Free Day for Bannister's Way

Free on Amazon Kindle on June 18-19, 2012-- Bannister's Way.  

which usually means by 1am PDT, tomorrow morning. Always  check before clicking [buy] to be sure there is a line through the book's regular price which in this case will be $4.99. Prime can confuse buyers. Amazon is usually pretty good about putting books on free when they are scheduled but better safe than sorry.

Read more about the story in the blog ahead of this one. This book was previously published as Golden Chains and now has new title, new cover, and an expansion of the book's length. If you haven't previously bought it, give it a try. If you have, the instructions for how to handle that are in that previous blog.

Remember for those without Kindles, you can read eBooks online. Below the [buy] button there is an explanation for how to get a free Kindle Reading App.

Recreating a creation

Well, we did it. It was a brand new learning experience regarding publishing eBooks. We took a book whose title wasn't working for readers, came up with a new title, a new cover, and then I looked at the story and realized I wanted to expand a few key characters which would take the book up to 100,000 words and give it a different sort of energy.

I asked my publisher (who happens to be my husband) what he thought the energy of the book is using one word. He had not read it previously; so he couldn't compare it to that, but he liked it a lot now. He said the one word that came to him was empowerment.

The story is set in Oregon and revolves around a small art community in a liberal arts college where a brutal murder had taken place a few months previously. It starts when Raven Lawrence and David Bannister meet for the first time after their divorce twelve years earlier. They were childhood sweethearts who were married two years before their differences became too great and after a bitter fight, he left.

Bannister is part of a shadowy investigative organization and has come with his partner to Oregon to find the murderer. He is also hoping to reconnect with his ex. He is not planning on posing nude for her life drawing class. David and Raven both have a lot to learn this time around.

What I think makes the story empowering is how it explores relationships between the estranged couple, between sisters (in this case of women in two different age groups), between parent and adult child, between friends, and even between student and teacher as well as those who work together and try to maintain a collegial environment. Maybe if using two words for this book's energy, they would be empowering relationships.

The new title came to me as I thought about how the hero was a determined man, the kind who did things his way. It was, however, the very thing that the heroine found objectionable.  With some adventure, spice and fun, I liked how the expansion changed its emphasis in a positive way.

Because it had been for sale previously and because it had been free, with others having the old version, I am going to set a time for two free days. I have to enroll it in Select first and then will let readers here know the dates for the free version. I am not sure but it's also possible owners don't even need a free day as I think when a writer puts up a new version of the same book, the readers are able to request it from Amazon. This free day would be simpler though.

To keep your Kindle uncluttered, previous readers can clear out the old version by going to Golden Chains then to the 'go to' page, looking down the list and hitting remove book from device. To also remove it from your online Kindle storage, go to manage Kindle and you will find all the books you have bought. Find it, say to delete it and it will leave it free for the free one to come on board. I am not sure what would happen if you left it as this new one has the same number; but it might work anyway. I don't lose my reviews for Golden Chains or its ranking (lowly though it was). For now, the author page still has the old cover but it will change and if you click inside for the sample, the new cover shows up.

Bannister's Way 

I am happy with the story, the characters, and as part of recreating it, I wanted it to have its own trailer on YouTube:

Gathering material

Although I try to keep myself upbeat regarding this business of publishing, there are those down times and it'd be ignoring reality to not sometimes write about them. As a writer, any writer, you put a lot of yourself into each manuscript. There are not only hours, but your own set of beliefs and values. When that work is rejected, there is no way to feel anything but depressed. What you try to do is pick yourself up and concentrate on other things for awhile.

Because I haven't put dollars into this business of marketing books, I have some comfort that at least I haven't pulled money from one need to feed another. But emotional blood, sweat, and tears, there's been plenty of that. And there have been dollars involved even if indirectly.

For instance this week-end, I finally thought I had the right weather to get a photo of a home that would fit one my heroine owned in the book I am redoing. I had put together most of a trailer for it but wanted her home, as it's an important part of the story and figures prominently in several key scenes.

Getting that photo required driving around 80 miles to the Portland area. The photo (yes, I found one) didn't come for free given gasoline prices-- but we often like to go for drives. This was an area Farm Boss had been a lot as a young person; so it was kind of fun on that level.

This drive was also a step back in time for me. The house I had written about was based on one an uncle had rented between having sold one home and having a better home built. His mother, three kids, and he (he was a widower) spent a summer at that house on the banks of the Tualatin River. I loved when I came to spend a few nights. You could swim off a dock that was right below the house. The home was kind of sprawling, old and not in great shape, but I had had my heroine buy it that way and do the remodeling before the book begins.

Although I didn't get the photo of that house (it has since been nicely remodeled and was not accessible from the public road), we did find a very nice, public trail and park that they have put along the Tualatin. We walked about half a mile down it and got some photos through the brush of homes on the other side. One of which will work nicely for what I needed. I'd hate to try and figure out what that one photo cost though-- so I won't.


The two photos above are not the house. The second one was on the lane leading to the house I once stayed in.