FREE BOOKS!

The Dog Days of Summer are upon us.

 

The heat makes us lethargic, stuck inside the house to keep cool. You've already seen all the summer movies. You've been to the mall more times this last month than you did while shopping for Christmas presents.

 

And last but not least, the kids are driving you bonkers. School is just around the corner and it can't get here quick enough to save your sanity.

 

*drumroll*

 

Which makes it time for some free books!

 

During the week of August 4-8, 2014, I am offering all my Goblin Apprentice books for FREE!

 

The books are for ages 7-15. Yes, I've had readers as young as seven and as old as fifteen read these stories. If your kids are on the younger end of the range, then you might want to start with the books on the bottom as they lean more toward the chapter book length and style.

 

The book covers will take you to my Amazon page, where you can individually download each book, or you can click the books on the right side of my blog.

 

Be sure to check that the Kindle book is free, and not just the Kindle unlimited notation.

 

Please feel free to spread the word, share the link on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ as I will be out of pocket this week.

 

 

May the stories keep the little monsters occupied until it's time to buy school supplies!

 

Later, Peeps!

Midnight Trials

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what time it is?

I do. Mainly because I have to turn my alarm clock away from the bed because the light is too bright.

Normally, my guess is pretty close to the actual time, but I was seriously off my game last night. By an hour. I thought it was 3:30, but nope, it was 2:27 . . . then I managed to stay awake until 3:30 when I finally got back to sleep.

Wonder if I'm paying a penance for something . . .

Same thing happened two hours later. I thought it was 5:51, but it was 5:31. So here I am writing a fluff of a morning blog.

--gotta save my creative juices for my stories, right?

So since I failed at my game last night, I'm giving away two of my stories today:

 MAZE OF MONSTER MIX-UPS

This little Halloween story never gets the love I wish it did. I don't know why, but that 's the way of the world. But, my friends, it's more than just a Halloween short story, it's also a prequel to book three, For Whom the Bell Trolls and it's filled with clues . . . if you pay attention to them.

and TODAY is the last day to get book two,

THE FAST AND THE FAERIEOUS

That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll post an wonderful soup recipe, Beef and Barley Soup. Well, I couldn't find any barley in three different grocery stores I tried, so I had to substitute another grain. I chose spelt, yes, spelt. It turned out pretty good. 

Later, Peeps! 

Foodie Friday --

Sorry, no recipe today. Instead there are a couple of freebies available.

This book has tips and tricks to lose weight, while providing a few candy recipes. This book is a short version of my weight loss efforts.

Yes, it's in my typical no-nonsense words about the journey, but the candy recipes are worth the read!

Click on the book cover to download the book.

To Gnome Me Is To Love Me is still available for free. Today is the last day!

Click on the book coves and the link will take you to Amazon US.

I don't think the American link will click to the various incarnations of Amazon across the world. If you are in a country other than US, then click the title or my name, M. A. Golla, and put it in your Amazon account, as the freebie is matched in all available Amazon locations.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading my stories. If you feel compelled, please give the book a rating and your honest feedback about the story.


And if you really, really need a recipe, then feel free to pull down the Foodie Friday tab as I have linked all  the recipes that I've posted under that tab.

Yes, even last wee's Ardsheal House Shortbread (under cookies) and Creamy Pesto Lasagna (under entrees, chicken).

As always, take your time and nose around on my blog, feel free to drop me a line, or just enjoy what I have to offer.

Later, Peeps!

Happy Birthday to ME . . . and YOU!

FREEBIE EXTRAVAGANZA!

Here's the link to my Amazon profile. For some reason, FOR WHOM THE BELL TROLLS doesn't show up. You will have to type in the title. sorry.

 

My birthday is August 29th, and I'll be turning the ripe old age of 51.

I told you I would be honest on this blog. And no, I don't have any problem blabbing about how old I am. Besides, I dye my hair and I certainly don't ACT old.

The only giveaway is my skin. Yep, I have old lady skin, saggy, baggy and thinning.

And wrinkles. Lots and lots of wrinkles around my eyes, most of the time successfully hidden with Ironman wrap around sunglasses. I don't do the make-up thing. It's not that I can't do it, I simply don't. I'm lazy that way. But I can clean up nicely if needed.

