R. Lawson Gamble's Blog: R Lawson Gamble Books, page 10

UNDER DESERT SAND FREE SATURDAY DECEMBER 15

In our ongoing effort to reward fans, followers, and readers of this blog and the Zack Tolliver, FBI series, we hereby give advance notice that book #5, UNDER DESERT SAND, will be free in eBook format this Saturday December 15 on Amazon. Tell you friends.

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FREE CAT (Zack Tolliver, FBI series Book 4)

For followers of this blog please note CAT the eBook will be free FRIDAY December 7 as a special promotion on Amazon. Take advantage; give to a friend if you already have one. And if you’ve read this far, CAT will be just $0.99 later today. Enjoy![image error]

Tolliver Tales News Bulletin December

Our best wishes for your Holiday Season!

The December issue of Tolliver Tales is published. Here are some hi-lights:

☞ THE OTHER is now available as an audio book and you can get one free!

☞ WESTERN JUSTICE – three novellas by three Western authors including this author’s prequel to the Zack Tolliver, FBI series in a single eBook volume is free!

☞ News of a future publication for readers of this bulletin only!

For all this, and more, click the link here: Tolliver Tales December 2018

TOLLIVER TALES (October Edition)

We present the October edition of Tolliver Tales with apologies for its late arrival. It has been a summer of many projects and deadlines, as described in the issue. We hope you will enjoy it nevertheless.

Tolliver Tales June 2018

THREE FOR FREE: WESTERN JUSTICE

If you like free, you’ll like this. Readers of my Zack Tolliver, FBI mystery series can soon download my novella THE DARK ROAD for free in a compilation of stories titled WESTERN JUSTICE, a three for free western series how-did-it-all-start bonanza!

As my readers know, THE OTHER is the first book of the Zack Tolliver series and takes place ten years after Zack arrived on the Navajo Nation Reservation as a new FBI agent. But what was it like when Zack first arrived, fresh from the academy, new to the ways of the Navajo? How did he meet Eagle Feather, his future friend and mentor? What was his relationship with Jimmy Chaparral and the Navajo Nation Police at the start of it all?

THE DARK ROAD is that story, the start of the journey, and a new compelling mystery within itself. For Zack, it is the beginning of an endless experiential learning curve. For the reader, it is another story you won’t want to put down.

I partnered in this project with two other great western writers, each an author of a mystery series from the American west who want to take their readers back in time, to where it all began. I met Felix F. Giordano and  Mark Reps through my writing. They have each produced a novella  around the birth of the leading characters from their own popular series. I loved both of their stories and I know you will too.

We were one in our desire to make our stories free to our readers, a gift and an opportunity to get a sense from the beginning of what each series of novels is about. After all, are there ever enough good book series to read?

If you like the American West, if you like the contrast and partnership of lawmen and Native Americans, if you like battles for justice, for understanding, for respect, for the light or dark road, in short – if you like a good mystery, WESTERN JUSTICE is our gift to you. Find it on my author page on Amazon.

Note: If you like what you read, please be sure to write a review. Also, the current eBook price of $ .99 on Amazon is expected to drop to $0.00 shortly.

ARTICLE: THE POWER OF VISIBILITY

Today in the eBook market anybody can publish a book. But can you sell it? The fight for the attention of the consumer requires a power platform, an ample advertising fund, and/or a publisher willing to push your product. It is a war carried on far above the head of the Indie “none of the above” group. Where eBooks once were the friendly province of Indie authors, this format is now fully exploited by known and well supported authors with huge backlists. Just getting into the top 100 in sales in any Amazon category has become exponentially more difficult.

Why is that important? The novel that is number 101 in an Amazon category still sells, sometimes fairly well. But not as well as number 100. One shift we’ve noticed is increasing royalties through the ranks. It is because the invading known authors can receive good prices for their eBooks, just as they do for their paperback versions, and as more high price authors join a category, the consumer now seems willing to pay a higher price deeper into that category.

