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So what does this mean?  Well, it’s available exclusively through Amazon for at least the next 90 days, and every so often I’ll be running a free promo of the first book and doing countdown deals on the rest of the series.  These will be announced well in advance.

I’ll be running the first free promo on the first book of the series on Sunday the 8th for anyone who wants to head on over and pick it up.

Also, just as a reminder, I will be offering the books in other formats if you need them.  The books are natively written in the .epub format and often have minor formatting errors when converted by Amazon to the .mobi format.  So if you see any small formatting issues in the books, that’s why.  If you do want the books in any other format, just send me a copy of your Amazon receipt and I’d be happy to e-mail you whatever format you require.

Amazon’s e-book format is .mobi, which is the Kindle format.  Once I’ve moved all of my sales strictly to Amazon through their KDP Select program, that’s the only format the book will be available in, which is fine if you’re using a Kindle or the Kindle app to download and read the books.  However, I know this isn’t a good solution for everyone, so here’s what I’m going to do.  Since the book will only be for sale on Amazon, if you buy the books through Amazon and you’d rather have them in Epub or PDF format, just forward me a copy of your Amazon receipt and I’d be happy to send you a copy of the books you’ve purchased in whatever format you desire.  That way you’re not limited to just the .mobi format.

While I’m not happy about the exclusive nature of Amazon’s KDP Select program, I can at least make it better for my readers by offering alternative formats.  If I’d have had any luck getting the sales going the way I had things set up before, I wouldn’t have even considered KDP Select, but I didn’t, so I think this may be the step I need to take to jump start my sales, and then in 90 days when the select period is up, I may switch back to multiple distribution sites depending on the results I get.  We’ll just have to see what happens.

Ok, I’ve decided to go with Amazon KDP Select instead of publishing through Smashwords distribution channels and Google Play.  I was getting no sales whatsoever from the other retail sites and Google Play was just a joke.  I have to have the books enrolled for 90 days, so after that I’ll decide what I want to do from there.  Unfortunately, I can’t have the books for sale here on the website either as long as I’m enrolled in the program, but since I haven’t sold anything from here other than a few free copies, I don’t think that’ll matter too much.  I need to get the series out there and this seems like about the best way to do it, for right now anyway.

So that’s what’s going on at the moment.  If you still want to take advantage of the free copy of the first book after they’re no longer available here or on any of the other sites, I will be running a three day freebie after I get everything into select.  Aside from that you can simply contact me through the contact page here if you want a free copy and I’d be happy to mail it to you.

Yes it’s a hassle and no I’m not sure it’s the right move, but I’ve read enough positive results that people have had that I’m willing to give it a shot.  Like I said, I can always re-evaluate the situation in 90 days time.

Yesterday I decided to take a shot at adding the series to Google Play.  You can view the listings here: https://play.google.com/store/books/author?id=Duane+L.+Martin

Again, the first book, Origins is free everywhere including the official site. The only place it isn’t is on Amazon because they’re a pain in the ass about their pricing, so I’ve changed it to .99 cents there and I’m trying to get people to report price matches so they’ll knock it down to free on there as well.

A quick thought on Google Play. Much like Amazon, they have a space for the series title and the volume number, and yet they make no mention of it at all in the listings. At least Amazon is listing the series now next to the title, but even there it’s not linked to a full list of the series titles. I really don’t know what these retail sites are thinking. It should be absolutely elementary to have the title the series and the volume number all on the listing for any given book for which a volume and series number apply. Honestly, the only site I’ve seen doing this so far is Smashwords, so they’ve got it right. Another problem with Google Play are the reports. You can’t view them online. You have to download a CSV file to view. How basic would it be to have that info viewable on a nice reports page? I mean they’re Google! What the hell?

Yes, that’s right.  I’m now giving away the first book of the series, not just as a special promo, but permanently.  You can get it free either here on the official site, or on Smashwords.  I believe it’ll be free on the retail sites too once it propagates.  I’ve changed the price on Amazon to .99 cents since that’s all they allow with their pricing options, but you can either price match there if you want, or you can buy it for .99 cents and throw me a few pennies. 🙂

Work has officially begun on book 10 of the series, Encounters.  The first chapter is done, though my writing is going to be very piecemeal for the next week or so because I have a lot of movies I have to review before the end of the month.  I’ll fit in the writing when I can though just to keep things moving.

Just a reminder that the first book of the series, Origins is available for free this week here on the website.  The free giveaway will end on May 25th, so be sure to grab it while you can.