T.R. Pearson's Blog, page 7

A Couple of Things . . .

I yield to no one in my firm belief that grammarians are the most blinkered, tiresome people on the planet. Thanks to its BookBub exposure, Jerusalem Gap has been getting lots of Amazon reviews, for which I'm grateful. But every now and then, a grammarian sneaks in to complain about the narrator's dodgy use of the language. Some of them even do it while acknowledging that said dodgy use makes the narrator seem . . . you know . . . human.

So which would you prefer? A wholly unbelievable narrator who speaks perfect English or someone who sounds like the rest of us and, consequently, seems to breathe and live?

My advice to all grammarians going forward: fold your English degrees five ways and hold them between your knees.

Go rage on Benjy Compson. What a mess he makes of the mother tongue. That Faulkner was such an idiot.

On a happier note, please read PETER TEMPLE. Read him now and read everything he has published. Start with The Broken Shore and work your way through the rest. Temple has the best ear for dialogue I've come across in a great while and a real talent for putting characters on a page and setting them in motion.

To say his books are crime novels does them a disservice. They're alive, and that's all that matters. So put down your Joe Nesbo (who gives "workmanlike" a bad name) and try Peter Temple. You won't regret it.

That's all from I for now (or is it me?).

Last of the Free Ebooks

Because I didn't want them to feel left out, the electronic versions Off For the Sweet Hereafter, Call and Response, & Gospel Hour will be free downloads at Amazon for the next five days. So load up your tablet of choice.

This free-book promotion has turned out to be a great way to bring in new readers, and they are responding by writing reviews. The best possible payback.

For those of you interested in the math, Jerusalem Gap was downloaded 30,026 times in about 36 hours. That's largely thanks to a mention in Bookbub's blast email. Add in the other six titles, and we're crowding 40,000 downloads.

All good, and I'm in the process of actively encouraging Rick Gavin's editor to release Ranchero & Beluga as free downloads ahead of the publication of Nowhere Nice. It's sure to be a tough sell. Dogged short-sightedness helps make publishing the dynamic 19th-century industry it is.

Get your books and enjoy!

Over the Top!

We've crossed the rubicon . . . or something. The Kickstarter funding goal has been reached and surpassed. Many thanks to all of you who backed the project (twice!), and here's hoping a few stragglers will find their way to Kickstarter in the next 6 days. Every dollar helps make for a better physical book and a more ambitious promotional trip. Bring in your pets. Lock your doors. There's no telling where I might go.

Combine Kickstarter with the current Jerusalem Gap craziness -- 22,000 copies downloaded since noon -- and it has been quite a day (thanks Bookbub, and make that 27,000). I've always thought world domination a fond dream, but today I can very nearly taste it.

Not really. It's been fun though, and tomorrow I will rise early and get back to work on your book.

Thank you all for your enthusiastic support. It means quite a lot to me.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

Here We Go

UPDATE: We're less than 24 hours into the new Kickstarter project and only $475 short of the goal. That's remarkable, and I'm very grateful for your support. There will be no stretch goals or any additional drum beating, so let's just close this out quietly and be done with it. If you're planning to pledge, now is good. Thanks to you all. My goal going forward is to write you a novel worthy of your support.

I've been encouraged to try Kickstarter one more time, and so I'm doing just that. I'm trying to help cover the publication costs of a new novel -- working title Furnace Rock -- and I've cut the goal in half. I'll now pay all promotional costs myself.

So we're aiming for $6,000, and we raised more than that during the first, unfunded project. I hope those of you who backed me the first time around will see clear to back me again. I've tried to offer enticing rewards at an assortment of levels. I'm also open to suggestions. If you'd like something in return for your contribution that I haven't thought to mention, just let me know. I'm flexible.

In the past 10 days, I've given away nearly 8,000 electronic editions of my books at Amazon. 'Why don't you just tap into those people for Kickstarter?' I've been asked a few times over. The short answer is that I don't know how to reach them. The longer answer is that I'm doubtful people who will only download a book for free rather than pay 99cents -- as with Jerusalem Gap -- are good candidates for backing a Kickstarter project.

So I'm counting on you, my readers and friends, to help me along.

This is an 8-day project. Very brief. So if you plan to help, please help now. Today would be good.