But for any author, and most especially the “none of the above” author to attract a buyer, visibility is the only answer. Your book must be seen to have a chance to sell. And the good news is, there remains at least one sales device that still works: the free book. It is the one remaining tool of the under-advantaged.

Why? It is simply because the Hillermans and Johnsons and Baldaccis and Sandfords don’t need to give away books in order to become visible, and therefore do not. Why should they? Thus the free book sales technique remains the vital tool of the Indie author, and so far it is an undisturbed playing field.

Some people can’t understand how giving away books to potential buyers, particularly eBooks which aren’t going to be passed around, can help the bottom line. First of all, why not? It doesn’t cost anything. It gets your book into more hands, more mouths talk about it, your name as an author becomes more familiar. Some ask, aren’t you giving away potential sales? Tougher question, but in my experience, very few more.

For example, this author put up five of his books for free on amazon, each over a 48 hour period, spaced by three or four days in between. The result? Fifteen thousand books were downloaded. I can assure you there is no way I currently expect to sell that number of books in that short time. But I do know there are fifteen thousand more readers out there who know my name and may tell others about my books.

I will continue to explore the free book avenue. Marketing books today is an ever changing challenge, but right now it seems to support that old adage “you have to give something to get something”.

THE POWER OF VISIBILITY

Today in the eBook market anybody can publish a book. But can you sell it? The fight for the attention of the consumer requires a power platform, an ample advertising fund, and/or a publisher willing to push your product. It is a war carried on far above the head of the Indie “none of the above” group. Where eBooks once were the friendly province of Indie authors, this format is now fully exploited by known and well supported authors with huge backlists. Just getting into the top 100 in sales in any Amazon category has become exponentially more difficult.

Why is that important? The novel that is number 101 in an Amazon category still sells, sometimes fairly well. But not as well as number 100. One shift we’ve noticed is increasing royalties through the ranks. It is because the invading known authors can receive good prices for their eBooks, just as they do for their paperback versions, and as more high price authors join a category, the consumer now seems willing to pay a higher price deeper into that category.

But for any author, and most especially the “none of the above” author to attract a buyer, visibility is the only answer. Your book must be seen to have a chance to sell. And the good news is, there remains at least one sales device that still works: the free book. It is the one remaining tool of the under-advantaged.

Why? It is simply because the Hillermans and Johnsons and Baldaccis and Sandfords don’t need to give away books in order to become visible, and therefore do not. Why should they? Thus the free book sales technique remains the vital tool of the Indie author, and so far it is an undisturbed playing field.

Some people can’t understand how giving away books to potential buyers, particularly eBooks which aren’t going to be passed around, can help the bottom line. First of all, why not? It doesn’t cost anything. It gets your book into more hands, more mouths talk about it, your name as an author becomes more familiar. Some ask, aren’t you giving away potential sales? Tougher question, but in my experience, very few more.

For example, this author put up five of his books for free on amazon, each over a 48 hour period, spaced by three or four days in between. The result? Fifteen thousand books were downloaded. I can assure you there is no way I currently expect to sell that number of books in that short time. But I do know there are fifteen thousand more readers out there who know my name and may tell others about my books.

I will continue to explore the free book avenue. Marketing books today is an ever changing challenge, but right now it seems to support that old adage “you have to give something to get something”.

LOMPOC, CITY OF FLOWERS

We will be in Lompoc this Saturday morning, which is expected to be a perfect day with a high of 74 degrees and nothing but sunshine, particularly inside THE BOOKSTORE where Leslie Sevier, et al, will be their usual cheery selves, meeting your every need. I will be there as well, with my full line of Zack Tolliver, FBI adventures. The newest, and most exciting one yet, CANAAN’S SECRET, will be on full display. THE BOOKSTORE is known for carrying works of all local authors and I am proud to display my work among them.

