A big negative side for me is what about readers who just bought the book? It makes me feel like when I have gone into a store, bought something at full price and a week later, it's half that price. I don't like it. I don't like it for those readers and it's no wonder if a lot of readers hold off buying anything for that thinking-- it's bound to be on soon.
But if I do no free days, have no give aways with good ratings for how many are taken, it hurts the chance my books will to be seen by anybody who might buy them after the giveaway is over. These times always improve sales after they are finished and do bring the ratings closer to a place where an ordinary reader might stumble across the books-- at least if they do a search for their general category.
There is a satisfaction in the giveaways in knowing 10,000 readers (guessing at the numbers as I haven't actually tallied it up but about that) have the books to read and if they ever get around to reading them (who knows how many read books they are given?), it might mean they look at others I have written and buy one of those.
Four of my books we are taking out of Select (still at Kindle for sales) with no give aways possible. That is being done so they can be put into other media such as Kobo, Barnes and Noble and wherever else we can figure out. But that leaves six than can be given away.
For today and tomorrow one will be Hidden Pearl. It seemed a good time for it with its new cover.
I like this book and hope some of you, who haven't already read it, will give it a try while it's free. It's a story of a search for a missing person but ends up being a search for a self and what really has value-- hence the title. Things of value aren't always easy to see, find or keep.
It is all set in Oregon mostly between Portland and the Umpqua country to the south in both the big city environment (well, it's big to us), and that of the backcountry as well as inside a cult that is on the rise.
The information I put into this book regarding the cult comes out of research but not having actually been in one myself (I have been in religions though and the motivations can be somewhat the same). Oregon had a rather famous cult some years back which became quite unpopular which led to it striking out against others and eventually leaving the state. There are other cults that stay quiet and are little known.
What interested me was what makes them succeed, what might be the motivation of their leaders, and what are people hoping to find who join one? Exploring that kind of question seemed like a good place to set a romance of two people not in the cult but investigating it for different reasons.
The cult itself in Hidden Pearl is totally fictional-- not about any real cults now or in the past and set in area I have no reason to think ever had a real cult. The title Hidden Pearl comes from the idea that I believe people join such looking for that of great value. Perhaps some find it and later the cult becomes a successful religion... Who is to know? ;)