Thank you all in advance.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

More Free Ebooks and Thoughts on a Kickstarter Blitz

So. Polar, Blue Ridge, True Cross, & Warwolf have all been free ebooks for the past five days at Amazon. The promotion is over now, and at last count, just shy of 5,000 copies were downloaded. I find that shocking, chiefly because I know how few copies I actually sell.

I guess I'll take my eyeballs where I can find them. Starting at midnight, Jerusalem Gap, Red Scare, & Cry Me A River will also be free electronic downloads for five days. Dig in.

In other news, I'm reloading at Kickstarter. The goal will be $7,000 dollars (ish), which was the amount of my first publishing advance -- for A Short History of a Small Place(in 1984). This will be a brief two-week project for the same purpose as the first unfunded one -- to help with the cost of printing and promoting a new novel. Author DIY is surely the future of publishing. Help if you can.

I'm hoping those of you who pledged the first time will pledge again (I'll send you emails when the project goes live), and I would like to think I'm generating some degree of positive karma by giving so many books away.

Foolish, I know.

The Best Price Is FREE

The new ebook editions of Blue Ridge, Polar & True Cross went up on Amazon yesterday as free downloads, a promotion that runs for five days. After twenty-four hours, these three books have "sold" nearly two thousand copies. That's a lot of books and, possibly, a few new readers.

So free is the best price. Go figure. For those of you who've yet to read Warwolf, Ray Tatum mystery #4, here's your chance to get it for nothing as well. The electronic version is free through Friday. Enjoy.


http://www.amazon.com/Warwolf-ebook/d...

New Electronic Editions! (and free for a while)

I've just released the novels Blue Ridge, Polar, & True Cross in their first electronic editions at Amazon. Each has been carefully and (in my opinion) impeccably formatted by R.L. Parker who I now know here at Goodreads but who I met at Amazon when he panned the electronic formatting of Red Scare. Justifiably, I might add.

I apologized in a comment thread, and R.L. offered to help me out on future editions (he's a programmer by trade). The novels I'm releasing today are the fruit of his labor, and they look it. Beautiful editions that maintain the design touches from the physical books. I couldn't be happier with them, and I'm very grateful to R.L. for his painstaking work.

From Sunday July 7th until midnight Thursday the 11th, the electronic versions of these three novels will be offered to you at no cost. Free. Free. Free. Load your tablet of choice up now, and read at your leisure.

I only ask in return that, if you read one of these novels, you review it on Amazon. Love it. Hate it. Whatever. Just be sure to review it. Reader reviews matter, and I don't have nearly enough of them.

So if you read one of these new editions, or if you've read and loathed (or loved) one of my other books, please do write and post a review.

Who knows? I might scorch you in the comments thread.

Enjoy the spanking new ebooks, and thanks again R.L..

http://www.amazon.com/T.R.-Pearson/e/...

Many Thanks

. . . to those of you who made Kickstarter pledges over the course of the past month. Unfortunately, we didn't reach our goal, but I'm awfully grateful for both the show and the messages of support.

ONE WEEK LEFT

We're halfway to the Kickstarter goal with 7 days left. Thanks to all of you who have made pledges. I've been much entertained and gratified by your messages of support.

To those of my readers sitting this one out, get off your derrieres (sculpted and comely, I'm sure) and help. Think of it as buying a book early as a favor to Louis Benfield, Jane Elizabeth Firesheets, Benton Lynch, Mary Alice Celestine Lefler, Ray Tatum, Kate LeComte, Donald Atwell, Momma and Daddy, the bald Jeeter, and any of the rest of the gang who pops to mind.

It's a new age of patronage. Jump in. Here's the link.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

Hello, Friends -- All 20 Of You(make that 37!)

I launched my Kickstarter project one week ago today, and I'm exceedingly grateful for all of the pledges of support that have come in. I know times are tough and money is tight, so I'm truly touched and gratified by the donations.

Is it possible though, that I have only 20 readers? That would put me squarely in the wrong business. What of the two dozens messages I get week in and week out from people encouraging me to write one sort of book or another? Where are you?

And to those of you bold enough to have asked me to read/blurb your novels -- no trace of you either. That seems a bit unwise.

If you're content with Rachael Ray cookbooks and Stieg Larsson knockoffs, do nothing. Publishers will supply. But those of us hungry for a different reading experience simply can't afford to sit back and wait.

Please help if you're able. Pledges start at $1. I know I'm a cult writer, but an audience of 20?

Don't wait until the last minute. Show up. Here's the link.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...