Anyhoo, when I decided to self-publish The Goblin's Apprentice stories, I just wanted to get these stories into the hands of kids who wanted/needed to escape the realities of their lives. If I made a buck on it, then BONUS!

Well, I'm not making money on these stories. Shoot, I think I sold only a handful of them each month--literally. When you tally the amount earned against the amount I paid on cover art, the result is still negative. Giving them away hasn't resulted in much bigger numbers.

I stink at publicity. The freebies I gave away haven't been shared with others. No one is really bothering to give me reviews on the books, good or bad. Overall, the response to The Goblin's Apprentice has been "meh".

So as my final hurrah, I am giving away ALL SIX OF THE BOOKS from August 28-30. 

Three days of freebies for six stories.

Why?

Because of Greenwich Mean Time. I mean, really?

Trying to calculate when books will be free and off free around my birthday just made my head hurt. So I decided to take three days to do it.

All of these books should be available on Amazon's various incarnations: US, UK, DE, FR, IT and ES. I will link these books to the US Amazon store, but if you live in one of these other countries you might need to dig around a little for them.

The sequence of the books is:
TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME, Book 1
THE FAST AND THE FAERIEOUS, Book 2
A MAZE OF MONSTER MIX-UPS, Halloween short story
FOR WHOM THE BELL TROLLS, Book 3
SUGAR PLUM DISASTER, Christmas short story
LOST LEPRECHAUN LOOT, St. Patrick's day short story

And the events of LEPRECHAUN will lead into the beginning events of book 4, tentatively titled DRAGON DAYS OF SUMMER.

Enjoy my birthday, Peeps! Because I'll be at the kidlet's back-to-school night. Rah!

 

Amazon's KDP Select

Early in December 2011, Amazon rolled out their new program for authors--KDP Select. Enrolling into this program had a list of pros and cons, which each author needs to weigh before making a decision. If you are happy with your current sales and movement of your book, especially on the other online sites, then opting in to KDP Select might not be in your best interest.

My pros or cons might not be the same list as yours, but you do need to think things out depending on your sales and situation.

CONS:

• the author has to UNPUBLISH each book from the competition's sites, limiting sales to Amazon only
•  your book will be part of their Amazon Prime program that allows for indefinite 'lending' to customers

PROS:

• increased visibility
• ability to offer five (5) 'freebie' days within your three (3) month obligation
• small monetary percentage of all books lent to readers (the #'s they gave were seriously laughable to me, since my books haven't been generating ANY numbers worth mentioning).
• only one place to keep track of your work--trust me, it's time-consuming to hop all over the place promoting and checking your status

For me, it was a no-brainer, as I knew I would enroll one book in this program to see what happened to my sales. I had to do something to shake it up. I signed up and enrolled TO GNOME ME IS TO LOVE ME, book one in The Goblin's Apprentice series.

I check my Amazon stats about every day or two, and usually there is very little change, but for some reason on December 19th, I already had 63 downloads. I had totally forgotten about using my freebies pre-Christmas! GNOME went as high as #4 for Children's free Kindle downloads, with very little effort on my part. I posted a few FB notices and I had a friend retweet the freebie deal, and that's it.

Here are a few observations:

•  By day two/three, the downloads had peaked with 1200 for North America and 300 from Amazon UK. I took the rest of the freebie days and used them after Christmas. There was a little movement, but not much. Don't offer your book for more than 3 days at a time.
• Though I had 'given' GNOME away, Amazon still gave me a little bit of $$, okay, a lot of money compared to the previous $ I earned. Not enough to break even, but enough to give me hope.
• My overall Amazon ranking went from #263,483 to #53,628 (1/16/12). After the freebies, my ranking sat around #6,000 for a couple of weeks.

I tend to download quite a few books to my Kindle and then spend 6 months reading before I look for books again, so I didn't expect to see a trickle down effect from the freebies for at least 4-6 months. I've already seen a little movement in my sales. Still not many, but in the first two weeks of January, I sold more books than I did in Oct. AND Nov.

 Will I enroll the rest of my books?

I really don't know. If I do, I'll wait until my three months obligation is up with GNOME before I pursue the option.

As I mentioned before, every author has to weigh the pros and cons before committing to this program. I'll keep you updated if something interesting happens.

Later, peeps!