Free? You expect to get something for free?
Well, you’ve been giving us an ebook a day and…
And you’ve grown used to it? You know, I probably should have expected as much. I made 7 of my Kindle ebooks available for free download in January, 5 of them in the last 5 days of the month, and y’all responded with commendable enthusiasm, snapping them up as quickly as I put them on the table.
It was quite a list…
Death of the Mallory Queen, a Chip Harrison/Leo Haig story never before eVailable. The first three Kit Tolliver Stories—If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Rude Awakening, and You Can Call Me Lucky. A complete novel, Passport to Peril, new in the Classic Crime Library. The 12th Ehrengraf story, The Ehrengraf Fandango, finally released as an ebook. And a John Warren Wells book about 3somes, 3 is Not a Crowd. They were free, every last one of them, mostly for 24 hours only.
You’re very generous, LB.
Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I very likely had a motive, and it’s a good bet to have been ulterior. But never mind. Right now you’re asking yourself how you can possibly repay my generosity.
Just what I was wondering!
Let me say first that no quid pro quo is required or expected. Y’all don’t owe me a thing. But if you like the stories and novels you’ve downloaded, I’d greatly appreciate your sharing your enthusiasm—with a review at Amazon or Goodreads or both. A few sentences and a sprinkling of stars would be more than welcome.
Well, I can do that easily enough. The links will take me to the right page, and posting a review isn’t exactly brain surgery. Hey, I’m glad to do it. I’m just sorry more people can’t read the books for free.
Don’t be so sure they can’t. All seven titles are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, which means KU subscribers can borrow them free for as long as they like. So if you missed out on any or all of them, and If you’re a Kindle Unlimited member, you’re in luck.
That’s neat. But I read those 7 titles, and my question is what do I read next?
Ah, I get it. Let me give this some thought. If you enjoyed the 3 Kit Tolliver stories…
Loved ’em! Kit’s my kind of girl.
Then you’ll be happy to know there are 9 more of them. They’re all free to KU subscribers, and $2.99 apiece to everybody else. But don’t buy them. It’s way too expensive that way. Buy the whole ebook—Getting Off—for $4.36, or get an autographed copy of the Hard Case paperback for $9.99 postpaid—while they last.
Cool! Have to admit I got a kick out of 3 is Not a Crowd.
Then you’ll be glad to know John Warren Wells was a writing fool. There are 17 titles of his in the Kindle store, each of them priced at $2.99, and 11 of them free to KU subscribers. Pick whatever looks good to you; I’ll say, though, that Tricks of the Trade has been especially popular ever since it was first published. And if you’d like something outrageous, try Different Strokes.
All my lawyer friends are crazy about The Ehrengraf Fandango.
All my lawyer friends are crazy. But they’re mostly Ehrengraf fans as well. Same deal here as with Kit: KU members can borrow all the stories, but if you want to buy them, you’re way better off going for the whole book, Defender of the Innocent.—the ebook, the paperback, the audiobook, or the Subterranean Press hardcover.
Could you say something about the Classic Crime Library? I really enjoyed Passport to Peril, and I’d like to read something else along those lines.
There are now 16 titles in the Classic Crime Library, with a uniform cover design that makes one long to collect them all. A majority of them are available on all platforms, including Nook and Kobo and Apple, but 6 are Kindle Select titles, available nowhere else. (That means I can run promotions for them, and that KU subscribers can read them for free.) The 6 titles include Ariel, Cinderella Sims, Deadly Honeymoon, The Specialists, and You Could Call It Murder—and, of course, Passport to Peril.
As far as what you might like if you enjoyed Passport to Peril, well, that’s hard to say. But why don’t you have a go at Ariel? (In fact, the first chapter’s included at the end of the Passport to Peril ebook, so you can test drive it before you buy…or borrow.)
I’m probably gonna buy them all. I love those covers. I just wish I could see them on my bookshelf and not just on the screen of my Kindle.
Before you know it, they’ll be available in paperback—with those covers, too.
Really? All 16 of them?
That’s the plan. They’ll be priced higher than the $2.99 ebooks, but the price will be as low as we can make it. $9.99, if we can make the numbers work.
There’s more to tell you, but it’ll have to wait for another newsletter. Die Sünden der Väter, which you may know as The Sins of the Fathers, just got its first review on amazon.de, and it’s off to a good start. But the whole Scudder German Translation project needs a newsletter all its own. And David, my Indispensable Assistant, wants to tell you all about what we’ve got in the bookstore, and threatens to put together an auction of rare stuff.
So stay tuned. And remember, tomorrow’s Groundhog Day. As a character in The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart points out, it’s the most useful holiday, providing a long-term weather report. Irrespective of your belief in the prognosticative abilities of rodents, I wish you all clear skies and happy days.
Cheers,
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you’ve received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
LB’s Bookstore on eBay
LB’s Blog and Website
LB’s Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @LawrenceBlock
