KDP freebie backlist round-up for 2012-01-22

[ATDrake]

An early start since I have insomnia again. Once again, nothing of real significance in the KDP select exclusive-or-else-but-5-days-free-out-of-90 slushpile, although the horror readers do get the better stuff and there's some interesting-looking historical fiction and non-fic in the lot, and the comedy and Christian fiction readers get something as well.

Valery Levy has written for peer-reviewed journals and contributed to a series of midwifery textbooks which are mostly out of print now. She offers a historical novel about a midwife in 1339 England: Midwyf : Liza

Carol Buchanan, who has a few non-fiction books from Ten Speed Press (I have some of their cultural history stuff) offers a Montana-set Civil War-era historical fiction frontier saga which she says won a Best First Novel award from the Western Writers of America: Gold Under Ice

HarperCollins-published Sharon Ihle offers an historical romance, set during the tensions between Native Americans and settlers during the opening of the US west: Dakota Dreams

Previously-featured Annette Blair returns again with the 3rd in her Rogues Club historical Regency romance series, originally published by Zebra in 2003: Unmistakable Rogue

Previously-featured Phoebe Matthews who says she's been published by a number of romance imprints (perhaps under pseudonyms, as the only paperback which shows under that name is a 1989 Flare imprint) offers a 3-story set of "a supernatural comic romp" in her apparently urban fantasy Mudflat series: Guard Dog?

Tony Martin offers a spooky supernatural thriller originally small-press published by Christian imprint Xulon Press which appears to have an extensive print-available catalogue: Reign of Silence

Previously-featured Edgar and Bram Stoker award-nominated Billie Sue Mosiman does indeed offer one of said nominated novels, originally published by Bantam under a slightly different title. Since it was an Edgar-nominee, it's probably a suspense, although the blurb makes it sound like a random stranger-danger horror thriller: Night Cruising

Paul Lewis (]ISFDB entry) and Steve Lockley (]ISFDB entry) team up to tell a Welsh small-town lurking secrets "short novel of terror": The Bell

Bram Stoker award-nominated Jeremy C. Shipp (ISFDB entry) offers a noir short story which he says received an honourable mention in Best Horror of the Year, Volume Three: The Sun Never Rises in the Big City

This multi-author set of 12 short stories does have two contributing authors with minor ISFDB publication creds, so: Horror Showcase Volume II (Horror Showcase Series)

Under the Moon is a very small imprint which has managed to garner a minor ISFDB entry. They offer an anthology of East Texas-authored stories: In the Forest: A Creepy Collection of Strange Tales

Penumbra Publishing, who also have a minor ISFDB entry for their sf/fantasy/horror stuff, offer some sort of YA-looking mystery/boating adventure which one of the reviews calls an action comedy, if you're interested. Anthony Jude McGowne's: Broadland Suspense: The Blue Lady

Scott William Carter has a YA novel out from Simon & Schuster. He offers: The Care and Feeding of Rubber Chickens: A Manual which is apparently non-fiction, although the blurb does state that a companion novel is available (I didn't bother to check).

As it turns out, Donald Newlove actually does have an autobiography which was reviewed by Time magazine. He offers what's probably got the best title of today's slushpile trawl, including all the porn, comedy, and bizarro self-help and weirdo conspiracy tract stuff: Helen's Ass Strikes Homer Blind!: Genius and Rapture in Poetry and Metaphysics This may actually be some form of satire; the blurb is not particularly helpful in determining exactly what this book is.

UK writer Robert Grossmith offers a collection of literary fiction stories for which he gives a list of specifically dated newspapers/magazines/reprint anthologies they have originally appeared in, which I am not bothering to check: The Book of Ands and Other Stories

Michael Hogan appears to have a number of non-fiction books about Latin America print-published by small specialty presses. I didn't bother googling to check if the other parts of his provided bio were accurate, but you may be interested in his quasi-academic: Savage Capitalism and the Myth of Democracy: Latin American in the Third Millenium whose blurb claims praise from Noam Chomsky and Newsweek magazine.

You may or may not be interested in this behind-the-scenes-working-there memoir by a former Amazon employee : Inside the Giant Machine: Confessions of a Former Amazon.com Technologist

For those of you who were interested in zombies in Afghanistan, here's vampires in Cairo: Beware The Stranger (Special Edition) by Ahmed Khalifa. Caveat 1-clicker, this looks totally self-pub; I do not vouch for any quality, aside from observing that the vampires do not appear to sparkle as though bedazzled. The sole review from someone who has only ever reviewed this work may perhaps be a friend/family/sockpuppet, but it's nicely articulate and describes the book well without being spoileriffic or TL;DR, and other possible friends/family/sockpuppets should take notes on how to do it if they absolutely must.

This is someone's Xlibris vanity publishing book. It looks cracktastic enough to be worth a flipthrough and tomorrow starts the Year of the Dragon anyway: Dragons Versus Dinosaurs (Xtoriez) The "Asian Red Dragon of Happiness" in the synopsis reminds me of the bit in one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books where CMOT Dibbler turns his hand to I Can't Believe It's Not Feng Shui!™ and is terribly surprised when the Dragon of Unhappiness he'd been scamming warning customers about apparently does exist and flies up people's bottoms if they don't arrange their furniture correctly.

And that's basically the handful of people whose name/publisher I recognized or who had stated author credentials which weren't obvious brazen lies and/or whose titles looked interesting enough without actually being X-men threesome fanfic going for $2.99 when not KDP-freebied.

[Dr. Drib]

Got some more.

Thanks.



Don

[phloxy]

I'm very excited about picking up the Hogan nonfiction. Thanks ATDrake! Hope you can get some sleep!

[CWatkinsNash]

Grabbed 11 today. Thank you as always!

[Blossom]

I was excited to see a new one from Sharon Ihle here I thought I had them all. I paid for her others so it nice to get one for free!