Yes, in just one and a half days, more than 400 people have picked up my e-book, Running: A Long Distance Love Affair, on Amazon.com. Get yours now. In one and a half more days the FREE promotion will end. My gift to my fellow runners on LRC and everywhere.
So what do you get out of it if you give your book away? Help with sales on future books? Did you make any money on the book?
Those links no longer work. I think they reached their freshness dates.
No, I don't make much on book sales. Even if I had sold the nearly 600 books that people have now gotten for free, I would have made less than two dollars per book. Right now while the book is free, neither Amazon nor I make one red cent. I haven't made more than a couple hundred dollars on the book since I self-published it three months ago, and that's ok, really. Any pocket change I make from the book is just icing on the cake. Right now, I choose to share what I wrote with all of you and my fellow running brothers and sisters around the world who choose to accept this gift. Crazy? Only if I were motivated by insignificant amounts of money.
Choose what you want to believe, but I never wrote Running: A Long Distance Love Affair hoping to make much money from it. It was truly a labor of love for the sport of running. Read the preface of the book, and you'll see why I first started writing it. I had a great college professor who actually let students write a "multi-genre" paper about something they loved, so I chose running. That little (about 35 pages) paper then grew over the past two decades to the approximately 182 pages it is now. My own running story isn't over yet because I still run and I still experience many things physically, mentally, and even spiritually while running. But I had to finally decide when to pull the trigger on the final copy, and that came this past year when I reached the age of 52.
My book was never intended to be the next great American novel, and I frankly don't have that ability. My sister does, though, having published 5-6 novels herself. But I think I tell a good story from the heart. Yes, it leaves a writer vulnerable to criticism and even derision to write about your most personal feelings and experiences, but that's what honest writers do. That's what greater writers such as Dr. George Sheehan did, and that's what inferior writers like myself do. Running: A Long Distance Love Affair simply tells one man's running story. It's no better or worse than the stories many of you could tell if you really wanted to and could write at least at my level.
Anyway, love me, hate me, or be indifferent, but I think real runners, at all levels, will find something valuable and at least thought-provoking in my book. We all share a larger running story. Please enjoy my chapter of our story. Thanks.
I'd like to read this, but I don't have a Kindle....
Serious question - how do I get it?
T BONE wrote:
I'd like to read this, but I don't have a Kindle....
Serious question - how do I get it?
You don't need a Kindle, you can read it on your PC with an App.
Is there are print version?
Yes, the Kindle app is free. Look at the page where you get the book. About mid-way down it asks if you have a Kindle. Right there, Amazon has a link to get the Kindle app free for PC, laptop, tablets, cell phones, etc. I do have a Kindle, but I do most of my book reading on my Samsung Galaxy 3 tablet. I travel a lot, so the tablet lets me also watch movies, search the net, etc., where my plain old black-and-white Kindle won't. So, I have the Kindle app on my tablet. I also have the Kindle app on my PC and my laptops. Easy peasy, my friend.
I'd love to have a print version, but as a self-published author it just hasn't been feasible. If I had an actual publisher, yes, but I haven't even bothered looking for one. It's too costly printing copies on my own. I suppose if I charged for printing costs I could do it, but honestly, who would buy a self-published printed book by an unknown author for, say, 10-15 dollars? I did the whole thing by myself with no co-writer, no publisher, and no editor. I have a Master's degree in English, so that helped, but I'm sure a really good editor could have been of great assistance because two sets of eyes and two writers' minds would be better than one. Anything you like about the book, that's all my doing, and anything you don't like about the book is my fault alone. If I were desperately in need of money I might try to find an actual publisher, but I really don't need the money. Again, when I wrote the book I wasn't motivated by any hopes of making a living from my writing.
I downloaded it, I am not sure when I will get around to read it, but since it's free happy to support.
Keep it to one thread, free or not.
Can't get it for free without a kindle. Stop misleading these impressionable young minds.
Wow, that comes out to one person per thread you've started about it.
In most cases I would be interested for something like this, but the way you plug it... jeeeeeeeeeeez.
ummmmmm wrote:
In most cases I would be interested for something like this, but the way you plug it... jeeeeeeeeeeez.
Thanks, guys, for keeping me at the top of the board, regardless of your trolling. Since I don't have an immovable, comment-proof thread on the first page of the board, I'm just trying to get the word out as much as possible regarding the free book for just one more day. Then you're really gonna miss me!
Actually this might come as a welcome suprise, but after Wednesday night (10/22) I won't be on this forum for at least a little while. All those miles in my youth spent running out in the glaring sun with no shades on have added up to the need for cataract surgery in my right eye. They say it's an easy, 20-minute process and that they've perfected it, but I'm not looking forward to Thursday morning. Then I don't think I'll be staring at a computer screen much for a few days. We'll see. Wish me well. Thanks.
If you have to advertise something that's free, it mustn't be much good.
Thanks!
Shawn H wrote:
...he holds my right leg straight and lifts it perpendicular to my prone body.
Maybe prone wasn't the best word here(?), since it can typically be used to describe 'face down', which I don't think you mean since you later say he tells you to roll over on your stomach.
It took me a while to get a kindle fire, then an amazon account, but I got it.
Thank you, Sciatica Road. At least you got something out of it. The first time I saw your nickname on this forum it hit a nerve with me. LOL.
Oh, and I'm glad someone had enough motivation to get the Kindle app! Thanks, my friend.
Okay, care to talk more about this injury? I was prescribed an MRI when I had lower left leg extremity pain and weakness; a disc bulge was revealed. The lower leg injury took weeks to recover from. The left side back/hip/sciatica joint imbalance/disfunction has not yet been 100% resolved.
Sciatica Road wrote:
Okay, care to talk more about this injury? I was prescribed an MRI when I had lower left leg extremity pain and weakness; a disc bulge was revealed. The lower leg injury took weeks to recover from. The left side back/hip/sciatica joint imbalance/disfunction has not yet been 100% resolved.
Edit: meant to say, "...left side back/hip/sacroiliac-joint joint imbalance/disfunction..."