Win a Clearwater Calendar 2024

I’ve had this mad idea and I need your input, and I need it ASAP. Like any good story, it begins with a What if?

What if I asked you to list up to five of your favourite Clearwater/Larkspur/Delamere characters? Who would you list?

What if I then chose the five most popular and wrote a novella?

What if that novella was a collection of five short stories as told by the characters who have gathered together? (It might be they are stuck in a railway carriage, or by the fireplace on Christmas Eve… I’ll work that out later; it’s not important.)

And what if I put together the novella together in time for Christmas and you got a PDF/Kindle of it for free?

WANT TO HAVE AN INPUT?

List your five favourite characters via my Facebook page (the thread is there, or just leave a random comment), via email or private message, and I will send out a Clearwater calendar to one contributor chosen at random at the end of next week (27th October).

FAST. I’d like to get started soon, so can I have your suggestions like… now? At least a couple to get me started.

WHO? Any characters. It doesn’t have to be the ‘canonical’ five (Archer, Silas, Tom, James, Fecks), and it doesn’t have to be a main player. It can be anyone from Mrs Killhaddock from ‘Agents of the Truth’ to Professor Fleet (Larkspur) or Jack Merrit (Delamere). It could even be one of the real names of history who have appeared; Bram Stoker, Henry Irving, Tennyson… Or someone that stands out in your memory for another reason… one of the villains, servants, East End renters…

HOW MUCH? Free!

(For a while.) My intention is to publish the collection/novella free to all my newsletter subscribers around Christmastime, and to put it in the ‘Jackson’s Deviant Desires’ private group for members. Sometime after Christmas, I may release it via the usual Amazon channels and put it for sale.

I’m going to put this post on my blog tomorrow for all those who follow my website but don’t use Facebook, so the details will be there if you lose this post/thread.

Get thinking, and put your suggestions in the comments, via my jack@ email, or my private message, and let’s have some fun!

Giveaways on Amazon

Does offering your book for free work?

You make your book free on Kindle so anyone who wants to can download a copy. Why? The idea is you give away loads of copies in the hope readers will then buy another of your titles. Simple advertising and everyone likes something for free, so you get lots of publicity in return and without paying anything.

The Mentor of Lonemarsh HouseI have always been dubious, but I tried it at the end of last month. ‘The Mentor of Lonemarsh House’, one of the more romantic of the ‘Mentor’ series, hadn’t sold any copies in December so over the New Year period I put it up for five days for free. The title had already covered its cover and editing costs and had, in 2018, broken even in that respect. The giveaway on Amazon resulted in 577 copies being taken for free. I don’t know how many copies were read, they may have been downloaded and saved for the future, but clearly, 577 readers at least saw the title and author name while grabbing their freebie.

I didn’t expect the promotion to lead to the sale of other titles straight away, but I have noticed a change already, for the better, and the leader on the sales board after only five days since the giveaway ended, is ‘The Mentor of Lonemarsh House.’ Okay, so only four copies sold and 1,181 page reads under Kindle Unlimited (roughly another six copies) but considering there were none of either in the previous month, a huge improvement.

Is this because of the free giveaway, or just coincidence? I can’t tell. Did readers click on the title thinking it was still free but actually paid for it? I hope not. Was it because the title was up at the top of Amazon lists for a while because it was free? Who knows? What I do know is that although the resulting income has not yet matched the amount I would have made if 577 readers paid for the book, the promotion appears to have had a positive effect on sales of this title and others.

It will be interesting to see, over the next few days, if this trend continues or if it was just a New Year thing – readers spending money again after the Christmas break. Whatever happens, it’s good to know that people are out there reading and, hopefully, enjoy the books. The reviewers think so. “Wow, Wow, Wow….. This story has that slow long burn feeling to it that gets into you and doesn’t let you go” is a sample from one of the Amazon.com reviews.

So far, the answer to my question, Does offering your book for free work? Appears to be, yes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079QJP4KL