Read any great Smashwords books lately?

[neilmarr]

***I did put the link in my post to save people looking.***

Yep, Rog. Thanks. I did follow it but, as so often happens at SW, the site wasn't playing the game and I had to start from scratch. A minor hitch. I have the book now (twice) and am looking forward to a good read. Cheers. Neil

[Patricia Ryan]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Well, this is not just genre, but sort of a hybrid genre.

Patricia Ryan just added her "A Gilded Age Mystery" series (originally published under the P.B. Ryan pseudonym). There as six books - a mystery series set in 1860s Boston. The stories center around a young Irish governess, Nell Sweeney, who gets pulled into various murder investigations.

There's a romantic interest, but it's very slow going and doesn't overtake the mystery stories. He is the opium-addicted son of the people Nell works for (and the father of the child she takes care of).

I very much enjoyed these books.

If you're at all interested, the first book in the series was just reviewed at a blog I like to visit (it's how I found out the books were released at Smashwords). I'd read them in DT format, but am gladly replacing those with nicely priced ebook copies.

Thanks so much for mentioning my books, and thanks to Ficbot for buying Still Life With Murder. My favorite scene out of the 27 novels I've written is the one that starts at the end of chapter 2, when Nell meets Will for the first time in the police station holding cell. He's battered and bloodied, going through opium withdrawal, and doesn't seem to care whether he lives or dies--but underneath it all, he still has the instincts of a gentleman. I loved writing that scene, and I can't tell you how many times I've re-read it.

I recently published these books (and six medieval romances I'd also gotten the rights back to) on Smashwords and Kindle so that I could price them at just $2.99 in order to encourage new readers to try me out. (Although my Smashwords titles are on sale for $2.24 till the end of the month.) I've been so gratified by the reception--not to mention the sales--and I don't understand why more authors don't publish digital editions of their backlist. I suspect we're going to see a lot more of that moving forward.

Right now, I'm reading Justin Cronin's The Passage (in hardcover so I could lend it to my husband afterward). It's available as an ebook in all formats, of course, and it's a FABULOUS, smart vampire tale! Before that, I read digital editions of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Dream a Little Dream and Ain't She Sweet. She never disappoints.

I've just discovered this forum, so I'm going to head over to Introductions now and say hi.

Pat

[BexBits]

Some of the books, stories and collections I've bought (or gotten free) on Smashwords and enjoyed:

Maids of Misfortune (historical mystery set in SF) and Dandy Detects (short story in the same setting)
Brechalon (fantasy/steampunk novella, sets the stage for a series)
Tales from the Green books one and two (juvenile fantasy)
Dreamshade (juvenile fantasy)
Where Sheep May Safely Graze ("A collection of short (some very short) stories and poems, mostly about New Zealand, or cats, or sheep.")

[carld]

Originally Posted by Patricia Ryan

Right now, I'm reading Justin Cronin's The Passage

This looks like an excellent book, I'll definitely be looking into it.

OT, but: I was reading some of the discussions about post-apocalyptic novels and came across references to "Swan Song" by Robert McCammon which sounded interesting. I checked Amazon ... $13.99 for a book published in 1987 Some sellers have the new paperback for $8.04, though a new hardback will set you back a cool $1,000.

[L. Belgrave]

I think I can answer this pretty safely, since I'm the Laura Belgrave you're talking about. <g>

First in the series: In the Spirit of Murder
Second: Quietly Dead
Third: Deadly Associations

Thanks for your interest. If ever I can nail down some time, I really want to continue the Claudia series, as I think of it. I got great reception to the bound books, but the ebook market makes everything so much more widely available. Gotta love it.

Laura

Originally Posted by ficbot

Okay, bought the first Patricia Ryan. Loved the sample. Looked at the Laura Belgrave books but it is not clear to me which book is #1 in the series, and her website seems to be about her corporate work. Which one should I look at first?

[L. Belgrave]

It's funny, the diversity of response I've received for the three books. I don't dare say what's my favorite, but I will say that Quietly Dead was way up there. (About that title? Someone once said to me, "Quietly Dead? As opposed to what?" Good one! Titling is so tough.

