Amazon lowered the price on MURDER IN WAIKIKI

[Fred Zackel]

Save five bucks now! "Murder in Waikiki" is now only $2.99 at the Kindle Shoppe!

(where Walter Bing's body got tossed ...)

Walter Bing was almost a whole day dead. He faced the sun rising from the eastern Pacific, caught like a kite in mid-flight. He was crumpled in a flame tree, held aloft by broad branches, his left arm dangling and swinging in the constant gusts of wind channeled along the pali walls.

The flame tree basked while Bing naturally fermented in the tropical heat and humidity. The flame tree was full grown and flamboyantly in bloom. His work pants were the color of the branches, and his aloha shirt was the same scarlet and white as the blossoms that surrounded him.

His head was mashed against an errant off-shoot, a thumb-sized sucker that had impaled his cheek. Had he been alive when he crash-landed here, his neck would have twisted and snapped. But he was already dead meat cooling.

When he hit the flame tree, it had actually groaned from the impact. Not that he weighed that much--a middle-aged bantam-weight of a man--but he had hit at terminal velocity. The flame tree did lose some branches, but it was hardy and took the stress well. After all, not many trees could live halfway up the side of a thousand foot cliff on the lee side of the volcanic mountain range.

A honeybee walked his face, prowled his nostril, invaded his mouth, and investigated the sticky sweetness of his blood, the corruption of his body. Soon it was blown away by the gusty winds. New bees came and went.

Now and then the wind stiffened, the tree shook and swayed, Bing rocked in his cradle, old leaves and old blossoms blew off. But Bing's purchase was never threatened; he was wedged tightly. Small change slipped from Bing's pockets, and tumbled to the footpath three dozen feet below.

Bing, if alive, would have looked out on Kaneohe Bay in leeward Oahu. He'd have seen the bedroom community of Kailua. It was a lovely town of manicured lawns, suburban bungalows, choice quarter-acre lots, station wagons, and a very good high school football team. Bing knew the streets of Kailua well, better than most residents, yet he never lived there. He would've if he could've, but he never got the chance. But that's the trouble with murder; we die before our time.

Now he awaited his funeral and burial at the Chinese cemetery in Manoa.

A mynah bird landed near Bing, warbled to the world that this was the frontier of his territory, then caught the scent of dead man, and flew off in a hurry to another border post.

From the novel MURDER IN WAIKIKI, available at the Kindle Store. Less expensive writings are also available.

Enjoy good writing tonight in the privacy of your home.



Click
here

Best wishes,

Fred Zackel

(Is the link is working yet? Sigh.)

P.S. Also available through smashwords.

[LeeGoldberg]

I think you're going to have an uphill climb selling the book priced at $7.99. My advice would be to price it at $2.99...especially since the royalty formula is going to change in two weeks.

Lee

[Fred Zackel]

Hi Lee,

You may be right. We've been considering & re-considering everything. Especially after reading your blog on how well you've been doing.

Thanks for dropping by.

Best wishes to you.

Fred

[Fred Zackel]

Lee, I just took your advice. The new price is $2.99.

Fred

[basschick]

unfortunately not everyone has a kindle, and i hate to read on my computer.

please do post if you happen to decide to release the book in mobipocket or some other formats.

[Fred Zackel]

Hi basschick,

Thank you.

I know for sure that I'm going Nook as soon as they tell me how and give me the go-ahead. That is supposed to be this summer. Maybe with the Kindle price change, that might be speeded up.

I regret that I am so new at e-readers that I do not know what mobipocket is. (I think my problem is that I don't lift my head up above the pen & paper much.) But I will check it out today and see what needs to be done.

Thank you again.

Fred

[Fred Zackel]

Okay ... I just got confused. I binged mobipocket ... perused their website (a classier way to say "surfed" or browsed" ... and got the following ...

"Effective September 2009, we will no longer open new accounts for publishers to sell titles through the Kindle Store or MobiPocket.com. If you have an existing account, there will be no change and you can continue to upload and sell titles using Ebookbase. New publishers with a US address and bank account can sign up to sell ebooks in the Kindle store via our self-service publishing channel at http://dtp.amazon.com"

I clicked on that last url and got ... Kindle.

Where did I go wrong?

