Free Book - Cocaine Blues (I/DF/K)

[koland]

Cocaine Blues ($0.99 Kindle), the first title in the Phryne Fisher Mysteries series by Kerry Greenwood, is free from iTunes, courtesy of Poisoned Pen Press.

Book Description
The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honorable Phryne Fisher—she of the gray-green eyes and diamant garters—is tiring of polite conversations with retired colonels and dances with weak-chinned men. When the opportunity presents itself, Phryne decides it might be amusing to try her hand at becoming a lady detective in Australia.

Immediately upon settling into Melbourne's Hotel Windsor, Phryne finds herself embroiled in mystery. From poisoned wives and cocaine smuggling, to police corruption and rampant communism—not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse—Cocaine Blues charts a crescendo of steamy intrigue, culminating in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Get the free ebook from iTunes (DRM-free).

[ATDrake]

Another thing I was too tired to post early this morning and ran out of time to do so later this morning. And I was going to do this fancy feature post and all. Ah well, at least it's still free, which is more than can be said of some other stuff I'd been putting off because of the stupid slushpile.

Tie-in deals for this are further books in the series @ $2.99-$4.99-$6.99 (regular list price on the PPP website is $9.99 each).

This seems to be an unofficial freebie and promo, and is offered @ iTunes (probably DRM-free, since this book and the other PPP actually-official freebies are) and some of them are price-matched at Amazon.

Here's PPP's official author page for Greenwood, which gives the series order numbering for both her series, of which the other one is also free and discounted @ iTunes.

I think I'll try this book and if I like it enough and PPP doesn't change their pages to indicate an official promo, maybe I'll pick up one of those discounted iTunes gift cards at the local Future Shop/Best Buy and get the early $2.99 sequels from iTunes, which will probably be the rare case in which I actually buy books from them.

(We really need some sort of moderately disgruntled fist-shaking smiley.

And I should stop bothering with the KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile full of Sturgeon's Law mandated 90% crap, because it's clearly keeping me from posting freebies that I actually want to post about from venues which I think are deserving of attention, in favour of giving unmerited promo to authors who've made it clear they're perfectly willing to dump on their pre-existing readers at other outlets.

Why exactly am I enabling this behaviour again? I don't even have the prospect of maybe making 4 cents on the dollar for it.) <-- this is what my internal monologue sounds like right now, when I contemplate how I've wasted my time in their favour

[elaysee]

Drove me to delurk for this one, as you see. I'm still waiting to see if the Kerry Greenwood books go on special directly at PPP, but I used to buy the physical books directly from Australia or on eBay while she was between US publishers, otherwise I'd already have scarfed the lot.

I'll note that the first few Phyrne Fisher books (Cocaine Blues, Flying Too High, Murder on the Ballarat Train) are fairly short, so if these sound like maybes for anyone, it could be worth prioritizing some reading time with Cocaine Blues to see if the books appeal. As with any series, there gets to be a formula as time goes on, but I enjoy the characters in both series and their lives in Australia. Looking at the list of titles, I could tell you the main action of the first 10 or so, which isn't always true for me that deep in a series, nor do I usually read that deep in a series.

Characteristics: more cozy than gritty, plenty of characters to follow from book to book, amorous intrigue rather than romance in the Phryne Fisher books. I'm sure these aren't for everyone, but in my estimation this is quite a solid author who might be better known if she lived in the US or UK.

[ATDrake]

Yeah, I've heard good things about this series elsewhere, which is why I'm interested in trying it and was pleased to see it show up with the other PPP freebies I was checking at iTunes before I finally went to sleep ~3am.

And I like slightly quirky historicals and the 2nd involves early aviation, which is also something I like, so I suppose I should haunt the Best Buy flyers for the iTunes gift card deals, which I guess I could always use on something else anyway.

that it becomes an official promo and I get the next few directly from PPP or even more on sale from Books on Board.

[Blue Tyson]

The tv series is pretty good, anyway!

[meeera]

US-only.

[Terisa de morgan]

And DRM-free for sure

[ATDrake]

Looks like the price-matching is trickling through, at least for North Americans: now also free @ Amazon (available to Canadians, as is the original DRM-free iTunes freebie, FYI).

[ozron]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

The tv series is pretty good, anyway!

Yes excellent TV series produced by the ABC (that's the Aussie one btw)...

For some (ironic) reason the books aren't available in the Oz iTunes store.

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah, usual Australian publisher ineptness there.

The local editions will probably be $15 or so anyway.

[ATDrake]

Well, it seems that PPP are no longer selling e-books directly via their site as far as I can tell from the lack of "add to basket" on their listings any more.

However, for people who are presumably neither Australians nor UK shoppers, the follow-up series sale books have now dropped to the discount price at Books on Board, which has them DRM-free and with their ongoing 40-50% off sale has them at prices ranging from $2.34-$4.77 plus the extra Reward Bucks.

I went and read the 1st one of these and Greenwood's other freebie series and I'm going to pick up at least the $3.40 or less sale titles Real Soon Now.

[Blue Tyson]

I started the Corinna Chapman bakery murder one

A bit more like Shane Maloney's Murray Whelan stuff in tone than your grandma with cats type cozy. See brought back from dead abusive junkie on bakery floor scene early on for example.

[sufue]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, it seems that PPP are no longer selling e-books directly via their site as far as I can tell from the lack of "add to basket" on their listings any more.

Here's a partial explanation from their "Promos" page. They don't come right out and say that they aren't selling through their own site anymore, but it seems pretty clearly implied.

Here’s our first batch of FREE e-books!
We’re doing our best to make them free everywhere, but not everyone will completely cooperate. If you buy one of these e-books for an iPad/iPhone or anyother device through the Apple iTunes store then they’re completely, absolutely, totally free, as in $0.00.
It turns out that Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon all force us to set the price to no less than $.99, but if enough of you click on the link, “tell us about a lower price,” on Amazon.com just above Customer Reviews, at the bottom of Product Details then I’ve been told that Amazon will fairly quickly price-match. I haven’t seen or heard of a way at Kobo or BN to do the same, but if someone discovers one, please let me know so I can pass it on.

http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/discover-mystery/

Edit: And, I mostly don't really mind giving them $0.99 even for a "trial" book. They publish lots of series that I like, and seem to be really trying to make e-books work well - nicely edited, DRM-free, a couple of formats (although not now that they're not selling through their own site), quick customer service. A couple of series that I kind of go "eaaah" on, I appreciate the total freebie to try it out, but usually $0.99 is good enough for me.