kindle

I didn’t plan to do this quite this soon.

I’ve been talking about the importance of steadily building a market for my books, engaging readers – and I’m still just beginning. I really didn’t expect to publish till sometime towards the end of April.

But something came up. An opportunity that was too good to miss.

If you’ve been following, you’ll know that Rapscallion (I know, I know, I’ll tell you about Rapscallion soon) published two short stories as ebooks at Smashwords recently, one from me, the other from Suki Michelle. Then, quite unexpectedly a few days back, Smashwords mailed me to say that they’d reached a deal with Apple for their entire list of ‘approved’ books (i.e. those that met fairly stringent formatting requirements and had an ISBN) to be available on the iPad at launch in the US on Saturday 3rd April. But new books had to be ready for publication by yesterday.

According to tech-insiders Mashable, around half a million iPads have been pre-sold. And much has been made of the iPad’s challenge to Amazon’s Kindle for a share of the e-reader market. Who’ll win that battle? I don’t really care. But what I do care about is that there’s a sudden massive surge of interest in ebooks, and it’s a good time to publish. And that’s why The Lebanese Troubles (as well as our two short stories) will shortly be available on all the leading e-readers.

Am I expecting a huge response? No. Simultaneously 60,000 other books will appear in the Apple catalog – that’s a lot of competition. But even if one or two new readers find the book, then my work in re-editing and re-formatting the manuscript this week will have been worthwhile. As I’m finding, the way to build a market is one sale at a time.

(Just a quick word of thanks here to all of you who reviewed the novel at The Next Big Writer. Lots of your suggestions were incorporated in the final edit – you did a fine job keeping me on track.)

So, you’re not planning to buy an e-reader yet? That’s fine. Nor am I. But you can still read The Lebanese Troubles on your computer right now, in any format you choose – larger font, different typeface, .pdf file. All you need to do is click on the book cover at the top of this post and you’ll be taken directly to the right place. Anyone can read the first half of the novel for free (with Smashwords, it’s up to the writer to decide how much sample material to allow). If you want to read on, you’ll need to sign up with Smashwords and pay the $5.99 $1.99 price.

Unless, that is, you want to review. Right now, good professional reviews are very important to me. I’m looking for thoughtful, honest comments, that will show other readers why they might be interested in the book (or not) – without giving the whole story away, of course. Nothing too long, and no “‘ra-’ra, awesome” reviews, thank you. So if you’re willing to step forward and volunteer, just send a reply below, and I’ll mail you a special code which will get you a review copy free of charge.

I’d also be interested in your comments on the cover design and the introductory blurb on the Smashwords page – especially if you don’t know anything about the book. Does it make you want to read on or not? What sort of novel are you expecting?

So that’s it – my novel is published. But it’s now, I anticipate, that the hard work will really begin.

Related reading

If you’re a book-reader, should you buy an iPad – Christian Science Monitor

iPad sold out – Mashable