If you read my series, or follow my blog, or simply wish to visit a town with perhaps more varied history than any other in North Santa Barbara County (Indian village, Portola slept here, mission home, rancho, stagecoach stop, smugglers’ haven, reform community, air and space center, sky diving center, and much, much more) you owe it to yourself to come on out.

I will read and sign my books for purchase, and I understand there is to be a special price for the entire Zack Tolliver, FBI series set. So come along, keep me busy, treat yourself to an unexpected Saturday outing.

Much Ado About…Nothing

Ever wonder where donut holes come from? There seems to be an obvious answer. But is it the right one? Before we batter that idea around, let’s drill a bit deeper into the hole story of the donut.

Hidden in middens at ancient Native American archaeological digs scientists have found small round cakes. Some had holes in the center. Some young archaeological students at the digs became quite ill. Coincidence? I leave it to you.

But who made the first donut? There are some sweet stories about this, but the name that rises most frequently is an American named Hanson Gregory, a sailor (not a cop, as is often thought). 

There can be no doubt donut lovers owe thanks and calories to Hanson and to his mother, Mrs. Gregory, who baked olykoeks, a “wicked deep-fried dough that cleverly used her son’s spice cargo of nutmeg and cinnamon, along with lemon rind”* in the center of the cakes, packed them in a cardboard box, and sent them along with her sailor son as he left on the early morning tide. She was heard to mutter as she climbed out of her cozy bed, “It’s time to make the donuts.”* The small cakes helped stave off not just hunger, but scurvy as well. The crew were grateful, but Mrs. Gregory would modestly reply it was the very yeast she could do for them.

But what about the donut hole? Some say the reel story came about because sailors don’t like nutmeg and cinnamon and orange rind in the middle of their cakes. Using their knives, they carefully removed the centers and threw them to the seagulls (which is why gulls follow after sailing ships in great profusion). Hanson’s own mother claims her son, a picky eater, was dissatisfied with the often undercooked mushy interior of the cake and removed it himself. In yet another version Hanson’s boss, Captain Crunch, remembers a stormy night off Denmark with Hanson at the helm, eating a donut and unable to keep both hands on the wheel. With typical American inventiveness, he spike his donut onto a spoke and solved the problem. Following that fateful night, every helmsman demanded donuts with portholes.

None of these donut stories are well prooved, each has an obvious hole, but regardless poor battered Mrs. Gregory now faced the additional complication of removing the centers from her cakes. We can only assume she set her alarm twice; once to make the donuts, once to carve out the centers. No one knows what happened to all those donut holes she removed, but there are those who say the term “fat cat’ was born in Camden, Maine, where the Gregorys lived. It is asserted the term referred to wealthy ship’s captains and merchants who resided in the area. But I believe the term might well have originated in more of a feline context.  

Nod to Smithsonian Magazine
Many nods to Dunk’n Donuts

 

If you can find all the puns, go treat yourself to a donut.

MESTACLOCAN

We thought friends, fans, and readers might be interested in the results of our free book campaign for MESTACLOCAN, book #2 in the Zack Tolliver, FBI series. As of this morning (September 3, 8 AM PST) we have given away 2,500 eBooks (the campaign began yesterday). In all of Amazon free book campaigns at this time, these numbers position MESTACLOCAN #1 in Native American, #1 in Suspense, #6 in Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense, #20 in Literature & Fiction, #30 in Kindle eBooks (entire store) and #31 in Top 100 Free in (entire) Kindle Store.

Quite an accomplishment, we think. Although the exact number of free eBooks at Amazon during this time is a guarded secret, we believe the number is at least in the tens of thousands. Of course the mind turns to questions like “What if these numbers were purchased books, rather than free?” Yet the value of advertising cannot be underestimated. A free book in the hand of a satisfied reader can easily generate several purchased books. It’s all good.

Thank you for listening, participating, and being part of our adventure. Enjoy your worlds of fiction.

Rich