[dreams]

Fred, Here is a good place to start for information all in one place. Smashwords allows multiple format downloads, no DRM, and no geographic restrictions.

How to Publish on Smashwords!

Smashwords for Authors (bolded text is my emphasis)

Smashwords is a free service that helps you publish, promote, distribute and sell your masterpiece as a multi-format ebook, ready for immediate sale online at a price you determine. Because we publish your book in multiple ebook formats, your book is readable on any e-reading device, including the Amazon Kindle, the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, the Sony Reader, the Barnes & Noble nook, your personal computer, and others. As a Smashwords author, you gain access to free, do-it-yourself sales and marketing tools to help you promote your book. You receive 85 percent of the net sales proceeds from your titles (70.5% for affiliate sales).

Also from their page:

Getting Started

Publishing on Smashwords is as easy as 1-2-3:

Step 1: Carefully format your manuscript as a Microsoft Word .doc file per the guidelines in the Smashwords Style Guide and, if you desire mainstream distribution via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony and other retailers, study the guidelines for inclusion in the Smashwords Premium Catalog. Apple and Sony require ISBNs, which you can acquire from our ISBN Manager.

Mobileread has a great Wiki for information including the Famous (E-book Reader Matrix), which shows devices and formats used.

We are an international membership of many devices, and I believe, that Smashwords is an easy way to offer the multiple formats.

Have fun learning and just ask if you have any questions.
PS - mobi(pocket) is a format that can be used by Kindles also.

[Fred Zackel]

Thank you, dreams,

Am I to charge more at Smashwords than with Kindle? Is there something about keeping Kindle at two bucks less than any other?

And I guess the ISBN numbers are / will be different than Kindle's?

Thank you.

[koland]

Fred,

You don't need an ISBN # at SM unless you are trying for the premium catalog, from what I understand. I suspect you could use the same one (just be sure to uncheck the box for Amazon distribution since you went there directly ... which both pays you more and gives you a nicer looking format).

As for price, Amazon only requires that you not charge less anywhere else, including on your website. So, set the price the same (but you can still use coupons at Smashwords, at least, so far).

[Fred Zackel]

Yea!! I'm at smashwords.

Please look for me there. And if things look dicey, or goofy, or ...

Thank you everyone.

[basschick]

Fred, which one do you recommend as a sort of intro to your work? i just can't decide - thanks!

[Fred Zackel]

Hi basschick --

At this instant, where would you rather be? San Francisco or Wakiki?

I have three books up about San Francisco: COCAINE & BLUE EYES, CINDERLLA AFTER MIDNIGHT, and TOUGH TOWN COLD CITY.

I have a single Hawaii book up right now: MURDER IN WAIKIKI.

Right now it's 1 pm EST. Say five or six hours time difference, which would make it seven or eight am Hawaii time.

If you walk out of your hotel right now and (smeared in suntan lotion) slither down to the beach -- the watr at this moment is about 70-75 degrees ... as is the air around you. You can get two, maybe three hours in before it gets too warm to lay out in the sun or paddle around in the water.

In two or three hours, you go shopping in one of the great air-conditioned shops and stores in Waikiki -- while most of the tourists who come now to thre beach are trying to look like pink roast beef.

Around 4 or 5 pm this afternoon, come back from shopping and go back to the beach.

The sands are deserted. The tourists are inside slathering on aloe vera lotion.

Enjoy the beach. Enjoy the water. And when you are ready -- go out to a lovely, candle-lit dinner aslong Kalakaua Bloulevard.

I recommend the Royal Hawaiian's outdoor restaurant with reservations at 6 pm, when the sun goes down in the tropics. It's a sort of canopy-restaurant, but with candles asnd white table cloths and (sigh.) You are beachside at sunset, you can look all the way down Waikiki's sands to Diamond Head ... and if you drop your fork, it falls in the sand. Meanwhile, the catamarrans are just off-shore. Can you hear the music drifting to you?

But that's just my personal favorite at this moment in time.

Should I also mention San Francisco?

Oh. And in a short time, look for A DEATH IN KEY LARGO.

[LeeGoldberg]

So...it's been a few weeks...did lowering the price increase your sales?

Lee

[Fred Zackel]

Yes, it did. Thank you for the good advice.

Hey, Lee, is it true you've written an upcoming episode of THE GLADES?

When will it air?

Fred