Live Forever - from Smashwords

[Jake_Drake]

Well, I'm not going to respond to each person individually. There's too many posts for that. I will say in order to answer the concerns I see here that I chose Saturday, because I am not only off this Saturday, but the rest of my family is gone for the weekend and I have time to relax and do all I want to, not what everyone else wants. During the week I am too busy trying to cram a few hours of writing in before heading off to work and doing the various "honey-do" chores my wife has for me.

No one needs to lurk about in here wondering when I will make my book available. I was very concise and exact when I posted that it will be available for free from 1pm - 2pm Pacific Standard time and again the same night from midnight 12am - 1am. What's confusing about that? The only thing I hedged about was when someone suggested I make it available for people on the other side of the world from me, which is why I added the second time slot.

Why make it only one hour instead of an entire day? Hell if I know. It just seemed like a good idea. If I think there's any interest perhaps I'll make it available again or for a longer period today. I had my ebook "Pumpkin Jack Skull and Other Tales of Terror" for free on Smashwords for several months before charging for it. It made it to the top four on Smashwords for downloads.

Why have it on Smashwords where people have to go and register? Everywhere I have found (including this place) each person needs to register to use the place. It happens to be the place I discovered first where I could upload my books instead of having them waste away on my computer doing nothing. Smashwords is an extremely helpful and encouraging place for authors of every kind. Mark Coker, who started it, has answered each of my emails and been more than friendly and helpful.

My books are all available on Amazon.com, too, but as far as I know (I'm still new with Amazon) I can't offer my books for free there. If there's a way to do that, someone please let me know, but then again, anyone who isn't already registered with Amazon will have to register and their ebooks are available ONLY on Kindle. I don't even own a Kindle. Why should I expect anyone else to buy one just to read my books?
On Smashwords at least each person who doesn't own any type of ereader can download a story to their PC, like I do.

My ebooks are available on all the various ereaders (Thanks once again to Mark Coker and Smashwords), like iPad, KOBO, B&K. But as far as I know you have to have their particular ereader to read from their site. I don't own any ereader, so I don't know for sure.

Did I answer everything well enough?

If my promotion isn't to your liking - don't go and get my book. Doesn't matter to me. I don't read every book that comes along, either, free or not. I just thought it would be nice for people to be able to read it for free and would help me in promoting all of my books. Isn't that what this place is for, or am I mistaken in my understanding here? So why am I being dogged by angry, irritating people who don't want my books anyway? It's a simple fact: if you don't want to read my book, don't read it. No one is twisting your arm and I wouldn't even if I could.

I thank Ed O'Dell for giving me this idea. I at least thought it was a good idea and it got me to look at his book, even if it wasn't free any longer.

Is this enough of an answer?

Thanks for letting me rant on back at ya.

[redhead231]

Good luck Jake, I have to admit, I did think, oh well thats another I wont be able to get as I am in the UK with a different time zone to USA, but its your book & you can do what you want with it.
As you have added another slot, then not so much of a problem. Its hard enough getting books in the UK, with all the DRM restrictions without waiting for time slots too.
Thanks anyway for the additional window.

[abookreader]

Actually Jake this is what you said

I haven't decided on the exact time yet. I work nights and sleep early morning, so it depends upon exactly when I get out of bed to get it started, but it most likely will be from 1pm-2pm (Pacific time). I will come on here and post the thread when it starts.

That is neither concise or exact as to the time and it very much does imply that we need to be here to find out when you're going to appear to make the deal valid. But people are right in that it is silly to squabble over a free offer.

I wish you great success with your book.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by Jake_Drake

If my promotion isn't to your liking - don't go and get my book. Doesn't matter to me. I don't read every book that comes along, either, free or not. I just thought it would be nice for people to be able to read it for free and would help me in promoting all of my books. Isn't that what this place is for, or am I mistaken in my understanding here? So why am I being dogged by angry, irritating people who don't want my books anyway? It's a simple fact: if you don't want to read my book, don't read it. No one is twisting your arm and I wouldn't even if I could.

Ooooh, now I really want to go and read your stuff.

I believe someone mentioned flies and honey earlier? Good luck anyway...

[jinlo]

Originally Posted by Jake_Drake

If my promotion isn't to your liking - don't go and get my book. Doesn't matter to me. I don't read every book that comes along, either, free or not. I just thought it would be nice for people to be able to read it for free and would help me in promoting all of my books. Isn't that what this place is for, or am I mistaken in my understanding here? So why am I being dogged by angry, irritating people who don't want my books anyway? It's a simple fact: if you don't want to read my book, don't read it. No one is twisting your arm and I wouldn't even if I could.

It won’t help your cause to call people “irritating.” Even if the criticism isn’t constructive, learn from it or ignore it.

Also, this place is not just for your promotion. There are other authors here trying to promote their work and there are readers trying to find deals. If there is a potential problem with any promotion, it needs to be considered. This is a friendly place where people come to find deals of all sorts. It was not placed here simply to suit any particular author’s needs or expectations.

Again, I’m not sure if this one hour deal is a good idea or not. I do know that if authors start showing up every three days to announce their next “60 minute sale” this forum is going to be as useful as Twinkies to a nutritionist.

[thafrogggg]

Quoted wrong person

[thafrogggg]

Originally Posted by abookreader

Actually Jake this is what you said



That is neither concise or exact as to the time and it very much does imply that we need to be here to find out when you're going to appear to make the deal valid. But people are right in that it is silly to squabble over a free offer.

