be different. You may not feel a need to be paid for your writing, and you may not care whether the reading public likes what you write.

Writing is a job.Decide whether writing is a business or a hobby. Either is acceptable, but hobbies rarely pay the bills. If writing is a business for you, commit yourself to work at it. That means that you must allocate time to writing as your schedule permits and that you must write during those times, whether you feel like it or not. Writer’s block and lack of inspiration aren’t acceptable excuses for not doing your job.

Write what people want to read.Recognize that writing is only a part of the job. You have to write material that people want to read. What you can sell may not be what you want to write. Until you have a few books published, you won’t know what you can sell. You’ll only be able to guess at it based on what other people are selling.

To make a living, you will always be working on the next book and refining it based on what you’ve learned from the previous ones.

Writing is only the first step.We all need editors.You can pay someone or not, but a vicious reader with a red pen is what you want. Be careful about your choice -- the only way to evaluate an editor is by seeing their work. Don’t be afraid to test them before you hire them, and don't hire one who fails to catch common errors in grammar and punctuation.

Package your product.Don’t underestimate the importance of an eye-catching, enticing cover.  Be prepared to change your cover if a book doesn't sell.  It's as easy as uploading a file.

Format your content. What you see in your word processor isn’t what you’ll see in an ereader or in print. Easy-to-follow instructions are available; read them and follow them. Preview your work online and then run it through every different ereader package you can find. Make it look good on every screen.

Publish in paperback.  You may not sell very many copies in print, but the availability of a print version of your book gives you just a bit more credibility.  You can do this online without any up-front cost if you shop with care.  Follow the formatting instructions from your chosen vendor and use their online proofing tools to make sure the interior looks as it should before you order a proof.

A good product description is essential to selling your book.  It's easy to adjust the product description if the book isn't selling, but try to get it right the first time.

Price is a critical element of the package as well.  Resist the urge to underprice or overprice your work. Look at prices for similar books that are well up in the sales rankings.

There are many firms that will handle all or part of the packaging for you. If you decide to pay someone, use caution; make sure you understand what you are buying, and don’t give away the rights to your work.

Market your book.Once your book is available, tell everyone you know, by every means at hand. There are plenty of articles on how to release books in ways that "beat the system."  Read them, but make your own decisions. This is a long-term process; gamesmanship may get you a quick start, but sustained sales are the key to building a business.

Spend money on online advertising.  It's less expensive than you think.  Don't expect each ad to pay for itself.  You want the cumulative effect of broad visibility.  That's more important than an immediate, short term spike in sales.  Allocate a percentage of your sales to paid advertising once you have an established revenue stream, however small it is.

You need reviews. The reviews you want are short, one or two sentence comments from real live readers, not lengthy, analytical reviews from a supposed expert. Ask outright at the end of your book. Beg. “If you enjoyed this book, please leave a short review on Amazon. You can’t imagine how important that is to an independent author like me. It’s the primary means I have of finding new readers. A moment of your time may help someone else to find the pleasure that I hope you found in reading my work."

There’s a lot of advice on the web about using social media to "engage" with your readers. Do what you’re comfortable doing. Don’t expect that activity on Facebook, Twitter, other social media sites, and blogs will generate a lot of sales, but don't discount the need for online presence, either.

The best way to "engage" with your readers is to keep showing them good books to read. That’s what they want from you — entertainment. If they read faster than you write, and most of them do, recommend books similar to yours by authors whose work you’ve enjoyed. The more you do that, the more quickly your own base of readers will expand. I like recommending other authors who recommend my work.  I don’t have explicit agreements with them.  Just do it; word gets around, and people reciprocate.

Get back to work!Some people hate the marketing aspect of being self-published, others thrive on it. It’s part of the job. It’s also a distraction.

The best, never-fail, red-hot way to sell more books is to write more books.  I need to sign off now and go finish Bluewater Rendezvous. Dani and Liz and their fans are waiting. Thanks for visiting.

Meet Dani Berger

Bud (That’s what his friends call C.L.R. Dougherty.) is really busy; he's getting Play Actor ready for some big voyage that he and his wife, Leslie, are planning for the Spring. Besides that, he's at the midpoint of Bluewater Rendezvous, the eighth Bluewater Thriller.

Liz and I are stuck in the middle of it. We're in another fine mess right now. I have no idea how he's going to get us out of it, but Liz reminds me that he always does. I'm annoyed with him about that, but as you'll guess if you've read our books, Liz is counseling patience. She reminds me that we wouldn't be here if he didn't write these books. She's such a Pollyanna, that girl.

Anyway, it's time for another of Bud's blog posts, and I've been fascinated by this whole writing business ever since I found myself in Bluewater Killer. I mean, how hard can it be to sit down and put a few words together? I saw a chance to help Bud out (He needs all the help he can get -- just ask Leslie!) and satisfy my curiosity at the same time. Liz wasn't so sure it was a good idea, given what she calls my impulsive nature.

She insisted that I give Bud the final say over what I post, so I agreed to that. If he knows what's good for him, he won't change anything. He's as much a risk-taker as I am, though; I'll just have to see what shows up online after he edits it.


So here's my first blog post. If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm Dani Berger, the skipper and co-owner of the charter yacht Vengeance. Thanks to Bud, that means I'm one of the protagonists in the Bluewater Thrillers. I share that role with my friend Liz Chirac, who is also the First Mate, chef, and co-owner of Vengeance. On top of that, she’s an artist — the sketches in this post are hers.

