An Experiment
Well, it’s been three months since I published my first novel, From Dust and Desolation. Those three months have been…underwhelming, to say the least. I wasn’t expecting immediate success, nor was I truly expecting to earn enough on my novel to recoup what I’ve spent in book design and website hosting and book review sites and (mostly fake) awards entry. I was hoping that a couple hundred, maybe a thousand, readers might give my book a try. Might enjoy it. Let’s just say even those (relatively tame) goals seem unachievably high, now. To quote one of my writing heroes - “So it goes.”
The one place where I’ve seen a mild amount of success is in readers picking up my book for free. Some folks might be offended by that, might be offended that their work has no monetary value in the Holiest of Holies, the Free Market, blessed be its name. I’m not offended. I’m actually OK with giving away my work for free. After all, I’m not a starving artist, and I’m not trying to support myself or my family on what I make from my writing. If people will read what I write for free, my stance is - OK, let’s let them read it for free.
After all, I get it. Book readership is way down, and yet the number of books published, especially in the self-published market, is high. You don’t know that my book is any good, and honestly it’s a big risk, and one I shouldn’t, in all fairness, be asking you to take. First time writer, in an incredibly niche market, with a depressing-sounding title…not many people are lining up to throw their hard-earned dollars at that.
So, from this point forward, From Dust and Desolation is now free to download from this site. Head on over to the store to download your free version, either in .pdf or in .epub format. I represent that the file you will download is completely safe, and should work in your specific e-reader of choice. I do not know how to make it work on your e-reader of choice, so please refer to other resources for troubleshooting assistance.
If downloading a file from a random website doesn’t tickle your fancy, that’s great. I can’t make this site work perfectly on your e-reader, but I’ll tell you what I will do. Beginning this week, and continuing every week until it’s done, I will post one chapter per week here, in my blog. I’ll add a little section of author’s notes a the beginning, formatted to make it easy for you to skip, if you don’t really want to read my notes (I know that I wouldn’t). Feel free to leave comments and I may (or may not) respond. I try to avoid online engagement, and I don’t want to seem ungracious, but I’m probably not going to re-litigate items I’ve already written down. If that makes any sense to you. But maybe other people will add comments, and you can fight (nicely, please!) amongst yourselves.
In any instance, I hope you enjoy. I do have a patreon that you can find here, if you’ve liked what you’ve read and would like to throw me a few bucks. I also have a paid version of my book in my store, you can pay for my book there, too, if that’s your thing. But no hard feelings if you don’t.