Laura

Originally Posted by Marcy

In the Spirit of Murder is the first. It was clever but had some weaknesses. I thought the second book, Quietly Dead, was much better. I didn't get to the third one yet, because my recent Baen webscription purchases were finally put up in full and I'd been eagerly waiting to read the newest Michael Z. Williamson and Mark L. Van Name books.

-Marcy

[Seli]

If you like SF short stories there is a collection of stories that has been on the StarshipSofa podcast: StarShipSofa Stories: Volume 1 (Tony C. Smith).
It contains stories by (amongst others): Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe, Alistair Reynolds.

Another collection is: The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year One (Beneath Ceaseless Skies); labelled as literary fantasy.

[roger the rabbit]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

***I did put the link in my post to save people looking.***

Yep, Rog. Thanks. I did follow it but, as so often happens at SW, the site wasn't playing the game and I had to start from scratch. A minor hitch. I have the book now (twice) and am looking forward to a good read. Cheers. Neil

Not smashwords fault, for some reason the link had become corrupted with an extra "http://" on the end. Fixed now

Hope you enjoy the book, (shades of Harlen Coben about it), not great literature but an entertaining read

[neilmarr]

Thanks, Rog. Smashwords is difficult at rush-hour traffic times, though I suspect some of the hitches I have are at my end ... and then, of course, there are wonky links. Consider yourself forgiven. Cheers. Neil

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by roger the rabbit

I have a few times gone to look at a book I did not remember I had already bought, each time a message that I have already purchased this book pops up. (Unless they have recently changed this).
This is a pain where you have downloaded a "pay what you think it's worth" and then go back to try to pay a fair price for what has turned out to be a good book - it won't let you unless you delete it from your library first.

I did have an idea about that, not sure if it would be possible or not. If you set the free sample at 100%, people can read it before they decide how much to pay for it. But having said that, I didn't know just deleting it from the library would let you buy it again. So maybe writers should just add a few lines at the end of the book to tell people how to do that.

[roger the rabbit]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I did have an idea about that, not sure if it would be possible or not. If you set the free sample at 100%, people can read it before they decide how much to pay for it. But having said that, I didn't know just deleting it from the library would let you buy it again. So maybe writers should just add a few lines at the end of the book to tell people how to do that.

Don't think that would work. It seems once a book is in your Smashwords (online) library the system just tells you -

You've bought it!
You have purchased this book.

And you can't add it to the cart, it just takes you to the full download page. (Presumably just a flag set)

If you delete the book from the library this does not happen and you can then again "pay what you want" or buy a second time.

I don't know if it is the same for (initially) "Free" books downloaded whilst logged in. I guess as you don't need to, most like me don't bother to log in for freebies.

[nomesque]

Might not be something you like, especially if you weren't keen on DEAD(ish), because in some ways it's a similar style - but I just finished reading Parable of the Forgotten and thought it was fantastic.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by roger the rabbit

Don't think that would work. It seems once a book is in your Smashwords (online) library the system just tells you -

You've bought it!
You have purchased this book.

And you can't add it to the cart, it just takes you to the full download page. (Presumably just a flag set)

If you delete the book from the library this does not happen and you can then again "pay what you want" or buy a second time.

I don't know if it is the same for (initially) "Free" books downloaded whilst logged in. I guess as you don't need to, most like me don't bother to log in for freebies.

When you download the sample you can still buy the book later, even if you were signed in when you got the sample. So the only stumbling block would be if Smashwords wouldn't let you set a 100% sample. Even if it did stop you from doing that, you could always set it at 90% and put some random junk at the end so that the complete story would fit within the sample.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by L. Belgrave

It's funny, the diversity of response I've received for the three books. I don't dare say what's my favorite, but I will say that Quietly Dead was way up there. (About that title? Someone once said to me, "Quietly Dead? As opposed to what?" Good one! Titling is so tough.

Laura

I thought it was a good title for the situation. People can be unquietly dead. Look at Michael Jackson.

My biggest complaint about the first book was the ending. It sort of just suddenly stopped without any sort of followup. The mystery was solved, but I wanted more resolution.

-Marcy

[da_jane]

I want to add my voice to the PB Ryan recommendations. They are excellent and I think the covers of the self pubbed books some of the best by far.