Now I'm stuck. With the introduction out of the way, I'm not sure what to say next. Maybe there's more to this writing stuff than I thought. Bud says just keep writing, and that everything will work out. Liz suggests that maybe I should say a little about how I ended up in this job. She means the protagonist's job, not the captain's job. You can read about that in the books.

I've wondered about that myself; it's been the subject of a lot of late night conversations between Bud and me over the years. He's sort of noncommittal on the topic, but when he's half-asleep and I'm running loose in his head, I pick up stray bits of information. Some of them, I drop like red-hot coals, but that's a topic for another post, if he'll even let me write it. I'm starting to like this writing thing, by the way. Bud just reminded me to stick to my topic and not wander off; I do have a short attention span. So about those bits of information: I've run across several women in his head who remind me of myself.

There's his daughter, who's a little older than I am. She's fearless and determined, along with being a marathon-runner. Smart, too. And did I say fearless? She's the mother of three little girls, with another one on the way. That takes more guts than I have.

Then there's a woman who was one of his earliest childhood playmates. She was a tomboy then, and she grew into one of the most self-assured women I've ever seen. She's succeeded at breaking the gender barrier in all kinds of ways, without losing her charm or becoming overbearing on the subject of women's rights. She's almost certainly a model for some of my traits.

He's also got a lot of memories of assertive women he encountered in his career in the corporate world. I'm sure elements of their personalities have helped shape my own. I occasionally catch glimpses of myself in Leslie, his long-suffering wife, but I think I see more of her in Liz -- that always-positive attitude -- they share that.

Me, I'm prone to these dark thoughts sometimes, suspicions bordering on paranoia. I think those come from Bud, along with my hair-trigger temper and tendency to physical violence. It's clear to anyone who knows him that he left that behavior behind long ago, but I haven’t had as much time to mellow as he has.

I think it's time to let Bud take a look at this. If he lets it go without major rewrites, maybe I'll get to write another post. This is great fun. If you like it, let him know, because I'm going to start pushing for my own blog, and I can't make that happen without your support. He listens to his readers far more willingly than to his characters. Thanks for your attention, and thanks for buying and reading the Bluewater Thrillers. Liz and I wouldn't be here without you.

Kindle Unlimited: Good or Bad for Indie Authors?

There has been some grumbling lately among my Indie compatriots about the decrease in Kindle book sales caused by the advent of Kindle Unlimited.  Having made the decision long ago to go Kindle Select with 13 of my 14 titles, I've watched the effect on my sales and income with considerable interest.  The conclusions I've drawn are at odds with most of what I've read recently, so I thought I'd share my observations.

First, to clear the air on my biases:

I'm an independent, self-published author.  I derive a substantial portion of my income from sales of my books.  Most of that comes from ebooks.  All of my ebook revenue comes from Amazon, because I made a business decision to focus on them as my channel to market.

I haven't always been an author; I published my first book late in 2010.  I have a lot of respect for Amazon as a business.  From my own experience in the corporate environment, I think that no outsider, and that includes the 'investment professionals' and 'industry experts,' is in a position to second-guess Amazon's business decisions.

I think it's safe to discount all of the speculation in the press about what Amazon's doing and why and focus on things closer to home.  Amazon is neither good or evil from my perspective.  They do what is best for them, balancing the interests of suppliers (writers among them), customers, and investors to further their own interests.  We can agree or disagree with what they do, but if we want to sell books, we need to deal with them.

What about Kindle Unlimited?

When Amazon introduced Kindle Unlimited in the U.S. store in July, I saw an immediate increase in the number of borrowed books over the level I was accustomed to from Amazon Prime borrows.  The percentage of my total paid units borrowed went from an average of 5.5 percent to about 14 percent in July.  In August, it jumped to about 24 percent.  The program started in mid July, so that makes sense.  My percentage borrowed has averaged about 25 percent for the last half of 2014.

My first reaction was that borrows were cannibalizing sales, so now that I have several months of data, I've done a little analysis.  I've used some standard analytical tools to normalize the data for the first half and the second half of 2014.  I normalized the numbers to remove the effect that adding new books to the mix had on my total numbers.  Don't get stuck on the math, but if you changed your offerings during the year, it's necessary to wash out the effects of adding or deleting books before you start making comparisons.

In my case, the increase in volume as a result of more borrows has more than offset the effect of price erosion from Kindle Unlimited.  My average revenue per unit dropped by about 9 percent, but my number of paid units in the second half was 35 percent higher than the first half.  The surprise is that my revenue for the second half was 46 percent higher than for the first half.  Borrows increase rankings and make your book more visible, as well as making it less risky to people who don't know your work.

I'm relatively new at this and still building recognition among readers.  Someone with a much bigger base of fans might see different results, but I'm much happier with Kindle Unlimited than I was with the notion of giveaways to build a base of readers.

 Let's hear your thoughts on Kindle Unlimited, whether from the perspective of a writer or a reader.

A Collection of Nautical Thrillers from Seven Best-Selling Authors for just 99 Cents!

I'm pleased to announce my participation in Seven Seas Mysteries, a boxed set of nautical thrillers.  I've read and enjoyed the books by the other six authors, and I'm honored to have Bluewater Killer included.  Not only is the 99 cent price a bargain for seven best-selling thrillers, but the proceeds of our sales are being donated to the Veterans Writing Project, a charity that helps veterans learn to tell their stories.

If you've enjoyed my thrillers, you'll like these. Collectively, the seven of us have over 60 titles published, so this is a chance to find some new favorites for minimal expense.   Please pass this information along, and thanks for your support.

Click on the cover image to the left to go to the Kindle Store and pick up your copy now; this is a limited-time offer.