I wish you great success with your book.

Actually, read post #3. It states pretty clearly when the book will be available for free.

[SameOldStory]

I have read the post of both Jake_Drake and Ed_ODell.

Perhaps the "one hour only" is intended to build excitement. I find it repulsive irritating annoying pestiferous.

I know that both of you would like/need to make money from writing. And I congratulate both of you for doing something that I will never be able to do. But a "one hour only" "time of my choice" deal is more likely to earn anger more than sales.

Checking my ebook download folder after taking a recent poll I found that I had many more "new authors" than I had thought. Some were free first books, some were $.99 introductory books, many were $5 books, and a few $10 books. In other words I do support new writers.

My point (at last). If you irritate potential readers don't expect a lot of sales.

[Jake_Drake]

You're right. I wasn't absolutely sure what time I would make the freebie when I first posted. That's what happens when I get distracted by everything around me while I'm posting. I thought I had made it clear. My apologies.

The fact is the book has already been changed to free and I will leave it free for longer than originally intended for those who can't work around one hour. I understand time constraints. My offer was made as a marketing ploy, not to aggravate anyone. I hadn't realized there would be anyone who would be aggravated by my making it only one hour. Never occurred to me. Guess because I'm not like that. I go with the flow a lot better.

Sorry if my freebie offer offended you.

[jinlo]

Originally Posted by Jake_Drake

You're right. I wasn't absolutely sure what time I would make the freebie when I first posted. That's what happens when I get distracted by everything around me while I'm posting. I thought I had made it clear. My apologies.

The fact is the book has already been changed to free and I will leave it free for longer than originally intended for those who can't work around one hour. I understand time constraints. My offer was made as a marketing ploy, not to aggravate anyone. I hadn't realized there would be anyone who would be aggravated by my making it only one hour. Never occurred to me. Guess because I'm not like that. I go with the flow a lot better.

Sorry if my freebie offer offended you.

If you're going to leave it for free for more than an hour you might want to notify a moderator to change the name of the thread to something like:

"Free ebook for limited time..." or something like that.

My guess is the best way to do that is to utilize the "report post" button which you can find just to the right of the "karma" button under your avatar.
Or you can send a PM to Dr. Drib. He's quite helpful in these matters, I just don't know when he'll be online.

[GraceKrispy]

Thanks for changing your offer- I did just download it. It looks interesting.

Weighing in on the 1 hour thing... I do find it irritating, as I invariably miss windows like that, and it stinks to come online and discovered you completely missed a promotion that you would have liked to take advantage of. I must admit, good or bad, I am much more likely to download a free book from an author I'm unfamiliar with, and then choose to buy more works if I enjoyed the freebie, rather than buy books from authors I'm not familiar with right out of the gate.

I also agree that it would be really irritating for this forum to change to a one hour sale extravaganza because, again, I'd likely miss virtually all the sales. That being said, of course you can market your material in whatever way you see fit, and I do appreciate you making it free for whatever limited time you choose. It makes it more likely I experience your work.

[thafrogggg]

Just snagged my copy and will start on the read tonight at work. It is almost 4pm EST so I need to hit the rack so I can be at work at midnight.

Three years on the graveyard shift and loving it!!!!

I will send you a review once I am done.

[Jake_Drake]

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

Thanks for changing your offer- I did just download it. It looks interesting.

Weighing in on the 1 hour thing... I do find it irritating, as I invariably miss windows like that, and it stinks to come online and discovered you completely missed a promotion that you would have liked to take advantage of.

I understand. I hadn't thought of any of that when I made my offer. With that in mind, if I don't upset anyone here for changing the hours of my offer, I will allow this book to remain free all day. Que? Just trying to work with those who can't be here for one hour. So I suppose I should change or perhaps post a new thread to that effect?

[Jake_Drake]

Originally Posted by thafrogggg

Just snagged my copy and will start on the read tonight at work. It is almost 4pm EST so I need to hit the rack so I can be at work at midnight.

Three years on the graveyard shift and loving it!!!!

I will send you a review once I am done.

Glad the graveyard shift works for you. It never did for me. I work swing shift and that's hard enough with sleeping in until ten or eleven each morning. I don't usually get to bed until three or four.

My son and his family will be moving up here from AZ this July and staying with us until they find a place of their own. I love my grandkids, but having a 4 & 5 year old trying to be quiet in the morning while grampa is sleeping is going to be difficult. And in the middle of summer!!! We'll see...

Hope you enjoy your copy of my book, but if there's anything you think needs improvement, please let me know. Constructive criticism is always welcome. That's the only way I'll know how to please readers. Of course, my first intent in writing a story is because I want to tell it my way, but maybe I can do that and still please readers, eh?

[Jake_Drake]

It was never my intent to cause an irritation to anyone, just to offer one of my books free to those who might want to read something new by a new author. Unfortunately my one-hour window was too restrictive for some people and I completely understand that.

With that in mind I will leave Live Forever set as FREE on Smashwords.com all day today until 1am on Sunday morning (because I told those on the other side of the world it would be available until then and it will).

Hope this works better for everyone. Next time I'll try to think things through before posting, but I am and always have been a very impulsive guy. :book2

Jake
(Jacob M. Drake):